Insurance outrage

[gnarkillius]

I thougth I d put this here, not totally E30, but has an E30 as part of the OUTRAGE.

OK, so I have a normal car as well as an E30, a 2010 Civic Si, and about 2 months ago it was damaged, while unnattended, obviously by a cyclist, You can tell by the tyre rub mark they left on the front bumper/bodykit, and the handle bar/brake handle scratches down the wing, along with a big (hopefully head sized) dent right in the middle of the bonnet. Quite a nice little multiple panel job.

I thought, 'no worries' because I deliberately, and foolishly forked out 800 quid on the best insurance I thought I could get, protected no claims, hire car, the works. I thought it expensive, Im 32, clean licence no claims (or so i thought) for 10 years at least.

The company had been silent for a strangely long time, and today I got a letter, saying they would not pay out until I pay an additional 499 quid on top of that 800, because i failed to notify them of a claim I made 3 years ago.

Sounds ok? Well not when you discover this 'claim' was when my E30 was broken into in Salford. Just a window smashed, ipod gone, nothing major, but since a copper was walking by I called him over, he gave me a crime number and he said 'now call your insurance with your crime number'

I wasnt even going to, I had lowest of the low 3rd party on it. But since the copper said i should for the sake of completeness, I did so, and the company confirmed they wouldnt pay out. I didnt make a claim, never went through the claim process, I literally had a 2 minute convo with the bod on the other end. No paperwork, no nothing. I got a new window fitted for 50 odd quid, and that was an end to it (they even hoovered it out, the glass gets everywhere).

I made a single phonecall to them, just to let them know on the advice of a copper. And its gonna cost 499 just to , well really make my insurance valid, since i assume its not, when they are asking for a further premium.

Bringing the premium, fully comp on a Civic 2010, nowt special, Si is just a trim option really, no performance additions, different body kit, big wheels half leathers and dark interior, to £1300 a year.

for a 32 year old clean licence driver who would struggle to remember when he last made a claim on any insurance at all, let alone car insurance.

Now if you fellas come along and say 'sounds about right' fair enough. But it smells of a stinking scam to me. Well known company btw.

What I really want to know is, who do you complain to? I cant get anyone who knows anything at the insurance company, and really I want to get my 800 premium back, or get the car fixed, and just cancel it.

Im in that much of a fury Id sue them if I knew who to go to.

What do you fellas reckon on it?

[gooner1]

I reckon it stinks to High Heaven, unfortunately, I also reckon they have you by the Jacobs.

Please let me be wrong.

[gaszman]

this is the biggest cash earner on the planet fookin steeling fucks

[kolee]

They had this on bbc watchdog last week, some old dear found herself without life insurance due to making a phone call but not making a claim.

Its technically legal and nothing at all you can do about it. Moral of the story, never bother trying to make a claim unless your car has been written off, it will only cost you more in the long run.

[capri_rob]

Thats stinks. I really can't see how a conversation with insurers where no claim was ever registered needs to be declared.

PM e30beemerlad - he is very knowledgeable on car insurance ins and outs and should know what to do.

Who is the insurer ? - name and shame !

[E30BeemerLad]

They may have you I'm afraid my good man.

An insurance policy is a contract of upmost good faith, basically meaning they rely on the information you give to them when going through the quotation process. They ask you if you have had any "accidents or claims" in the last 3 or 5 years.You have obviously answered no.

Now thinking about this, you have not actually had a "claim", you reported the matter to your insurers technically for "information purposes" as you knew that having TPFT cover there was no way they would pay out for own damage.

So I would challenge their decision here as you have not had a "claim" per se, you had an incident of malicious damage which you were unable to claim for and you did the honest thing at the time by reporting it.

What I am saying here is that based on the likely criterea of their questions to you when you took out the quotation, the odds are that you have not actually misled the insurer as you did not pursue a claim and merely advised them of an "incident".

This is likely to rumble on for a bit. I would ask them to provide you with a recording of the call from when you took out the quote/ policy (they should have this), failing that if you did it via internet, a copy of the information you volunteered.

I would also ask them to justify how on earth a malicious damage incident leading to no claim being made adds nearly £500 to your premium.

Bottom line is you need to implement their complaints procedure and also threaten them with reporting this matter to the FSA. I would also recommend you look at getting in touch with the insurer you were with when the car was vandalised and ask them to provide some sort of information as to what you reported to them and whether it appeared you were attempting to make a "claim" or whether it was a case of you "reporting the incident for information purposes".

A malicious damage incident, regardless of whether a claim arose or not is a ratings factor for any insurer as they are assessing your history and their way of thinking is that if his car has been vandalised before, there is a chance it could happen again, so there is an argument separate to whether you were trying to deceive them or not that your premium would have been slightly higher due to this, but £500 higher sounds like bum rape of the highest order.

The end result of all of this is likely to be that they will still want some more money off you before they authorise any repairs etc. As to how much you can whittle this down to remains to be seen, but they know they are holding all the cards here as no repairs are going to be authorsied until you settle up with them. Odds are it will still be a couple of hundred quid.

So factor this into the equation. How much is your excess and how much extra are your insurers going to want from you to proceed with the claim. How much is the combined sum of excess and additional premium? If this is not much more than what the repairs come to, maybe think about just paying for your own repairs.

Thing is, now this issue about a previous incident has come up, your insurers may be arseholes and say that you need to pay the additional premium or they will cancel your cover, so either way they are going to cause you a nuisance here.

Insurers, I love 'em

[Andyboy]

Who is the insurer/underwriter?

[Barx325i]

it was neither an accident or a claim - it's there in plain english, they're just trying to screw you. Don't let them

[Phill172]

Sounds very strange, I seemed to always have good luck with insurers.

I dont get why you would need to pay the best part of £500 to them, when it sounds like it would (without seeing the damage) cost less to fix it.

Who is the insurer, and best of luck with it!

[daimlerman]

Hope the bloody cyclist had a headache!

[jacko]

So its gone up to 1300 quid on the strentgh of an 'incident' 3 years ago, I dread to think how much it will go up in the future because of the recent damage, even though the no claims is protected it still seems to escalate!

[E30BeemerLad]

No claims discount, even if protected still doesn't prevent your premiums rising because all the NCD does is ensure a certain percentage discount from the gross premium cost. So you still get your 65% off, but the insurer can still increase the gross premium by 200 times if they want before the 65% gets deducted.

So protected NCD is not an immunity to your premiums going up

[Duke137]

Best off insuring your cars 3rd party only and keeping some money in an account in case the worst should happen

Insurance is a load of guff, it's not there to help the paying customer at all, it is there to just make an already hard life even harder.

Now, where's my gun.....

[mrb27]

i always went pure 3rd party in insurance purely as a result of the horror storys ive heard in the past and due to the fact that ive always driven older cars and id be too scared they would write my car off at the slightest dink!! so paying more would only give me less in the long run. ive lways had the attitude of keeping my money in my pocket too.. however when i took out insurace this year fully comp was less than 3rd party!?!?!

[Gouki]

I'd take it up with the insurance ombudsman. But have heard about it thos before even just asking about a that has had damaged but you don't claim they still record it!

[215m3]

The way i see this is as follows: -

You called and advised of the break in as stated by the policeman. All you did was advise them, no paperwork was completed and common sense states this is not a claim.

A claim, as far as i see it, is when you file a claim form, state the details time etc and the car is fixed by a repair shop.

I would fight this and ask them what constitutes a claim. Also don't speak to the first person on the end of the phone, speak to the manager and don't settle for anyone less. If they ask for the details, just state you don't want to repeat the story twice. I would also ask them to provide you with proof of the 'so called' claim on the old car with the settlement figure.

Good luck and doesn't it make your blood boil when you have done nothing wrong.

[deanocool]

some insurers are right scam artists. theyll do almost anything to get out of paying out. its not hard to see why most people nowadays dont have insurance, especially if your cars a turd, and its going to cost more to insure than it did to buy the car in the 1st place. someone caught my mrs car in a car park, no problem though the woman admitted liability and gave my mrs her details. the mrs rang her and gave her the option of paying out of her own pocket as it was £250 worth of damage to my mrs £2000 car. she declined saying she didnt have the money (im thinking - wait till you get your next premium with an accident declared on love)

fair enough so we go through insurance, the job gets paid and done within a week! mint! then the mrs comes to renew her insurance - its now £800 from £400?!?!? wtf?!?!? rang up the old insurance company and due to the fact that she was 'involved' in an accident they automoatically put the premium up! she clearly explained that the other person admitted liability and the insurers did have that down on their system but it made no difference - simply being in an accident is enough to boost the premium even if its not your fault! garbage!

i had a good mind to buy a sh1tt3r and crash it through their front window - while uninsured aswell! bloody annoying how when you abide by the law it stiffs you even harder yet someone who crashes a car with no insurance thats twoced gets 80 hours community service. balls

[gnarkillius]

Thanks for your answers gang, pretty much echoing what I thought.

That Ive been made a monkey of, for following the law to the letter, and honesty. Just to confirm, when I made the call concerning the break in, I absolutey made sure I wasnt making a claim, the advisor on the other end even said not to, so as not to effect future premiums.

Talking with some people today, we came to the conclusion that this sort of scam wont change anytime soon, since services like insurance have more or less taken the place of shipbuilding and car manufacture etc as the industry of Britain. I mention that, because some countries have a national third party insurance provided as part of the road tax. As far as I can see this would solve all problems of uninsured drivers at a stroke (since driving without tax is an absolute no no now, with the NPR cameras and all that everywhere, and in cop cars. The thing is of course, it would damage the insurance industry, as they would be unable to fleece young drivers, or enthusiastic drivers with a few SP30s on their licence. Well saying that, even an older (32) careful (ish) driver like me, who has never made a claim.


Well Im still angry about it, I could probably rant for a few pages! What I wonder is though, that an insurance underwriter is in the business of risk right? They essentially gamble as far as I can see. But at what point did it become ok to stack the cards in their favour quite so heavily? I even hear they in fact bet against themselves, and when they pay out, that money actually sometimes comes from a further policy that THEY take out in the event their gamble didnt pay off. The same as the bankers and their 'put options'.

No doubt this 'put option' style goes even further and each incident gets a pay out from several companies, that we never see, except on the bottom line of our premiums which are sky high because the insurance firms are ABSOLUTELY ALLERGIC TO ANY RISK AT ALL!!!

Anyway, my actions today were: emails to all and sundry. CAB, Watchdog, ombudsman, trading standards, local and national papers, local MP. I told the company, they didnt give a hoot and arent budging, so to be honest I doubt Ill even bother with any telephone contact with them anymore. Theyve already committed their crime in my book, trying to extort money from me, and now my efforts will go into just making ALL relevant organisations aware of what happened. Whether anything comes of it, I dont really know, but if even one person turns down a policy from them, Ill consider it a win.

So all that remains really is to name and shame them. I dont think I should name the firm I actually purchased the insurance from, since I cant say Ive had trouble with them, but Ill name the firm who are extorting me.

ROYAL SUN ALLIANCE.

They have been in the shit for fraud recently I just found out. Owning the body shops that do the work, and artificially inflating the cost of repairs. no doubt to claim more from THEIR underwriters, who pay out when they lose.

Well its one of those things, lots of things rushing through my head still, of what to actually do about it. Ill certainly be paying for repairs myself, no doubt about that.
Ill probably just let the insurance lapse and move companies at the end, rather than cancel it imediately in fit of pique.
The thing thats REALLY bothering me though, is Im on the hunt for a 318is. Now when I find one, and get an insurance quote, this whole affair is probably going to cost me YET AGAIN since I really HAVE made a claim now, regardless of the scam, the faceless computer system will just put me down as a reckless lunatic.

From Salford scally smashing window of the E30 to a cretin on a bicycle crashing into the Civic, its going to cost me hundreds in the end, with no party around to actually blame.

I wasnt even in the car for any of these things, but the insurance companies are basically hammering the totally inniocent party. One that last made a claim ( i looked through dusty old folders) in 1998 for a stolen snowboard in the French Alps. Never a claim for auto insurance. EVER.

On a positive note though, the Zoners response has cheered me up! I put a topic on Pistonheads, and jesus Im afraid their forum is occupied by TOSSERS. I put in a pretty much identical topic, and had to delete it, because of 20 odd replies, almost ALL were 'serves you right for buying a Civic'. I think its infested with nippers to be honest, many who are dreaming of owning a car, once they sold their Speedfight. I didnt buy it to pose, I bought it for a good price, as a quality hatchback, and although Im not in love with it, its a decent car. Whats wrong with those assholes?

In contrast the Zone offered support (and especially thanks to E30BeemerLad, cheers mate and to all who offered sympathy) and advice, and tbh I didnt even expect any less. All Ive ever had from the Zone was help and advice, from the fellow who I bought a bonnet off, who then proceeded to come round and help me fit it for tea/cakes only, to now, always a helping hand to be had. (and some ribbage for driving a rusty poverty stricken more door, but this is changing imminently I hope )

Fuck ROYAL SUN ALLIANCE, fuck insurance and fuck pricks who damage peoples stuff either maliciously or accidentaly and dont own up. The one consolation (and Ill put some photos up tomorrow if anyones interested) is the damage really looks like the cyclist might have stoved his head into the bonnet, but I can only hope this was the case.

Ahhh... Im calmer now.

ps

'and fuck pistonheads forum too'

NOW I am calm.

[E30BeemerLad]

Sounds like you've been doing some research on your insurers.

I did chuckle deeply when RSA got utterly blasted by a judge for their deception of ripping off their fellow insurers with their little repair scam.

Insurers are just bookies at the end of the day. There are various acts of parliament such as The Unfair Contract Terms Act and would you believe it, insurance contracts are exempt from this regulation.

They are devious barstewards ripping off customers, attempting to destroy people who claim against them, lobbying bent politicians. They are poorly run giants where the accountants are in control, massively underresourcing their claims areas, taking referral fees and pumping loads of injury claims into law firms they own. Crying about costs when I give them the good news with court proceedings, when it could have all been avoided if they just answered the letters or phone calls and countless emails.

They are like the banks, too big to control.

Put simply, insurers and common sense do not go together in the same sentence.

[gnarkillius]

I think this one will go down as experience beemerlad.

Had another bit of cheery news, had a quote or the iS, TPFT, 250 excess, NO gold plated bells and whistles, £185 for the year.

I told them about this claim AND the 'claim' on the smashed window and it didnt seem to concern them. regardless I wouldnt ever claim again, unless the car was a burning wreck thrugh no fault of my own, so the more bargain basment I can get it, the better.

Like i said, Ive fired of emails to everyone I can think off, fuelled by rage. If it takes the odd bit of correspondence and it ends up costing ROYAL SUN ALLIANCE a few quid in admin costs, then im pleased as punch.

Its just so disturbing that they can hold such power over a captive market.

I did indeed do some research, and its obvious the whole industy is designed to obfuscate what is really going on. That the underwriters are really just bookies. The bewildering nature of 'shell companies' 'carriers' and 'fronting companies' etc all trying to pass the actual risk to the next guy.

I thought it odd when the only time I talked the the actual broker, was when I bought the policy, from then on it was all RSA. It just doesnt seem proper, for the normal consumer to have to deal with all this. (actually it just gave me a thought, one person I havent complained to IS the broker, this would probably be a good idea).

But as you say, a 'moral insurance company' is probably an oxymoron as well!

[deanocool]

pistonheads forum blows, you either get someone who think they know everything and goes on like you dont, or like you said nippers with speedfighters who are awaiting their 1st saxo experience

unless someone firebombs my car i wont be making any claims for it, and even then it wont be worth the hike in price rise if someone does! until i get a car worth a few grand ill go about getting the most basic cover with protected no claims.

i didnt actually realise this point till a few years ago. obviously protected no claims covers you in the event of a claim when your insurance expires with time. with non protected insurance, (even if its not your fault) your no claims goes into a 'numb' state until the matter is fully cleared up and you pay full price should this carry over your renewal period regardless of what insurer you go with. what i didnt know, is this 'full price' isnt reimbursable with some companies should it finally come through that it wasnt you at fault! be aware people - i wasnt, luckily i found this out via my previous insurer which went into depth to fill me in on the ins and outs - no other company told me that (yet another) little insurance loophole!
you really need to read the fine print on some of these flipping policies

[Supafly]

I'm in a similar situation with a non fault accident in my wifes volvo s40. I declined the courtesy car and said that I'm not interested in making a personal injury claim even though I had a sore back for a few days(I can't stand this claim culture). I also went through the third party insurers (royal sun alliance) so as to minimise their costs.

This has left us with a nice £1500 insurance premium. This is after days of shopping around. The car is only worth about £3500 I've had over ten years without incident and my wife had six. Don't know why I bothered trying to be so helpful.

Unfortunately I'm getting double done over as the area I live in is classed as high risk so all the muppets claiming for p.i around here.

My e30 policy will be coming up for renewal in april so I'm not looking forward to that. Would you care to share where you got the quote for the i.s from Gnarkillius?

Sorry for the little rant but I see I'm not alone in being pissed off at the state of insurance

[jonny323i]

Id love to know the outcome on this one . I am a bit amazed on how much your insurance costs before the additional amount as I have 3 claims in 5 years and 3 points and can insure a 58plate swift and the e30 for less than your original premium

[jonny323i]

Id love to know the outcome on this one . I am a bit amazed on how much your insurance costs before the additional amount as I have 3 claims in 5 years and 3 points and can insure a 58plate swift and the e30 for less than your original premium

[E30BeemerLad]

One bit of advice for anyone in a dispute with their insurer, don't EVER let them cancel your policy. If they do this you then have to answer"yes" when they ask if you have ever been declined cover or had cover cancelled. If you have to say yes to that question then you are in the smelly brown stuff as most insurers will refuse to cover you and those that will almost certainly will not throw in a tub of Vaseline with the deal.

Insurers are scumbags with no accountability

[kam-325i]

One bit of advice for anyone in a dispute with their insurer, don't EVER let them cancel your policy.

How do you do that ?

Dont they just send you a letter telling you that they have cancelled your policy....

[E30BeemerLad]

One bit of advice for anyone in a dispute with their insurer, don't EVER let them cancel your policy.

How do you do that ?

Dont they just send you a letter telling you that they have cancelled your policy....

They will usually threaten you that unless you do something, like pay an outstanding premium, they will then cancel.

So if they have you over a barrel and want a few hundred quid out of you, pay it but make it clear you are paying it to avoid the cancellation and that you are still going to be seeking a review by the ombudsman (if such a situation was to apply and you just hadn't been daft and failed to declare obvious mods)

Insurance is a rather grey & specialised area of the law. Essentially an insurance policy is a wager and a lot of contract law does not always apply.

So look at it like this. You are a punter and an insurer is a Booky.

Punter "i want to drive this car this year, this is me and my driving history and this is the car details. What are you willing to take as a bet that I won't either hit somebody or something or have someone else cause damage to my property that I could not claim from another party?"

Booky - "well I reckon that I'll take a bet of £600 that I hope you don't have any of the above happen to you in the next 12 months."

Punter - "yeah OK I'll have that bet with you"

Booky "thanks for the £600, but I won't actually pay out if I can't be arsed to or if I can find any reason that the story you told me about yourself is not 100% accurate"

[capnmchl]

Surely the definition of insurance is indemnity. Therefore, the insurance company, by contract, has to

"make someone "whole" (give equal to what they have lost) or protect from (insured against) any losses which have occurred or will occur."

A rise in premium and excess will be a loss, which surely defies the term of indemnity.

Or am I putting too much faith in this defintion.

[jonny323i]

[jonny323i]

[kam-325i]

indemnify:

To compensate for loss or damage; to provide security for financial reimbursement to an individual in case of a specified loss incurred by the person.

Insurance companies indemnify their policyholders against damage caused by such things as fire, theft, and flooding, which are specified by the terms of the contract between the company and the insured.

[Funnybear]

I've only ever claimed for blatant third party no quibble cause. I've had breakins, erroneous damage, nicked stereos etc etc. I've never claimed for anything like that. I find the whole system corrupt and inscrutable and only insure myself because the law informs me (rightly so) that I must insure other people against my driving ability, or lack thereof.

I really feel for anyone caught in the quagmire that is anything to do with insurance. The poor lads and lasse's on the end of the phones are a million miles away from the money men who really makes the decisions.

The industry is corrupt, the system is corrupt. With so many shell companies, corporate loaning, underwriting and down right dirty tricks I should think even the guys who run the books don't really know whats going on.

And as always, it's the likes of us, the little people with neither the will, the time or the money to fight these guys that end up just footing the bill, coming of worse.

Solidarity bruvvers! Down with the man. All hail the new man, same as the old man. Hehe.

And I wouldn't dis yer civic. Not to your face anyway. hehe.

[gnarkillius]

Thats so creepy that this should come up just now when I actually got a form of justice only a couple of weeks ago.

No need to go into the whole tale again (Im the original OP) but as I said, when I was really angry about it I spent a day sending emails and writing letters to everyone, I cant even remember exactly who, but it was papers, the insurers, ombudsman, local council (where I live and Royal Sun Alliance HQ) easily 30 or so, telling the whole story.

I got a few responses of 'thats a terrible tale but....' but it wasnt looking good (I had already eaten the extra cost, got the car fixed and ran the insrance down, and went elsewhere when time was up (side story of them automatically renewing it happened too, but that was dealt with swiftly).

Well to cut to the chase, I must have sent an email to the right person somewhere along the line, because just before Christmas I got a letter out of the blue from RSA, with a Cheque for £400 for an overpayment, oddly worded letter that said it was in lieu of an overpayment of my monthly payments (I always pay in full upfront) so something still shady went on.

They also demanded I send them proof of the overpayments coming out of my account, but....as you can imagine this wont happen.

That was aboslutely the last time I stick my head above the parapet to 'do the right thing' I can tell you.

Anyway, just goes to show that its worth taking some time out to make some noise if you think you got cheated. I have no doubt I had been, but Im happy enough to accept this unusual correspondence and cheque, which appears to be a mistake on their part, but to be honest, Im tired of the whole affair, paid in the cheque with no problems, and havent heard anything back yet.

Im still stuck with this whole 'car broken into in Salford' issue, and i told my current insurer about that, and they thought it was entirely above board that this means Im a bigger risk, even though I dont live in Salford anymore and Im back in my sleepy Hampshire homeland...so still annoying, but at least I didnt end up paying the full cost of the stitch up.

I would also love to know which letter, or which recipient activated this payment, or if they actually made an error, or what.

But I shant expend any energy finding out. Im 3rd party all the way now, even on my new car, and any dings etc I get, ill just pay for myself, the less i have to do with those scam artists the better.

(and the Civic is still rolling, Honda have been literally amazing with that. I bought that brand new, and had an ongoing issue, nothing serious, with a squeaky clutch pedal, and a squeaky shock absorber, its taken them ages to identify the problem, gave me another car while it was in, and I have it back now all fixed. Cost to me 'Zero' and no quibbles or hassles from Honda, they extended my warrenty for another year. I would buy one again because of this (if they make one I like haha). Yeah its a boring car, but really, thats the whole point.)

Anyway, thats what happend. Im a bit nonplussed, but money talks, BS walks as they say.

The End.

[Z3I]

Don't you just envy those nerds who don't own cars, don't drive, don't have any interest in cars and are able to avoid all this grief?

[gnarkillius]

Im sure they are doing their best to make it impossible to own cars, except for the super rich.

The Police are so heavily geared up to criminlising motorists over the tiniest thing, be it 5 mph over the limit, tax a week out of date, insurance a week out, that you have to keep your admin immaculate like in no other area.