To try to cancel this car insurance policy and complain

[Menora]

I took out a new policy this month and paid up front £314

I declared the one non fault accident I’ve ever had in the last 5 years that was admitted by the other driver. It was about £300 to repair my car and didn’t affect my no claims bonus

I got a letter from them shortly after saying I had not declared a second claim and they were going to take a further £85 from me for this.

I can’t speak to anyone on the phone usually (no answer), only a chat function online which is very frustrating.

I went to my previous company and asked them what this claim was. They said there was no claim for that date, but recalled that I had notified them that I clipped wingmirrors with another driver on a tight road. I stopped they didn’t and I thought to be safe I would call them up. The company said totally fine, they would log it as a notification which would stay on file for 6 months then drop off. No damage.

When company 2 did a check on me this showed up. So I got company 1 to send me a letter stating it wasn’t a claim it was a notification, no damage, no effect on my NCB. I uploaded the letter to their portal.

Company 2 still took £85 from me today and say that this letter is not good enough. They want ‘details of the claim’. I’ve been on the chat saying to them THIS WAS NOT A CLAIM for about an hour.

Then I tried to cancel and they will only refund me £213 out of the £400 I have paid. I will lose so much money on this - at Christmas. I could cry.

Can anyone help? Or just let me whinge

I’ve asked to speak to a manager and they are saying that isn’t possible either

[purpleme12]

A loss is (in my words) something which has happened to the car eg accident, something broken on the car which potentially could have been covered on the policy but which you didn't claim for.

Best I can think to explain it at the minute.

Insurance companies always ask for details of claims or losses in the last 5 years with motor and home insurance.
(Whether people give details of losses is another matter)
But I'm car insurance as above there are CUE searches done so they find out that way

[sherl0ck]

So annoying, OneCall are your broker and they should be helping you to resolve this not being dismissive.

So your back at trying to find out exactly what LV want to see from your previous insurer about this loss.

Whilst frustrating this can be resolved.

[Menora]

Ok - even if I failed to declare it, they then gave me 14 days to submit the proof it was only a notification without being charged. This is the letter I have

I submitted it but it wasn’t worded to their liking so they charged me anyway.

[SimonJT]

I might be getting confused, so apologies in advance!

Did you declare both of your accidents before you purchased the policy?

If you did not declare both accidents your insurer is able to charge an additional amount to cover the additional risk you present. However if you provide this info within a certain time frame then they also won’t charge an admin fee on top to alter the policy, but will still charge the additional premium.

[Menora]

the wording is that over 14 days I can’t get any fees back even with the letter. So it isn’t worth me trying to get this letter now, as it will be over 14 days by Monday and too late and they don’t have to refund it. So a pointless time wasting exercise. I got £36 back and that’s all I will get

[SimonJT]

Is it 14 days or 14 working days? Your previous insurer can send it to you via email, it doesn’t have to arrive in the post.

[Menora]

No I didn’t declare it. I fully understand being charged by LV for doing that, even though I misunderstood this from 1st central and it’s my mistake

But I did do as Onecall asked in the time they asked so their fees were unfair. Their letters are all incorrectly priced with fees, they don’t explain what they need in any detail and their chat staff are awful. I think this is where I am with my upset now 😂

[Menora]

I uploaded it to their portal when I got it via email the same day

they just don’t like the letter I got

[purpleme12]

What are they saying is wrong with the letter

[sherl0ck]

Can I suggest you raise a complaint about how you have been treated. And separate bullet points;

• That the information on fees isn’t clear.
  
• That you provided them with the information they requested within the timeframes given. If this information was not accepted by the insurers then why weren’t they explicit to you about what information is acceptable.
  

Don’t give up on getting the info that LV want as it could mean they reduce the additional fee or remove it altogether.

[furrybadger]

I work for a massive insurer, question we ask is “have you had any claims or accidents in the last 5 years regardless of blame and whether or not subject to an insurance claim”, you’ve been involved in an incident so therefore needs reporting, if you had put this on your insurance before you took it out you would have been charged the £85, ombudsman won’t do anything about it as you’ve lied to your insurance 🤦🏽‍♀️

[Menora]

To be straight I am upset with how I feel one call have dealt with this situation and the chat portal being the main place of contact. I’ve been on there 4 times now and they can’t give me straight answers

For instance despite having all of my contact details phone email and me having a portal they sent a letter 2nd class post meaning I missed the 14 day deadline as I only got the letter today and the money was already gone out.

Letter I got today - yes this is explicit. Which it should have been from the start

[Menora]

I’m also upset about the misleading letter 1

[tillytrotter1]

I've never reported an incident to my insurers that wasn't a claim, I've had my wing mirrors clipped a couple of times but I've just got the garage to sort it. Surely unless there's a claim it isn't an accident, OH hit the wheelie bin the other day, a few marks on the bumper but he won't bother to report it. Sounds like the insurers want to gain all ways round.

[stripystrap]

We had a similar thing happen with Onecall. I suspect it's a easy way of making a bit of extra cash. In our case it was a case of the date being recorded incorrectly, wanted to charge us to change it (think accident was on 17th June and we had told them 13th or something) and then an additional fee because of not notifying them about this 'additional' claim (same one)... we cancelled it because they were so difficult to deal with, it ended up costing us about £120 for a few weeks insurance.

We had both of our cars insured with them at that point, so when the second one came up for renewal it was extremely satisfying to ring them to let them know we would never insure with them again for any car because of their terrible customer service.

[thenightsky]

It wouldn't occur to me to report a clipped wing mirror to my insurers because I wouldn't want them to do anything about it. Same as the tiny scrape on my bumper from touching a wheelie bin.

[Twelfth72]

You declare accidents/incidents regardless of claim made (this is clear on on compare sites as well as insurers sites) as insurers are using to access risk on policy, they are logged as either fault or non fault and this is established by working out who was out of pocket for this acc/incident, if the customer or the insurance company is out of pocket then usually will be fault claim. Most insurers work on the premise that you have read the question and answered honestly so will not check up on you, however if you have an incident they will check then and if discrepancies they will usually let you rectify the policy if they believe honest mistake. I wouldn't bother with ombudsman as there not going to change this whether you think its fair or not.

[purpleme12]

As above a lot of people don't report stuff to insurers unless they do actually make a claim but we're just stating what the rules are in insurance about what they ask for and what they should be told at the start of the policy.

[Corly]

Having worked on the sales calls for insurance, the question was always specifically "have you had any accidents, incidents thefts or losses, fault or non fault in the last X years." The clipping of mirrors in accident and as others have put would have been registered on CUE. It's definitely something they might use to work a price out, even though it's not a claim, you've still had an accident, which insurer's definitely want to know.

[Menora]

I agree that IABU to dispute that I didn’t need to declare it - I know that now

I am just totally pissed off with the awful way they have gone about this.

I reported it simply because the other driver didn’t stop and I did not know if they would report it later on. I didn’t know what damage they had. My wing mirror just swung back on its spring and could be pulled back but the other car was BMW and I didn’t know if they had more damage. It was a tight country lane and they were going very fast round a windy lane and I only just managed to avoid them