Insurance company paid out over £3000 for an claim against me, now admit they shouldn't have paid it. Where do I stand?

[wonderstuff123]

Basically my insurance company paid out over £3000 for a claim made against me back at the start of the year and they have only just informed me of this.

They've investigated the amount and admitted that basically, the claim should never have been paid and that they didn't investigate it. They say they can't claim the money back now as they admitted they're at fault but they can reinstate my No Claims Discount for this year (aka it was 4 because of this incident but now it's gone back up to 5 years).

They've reassured me that because they've reinstated it, this should mean my estimates for renewal will reduce (currently its double what it has been) but having got a few estimates, this doesn't seem to be the case and that it's the fact that I have a claim against me for £3000 that's meaning they're so expensive.

Should I be asking for the claim to be removed if they're admitted they should never have paid it?

More importantly will you now have to declare this claim when renewing?

Why do they think they shouldn't have paid it - do they think it was fraud? Or have they determined that you were not at fault?

It's been a while since I worked in the area but I'm pretty sure they should be able to remove this from CUE (the claims data sharing system that insurers use)

I would be tempted to complain and ask them to clarify what steps they are taking to rectify where this is recorded

They said yesterday that yes I would still have to pay it. They said I would have had to declare it because I reported it so even if I wasn't at fault, I would still have to declare it. They also stopped short of saying I wasn't at fault but did say that the fact that I now had my NCB back put me in the same situation as if I'd been hit by an uninsured driver. Im not really sure what that means? I need to still look into it. They also said that they had taken responsibility so I think they fucked up by doing that and not investigating.

They said the words "The claim wasn't investigated and it should never have been paid" but they didn't say why. Obviously I presume they're being a little cagey as to why because they messed up majorly.

Other people are saying complain and then take it to the Ombudsman.

You should be in the same position as if you'd been hit by an uninsured driver and you'd not made a claim. Your premiums would still have gone up for that.

Yes your best course of action will be a complaint including a request for full and complete disclosure of what is now on your record and where, following their complaints process, and if dissatisfied finishing with the financial ombudsman. Your record should be as Collaborate has above has said, but it is dificult to work out what is on your record from what you have said.

How are you getting the estimates? Is it via online comparison sites?

I'd imagine that there might to a time delay in getting the claim taken off whatever central database they use. Are you actually declaring a claim when you ask for an estimate

It all sounds a bit odd - were you unaware that someone had made a claim against you?

Ime large companies can be a bit rubbish at sorting out difficult problems but if you preservere it usually all works out in the end

You need to ask them to give you a screen shot of what is on the CUE data base. This is what all other insurers will see.