To think that my car insurance company should give me more information?

[MoonlightS0nata]

DD's car is insured on a group policy and I am the point of contact for the insurers. In March, I received a letter saying that her car had been involved in an accident last October. DD said she hadn't been involved in any accidents.

I was speaking to the insurers on the renewal of the policy a week ago and they said that the person who had made the claim had supplied a date, but no details about where the accident was or what the damage was. They have now been provided with a location of the alleged accident but we still don't know what the alleged damage is. he insurers are sending an inspector round to check that there is no damage on DD's car - there isn't and if there had been, we would have had it fixed at the time.

Anyway, I asked the insurers for details of the person making the claim and they said that they couldn't provide it for data protection reasons. Can this be right? After all, this anonymous person is claiming on my insurance policy and this has caused a huge hike in the premium.

It sounds like a scam to me. Who makes a claim 6 months after an accident and then doesn't provide any information? Anybody who knows someone's name and registration number could invent an accident.

Has anybody else experienced something similar?

It's absolutely right I'm afraid. Whilst I understand your concerns, the insurers would be in breach of DPA if they released those details. Inpat incidents this doesn't arise as people are aware of the incident at the time and exchange details. I understand your concerns about it being a scam but your insurers won't pay out to the Third Party unless they're satisfied it's genuine. Inspecting your daughters car will help establish this as the engineers will be able to assess the damage from the incident details the third party has given (to see if they agree an incident occurred). Insurers also have specific claims departments that handle such suspected fraudulent incidents (if that's what this is) so your daughters claim will be handled by them if it looks suspect. You can always raise your concerns with your insurer to make sure that happens. It's v frustrating I know but as above, your insurer will do everything they can to avoid paying anything they don't agree was genuinely caused by the incident in question.

• inpat?! In most!! Oh and people sometimes do report incidents a long time after the event, for various reasons. More likely, it was reported earlier but the third party's insurer may have messed up and not notified yours, or they did and yours messed up and didn't respond...could be anything really.

Thanks Sore. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Do keep on top of your insurers though - the wheels can turn slowly but if you're politely persistent it could speed things up. The fact an engineer's inspecting the car already is good news. Re your premiums, if the claim is eventually settled 'non-fault' on your daughters behalf or it turns out there never should have been a claim in the first place you'll get a refund. But at this point your insurers, having been notified of the claim, have no choice but to deal with it. Good luck!