Insurance question after zero claim

[cb31]

I didn't have confidence in the call centre when speaking to them about this so thought I'd ask here.

Situation
Family pool car, me listed as main driver with 9 years NCB. 18 year old son listed as named driver, no NCB.
Last year son rolled into car in front in traffic, no damage to either car and no personal claims. Other driver notified their insurance so claim (£0) logged in system.
This year renewal gone from £900 to £2400 due to the claim.

Renewal this year
I'm not paying £2k to have son as listed driver so we are splitting insurance. I will take out my own policy on the car without him and he can sort out himself. I'm unsure however what to put into the online quotes regarding accidents and claims.

I think son will still have no NCB and will have to declare the £0 claim which seems reasonable.

Insurance company said I go from 9 years NCB to 3 and also have to declare the claim for the next 5 years.

Is this correct? Seems a bit unfair on me when I didn't do anything or is this just the way it is? Insurance company penalises us both for a claim that didn't cost anything - I realise son is now a higher risk so understand he will be punished.

[Scrump]

Declare it and say it was a named driver on the policy who is not going to be named on the new policy.
This is where a telephone call is better than the online quote websites.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

cb31 said:

Insurance company said I go from 9 years NCB to 3 and also have to declare the claim for the next 5 years.

Is this correct? Seems a bit unfair on me when I didn't do anything or is this just the way it is? Insurance company penalises us both for a claim that didn't cost anything - I realise son is now a higher risk so understand he will be punished.

Why has your ncb been reduced if no money was paid out. That's wrong and ncb should be unaffected. The rest is correct, a claim was made on your policy, and you asked your insurer to pay out if required (although in the end it wasn't required).

[ScoobyChris]

A few years ago my partner at the time, who was a named driver on my policy, had a fault accident and claimed on my policy (not a £0 claim!). NCB was protected so that remained unchanged.

Subsequently when I shopped around and took out a new policy (without her on it) the insurers contacted me and asked about an accident that I hadn't declared that was showing on the CUE database. It turns out that I had been recorded as the driver at the time. Once I'd gone back to my previous insurers and had that corrected, the new insurers were happy that the accident need not be declared on my policy.

Chris

[Sheepshanks]

ScoobyChris said:

..... the new insurers were happy that the accident need not be declared on my policy.

Twig's head will have just exploded.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Sheepshanks said:

ScoobyChris said:

..... the new insurers were happy that the accident need not be declared on my policy.

Twig's head will have just exploded.

Well it does need to be declared. Because they ask about accidents or claims you've had, and you had a claim on your policy. It was her accident, but your claim. Whether or not they charge you extra if someone else was driving who is no longer a driver is another matter.

[Sheepshanks]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Well it does need to be declared. Because they ask about accidents or claims you've had, and you had a claim on your policy. It was her accident, but your claim. Whether or not they charge you extra if someone else was driving who is no longer a driver is another matter.

I know it was discussed on another thread the other day but I really don't think it's supposed to work like that. Most people would think the person who had the accident was making the claim. So drop them off renewal quotes and they wouldn't be included.

Poster above confirms that.

I'm sure some insurance companies are only too pleased to see it differently. Just don't tell them, their position is not defendable.

[cb31]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Why has your ncb been reduced if no money was paid out. That's wrong and ncb should be unaffected. The rest is correct, a claim was made on your policy, and you asked your insurer to pay out if required (although in the end it wasn't required).

Thanks for that, as ex insurance who would I have to speak to about getting my ncb back to normal? Customer service seem nice but clueless and I ended up spending an hour in a queue today. The thought of ringing back tomorrow isn't appealing.

[MattsCar]

After a minor accident like this, and after checking everyone is ok (likely, with minor things like this) the first thing I would make sure to do, is to explain to the other party the way insurance works and NOT to go ringing their insurance company, in the nicest possible way.

Not only have your son's premiums been affected, the other party is now paying extra, for 5 years, due to a non fault claim over nothing.

Apologies that this is no help and a bit off topic.

Edited by MattsCar on Monday 12th February 21:49

[vonhosen]

Sheepshanks said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Well it does need to be declared. Because they ask about accidents or claims you've had, and you had a claim on your policy. It was her accident, but your claim. Whether or not they charge you extra if someone else was driving who is no longer a driver is another matter.

I know it was discussed on another thread the other day but I really don't think it's supposed to work like that. Most people would think the person who had the accident was making the claim. So drop them off renewal quotes and they wouldn't be included.

Poster above confirms that.

I'm sure some insurance companies are only too pleased to see it differently. Just don't tell them, their position is not defendable.

The Policyholder has the claim (it's a claim against their policy).
The driver has the accident.

Sometimes they can be the same person, on other occasions they are different people.

[Time4another]

Claim is against your policy, even for the value of zero.

Always a risk having another named driver attached to your NCB.

[BertBert]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Why has your ncb been reduced if no money was paid out. That's wrong and ncb should be unaffected. The rest is correct, a claim was made on your policy, and you asked your insurer to pay out if required (although in the end it wasn't required).

Just curious, but what claim has been made? Neither party made an actual claim if I read it correctly. A claim is where you claim something which is different from notifying your insurers that a minor bump has happened.

And to the OP, the majority of the insurance rise cannot be to do with the NCB, it doesn't make that much difference. It is much more to do with the higher assessed risk having had an accident - albeit minor.