DH doesn't want to claim car insurance

[Eurydice84]

I hit a bollard driving into the work car park and one of the front doors is dented/scraped. The garage is saying they want to replace the whole door and this could go into thousands.

Obvs I will pay for the damage as it was my fault. We have comprehensive insurance but DH doesn't want to use it as his 13 year no claims bonus would be invalidated. I am a bit annoyed as this would mean paying 1k of private repairs versus £350 of insurance excess.

I am a nervous driver already and this has really put me off driving altogether! Although it's the only bad thing that happened since I passed my driving test 7 years ago. Feeling really down.

Most insurance policies require you to notify them if there's an incident that could have resulted in a claim, even if you don't claim. So if you abide by the Ts & Cs you'll probably lose the no-claims anyway.

Has he not protected his NCD ?

We have comprehensive insurance but DH doesn't want to use it as his 13 year no claims bonus would be invalidated.

Is that actually true? With most insurance companies, you wouldn't lose all your no claims bonus for one claim. Have you looked into it or is that a knee jerk assumption on his part?

Surely he has protected his no claims discount!! If so then this is unlikely to make any difference to it.

He's legally obliged to tell the insurance company anyway. I know people don't always, but they are required to.

If he doesn't have protected he will potentially lose 2 years, of course that depends on the insurer but the one I use to work for if it was a fault accident you would lose 2 years if not protected. Even if he was to lose 2 years in the long run it would probably still be cheaper to claim that pay it out yourself x

If he had any sense he would have protected his ncb

Can usually have 2 accidents in 3yrs before bonus is effected

He won't lose all the no claims bonus, typically just a couple of years, but it will mean a claim on file for at least another 5 years (or whatever is specified) which will increase the premium during that time, and the no claims discount will obviously be less as well.

If it was me and no-one else was involved I'd always repair it myself unless it's a write off, I wouldn't inform the insurance company either.

13 years NCD is a myth. He may have not claimed for at least 13 years but NCD maxs out at either 5 or 7 years.
He won't lose all of his NCD. It will decrease to 3 I think, (depends on the insurer)

If you take it to one of those smaller repair shop specialists that only do repairs eg Little Knocks, they'll often pull out the dink and respray to a very high standard 'as that's what they do' for a far lower cost - we paid a couple of hundred for one, whereas a garage will just get a new panel in and spray it the right colour/order in the right colour - they're not paint finish specialists .

He will most likely be legally obligated to tell his car insurance and you only get a certain time frame to do so. So I would ring them asap

i agree and also wouldnt claim through insurance. But I do legally have to tell mine even if no one was involved and it wasn’t my fault!

his insurance will rocket and I would tell him to protect his no claims too

this happened to me and I paid our £1350 for the car scratch and from then on protected my no claims!

DH is sitting on his high horse saying "I have never had to claim insurance for myself, hence I didn't get protected NCD".

I just can't believe that these minor repairs are so expensive. It has really put me off driving. I might just drive our old small second car rather than the family car from now on.

Ask the garage to look on ebay etc for a replacement door. That's what I did when I damaged mine.

Just put it through the insurance. Otherwise, whats the point in having it.

You don't have to do what he says you know ;). You can deal with problems yourself in any way you choose to.

If he failed to protect his NCD then he was stupid.

Pretty sure the NCD duration depends on the insurer, some max 5, others can be a lot higher. Sure one of my past insurers counted 10 yr NCD.

But no, I wouldn't claim either as the insurance would probably go up way more than £700-odd

Id get another opinion though, unless you were going at speed the dents will probably pull out. I had someone drive into the back of my car and it only cost about £550 to pull the dents and respray the entire back end including bumper

DH is sitting on his high horse saying "I have never had to claim insurance for myself, hence I didn't get protected NCD

Well that's the most stupid argument for not protecting it.

Why on earth would he be happy in paying around £1k rather than just £350. Does he realise how little the difference will probably be if he claims

I never understand that mentality.

If he’s that bothered he should pay the difference between the excess and the actual cost of having it done privately

This is what insurance is for.
Your husband is throwing money away here and it's exactly what the insurance companies want people to do.
The incident really needs reporting as per the terms of the insurance policy. You can then ask them what will happen to the no claims discount should you ask the insurer to make good on the claim (rather than closing it as for notification purposes only).
Then you can run some quotes to see how much impact it'll likely have for the next couple of years (it won't be too much I wouldn't think).

Your husband will likely cave when he sees how much money it's going to save/cost, or maybe you will if the impact is greater than expected?!

DH is an idiot for not protecting his NCD.

He'll also need to tell the insurers regardless of whether he makes a claim.

Ridiculous argument for not claiming but you can resolve it easily.

Run the details through car insurance comparison with your reduced ncd and see what the difference in cost is. Probably not much.

I'd it's less than £650 over the next few years there is a clear case for claiming.

Your OH sounds daft....you can still need to claim even if you're not at fault...

OF COURSE you protect hour NCD...!!

Insurance repairs are always overblown, if you tell garage you're paying it... It will cone down massively..

Ask around abd go to an independent!

As long as you protect your NCD... (mine cost another 20£ i think...)... Please don't let this stop you driving!

My insurer took up to 12 years NCD...

Oh your DH isn’t daft, he knows exactly what he’s doing - he’s punishing you - let me guess, you’ll pay the £1k not the £350. He gets you refusing to drive “his” ie the family car to avoid this again, so gets the car to himself.

say you’ll pay £350, as that’s the excess and if he’d told you he’d done something so stupid as to not protect the no claims (saving him what, £20 a year?), then you’d have told him it was a silly thing to do. If he wants to cover the other £650 rather than risk his insurance going up slightly over the next few years, so be it.

obviously the problem is you don’t drive enough. Take the car out regularly. Get used to it.

Your OH sounds daft....you can still need to claim even if you're not at fault...

No you don't.

You likely have to tell them, but don't have to claim, but if it's something your going to sort yourself and no-one else was involved ,alot of people will never even bother informing their insurance company.