To think this is totally unfair RE: damaged car

[fluffygal]

I am so annoyed. On tuesday my car was parked where I volunteer at a Mencap nursery and council workers were strimming grass nearby. A stone came off the strimmer and smashed my back windscreen. Fair enough, was an accident. Anyway, they say I can't sort it out until Wednesday as there was no manager in at the council. Stuck with no back window in pouring rain. I spoke to manager on Wednesday and they said I had to claim from them through my insurance so I reported it yesterday and started up a claim and had to pay to get window fixed then wait for money back from claim. The manager at the preschool said this was wrong and they should just pay me to get it fixed as my insurance will be affected so rung the council back who said I can cancel claim and send in a letter to claim back (should have told me that first!). So I have upset spoken to the car insurance who said sure, I can cancel the claim it it will stay on my insurance for 5

Got a bit confused tbh, but your insurance should NOT be affected by a glass calim regardless.

Years despite cancelling it! So now I will have to pay more for my insurance for someone cutting grass near my car, feel so angry and nothing I can do about it. Am I being unreasonable to think this should not be counted on my insurance as I cancelled it, claimed no money, didnt involve another car and wasn't even in my car when it happened?!

It does count as I was claiming from someone else,not just paying it for myself. Sorry for confusing message, I sent it by accident before I could proofread hence the split message!

I also thought glass claims didn't count, and shouldn't increase the cost of your insurance.

You are supposed to report all incidents to your insurance company even if no claim is made.

The insurance company has already said I have to declare it as I was claiming it from another person, it is wrong though that my insurance premium will now increase due to this. The insurance man said it will increase my premium so definitely no avoiding it.

You need to change your insurance company - most companies don't take glass claims into account. I smashed by rear windscreen by reversing into a post (ie. my fault) as the car was an import - the replacement cost £1600!!! The company weren't happy but couldn't increase my premiums as it was purely a glass claim

I'm with admiral. But you did that to your own car so you weren't claiming from another person where's I am so I would think that would be the difference? Or do you think I might have a bit of a counter argument with it being glass?

Whereas not where's stupid autocorrect!

I have had two glass claims in the last year - I didn't even have to ring the insurance company. You just book the repair with whichever company the insurer uses, let them know who your insurer is, and they sort out the paperwork. They have never asked how the damage happened, and it has never affected my premium or ncb.

Crazy I had to ring insurance as I was claiming from someone else, the council, and was told by the council I had to claim through my insurance in order to get them to pay me for the damage.

Who are the insurers?

I have done glass claims when i have had a cracked windscreen so do understand what you mean but this is a different scenario.

Same here whenever we've had a glass claim, they just send out auto windscreens or whoever, no excess to pay and no effect on premiums or ncb.

Admiral multicar.

Sounds like you'd have been better just saying you didn't know who was at fault.

I would still have to pay the 75 quid if I didn't tell my insurance, the council originally said they would only pay me if I went through insurance so that's what I did.

I've not had dealings with them, but they sound useless. Maybe you should find another insurer, get admiral to send you your no claims, and never mention it again, seems stupid that you are getting penalised, sorry if that's a daft idea, I just think its wrong that you have to deal with the crap when it wasn't your fault, I hate insurance companies grrrr

Does anyone know if this would apply to classic cars too? One of ours has a cracked rear screen and we assumed that it would affect our no-claims if we tried to go through the insurance with it?

I would just proceed with the claim, get the repair done and then switch insurers when the renewal notice comes. I ended up switching after my two windscreen claims anyway as I found a cheaper deal elsewhere. I had to list my two glass claims when I was shopping around for quotes but they certainly didn't make any (or much) difference as I still got some well-priced quotes. I'm almost certain it won't make any difference to other insurers why the glass claim arose - most never even ask the question, so they won't know that your claim involved in a third party.

It shouldn't affect and raise your insurance anyway as it was not your fault. The council's insurance should pay up anything that needs paying for not you.

I've been involved in an accident that was not my fault, went through insurance etc and it did not affect my insurance price.

The usual insurance position is that a glass claim won't be subject to any excess payment (some have a token cost of about £10 but no more), so if you claim for a chip, for example, you won't have the bear the usual excess cost under your policy. Usually the cost of a glass claim is so low that it has no real impact on your renewal price either.

This one is a bit different fluffygal because it's been notified to insurers as a third party claim. That means the insurers will have some internal admin costs of pursuing and dealing with the council. You shouldn't have to pay anything towards the repair because it will all fall to be paid by the council (or more likely the council's third party liability insurers). However, it will count as a no fault claim under your policy and could affect your renewal premium.

The only way to avoid that in this case would have been to pay for the repair yourself without claiming from the council or notifying your insurer. That said, you may well find that your renewal premium isn't affected (and even if it does go up, it could be for any number of other reasons - most notably if the insurer has had a poor year in terms of claims). If that's the case you might be able to save yourself some money by shopping around. HTH.

It will just go down as a 'no fault' incident and make no difference to your premium

I had the same with someone hitting my wing mirror. A non-fault claim does affect your premium as I found out this year. My policy went up by £100 after I told them of this incident last year.

All incidents are held on a central database and it will be flagged up when you renew. It is extremely unfair apparently it makes you more of a risk.

We have had a very unlucky year and DH has had 3 non fault claims on his company car. Our insurance premium rocketed.

I had a similar incident and when my insurance renewal was due the insurance company had recorded the incident as 'accidental damage' rather than 'malicious damage' which therefore caused the increase in the premium DESPITE the fact that I have 7 yrs protected no claims. I didn't renew with that company but went elsewhere. I didn't declare the claim to my new insurers and it was never checked up on because I still had the proof of no claims from previous years.

Insurance companies will try and rip you off at every opportunity imo.