Question about car insurance claim

[Pegs11]

Hi, I have two questions:

1. If I put a claim in on my car insurance for damage caused to my vehicle by a third party, will that affect my no-claims bonus?

1. If I submit a claim, but it is later cancelled due to a private settlement being reached, will my no-claims bonus be safe?

For love nor money, I can’t get hold of a human at my insurance company to ask the above questions.

Thank you.

1. If your insurance company can recover the costs in full from the other driver, your no claims bonus should not be affected
2. Do not attempt to reach a private settlement. That would almost certainly be a breach of the terms of your insurance policy (and, indeed, the other driver's policy). Typical terms require you to report any accidents, even if you aren't making a claim, and forward any communications from other people involved without replying. They prohibit the driver from negotiating without the insurance company's consent.

@prh47bridge Thank you. I still can’t get hold of a human at the insurance company, and I can’t keep trying forever. Meanwhile they have sent me an automated email asking me to upload photos of the accident. Presumably if I don’t respond, they won’t be able to progress the claim anyway and hopefully it will just get closed? Or I might, eventually, actually be contacted by a human there, then I can explain about not wanting to proceed.

My understanding is that now you have logged an accident you should proceed because it's on your records

Your no claims bonus % should be safe but your base cost will go up…admitting to being in an accident apparently makes you a higher risk even if it’s totally not your fault.

Why don't you want to proceed?

The fact you've reported an accident to your insurer will increase your premiums in many cases, regardless of if you pursue the claim.
Not all insurers load for this, but an awful lot do. Same with non-fault claims.

It sucks that I might effectively lose money through increased premium costs due to someone hitting my car when I wasn’t at fault at all! What an unfair world we live in.

@prh47bridge I don’t need to pursue it further because I already accepted a private settlement and it’s been paid into my account. That was before I read your above message saying that this could amount to a breach! But it’s done now, I can’t turn back the clock. I had no idea it might cause a problem. I have since checked my policy documents and can’t see anything about it. However, the documents they sent me seem very brief, so perhaps there is a longer list of terms and conditions somewhere that they haven’t made immediately obvious. That being said, the other victim did the same as me and accepted a settlement, and their insurance company just cancelled the claim without any issue.

So you see, I’m in a situation where my insurance company is trying to progress my claim in an automated way (they are now sending me automated reminders as I haven’t responded) but there is no way of speaking to a human there about the nuances of my case/to close my case. I don’t really know what to do, this whole thing has become a farce.

UPDATE: finally got a callback from my insurance company. I explained the accident had been settled privately, they cancelled the claim without any issue. The person I spoke with said it will just stay on my file as a notification, future insurers might want to know about it or might not, depending on the insurer. Phew, I’m glad it’s over! Thank you all.

In future you will probably be asked something like this:

Have any drivers had any motor accidents or claims in the last 5 years?This includes any incidents, losses, thefts or claims involving a vehicle regardless of fault or whether you claimed or not.

You will need to answer honestly and it will most likely increase your premium.

@Shade17 OK. It doesn’t seem very fair, but that’s life I suppose! Thank you for your reply.