Any advice on this car insurance dilemma

[sido]

For over twenty years I had two cars both fully comp separately insured in my name, sole driver and never made a claim, so both had full no claims discount.
In 2020 whilst parked outside my house on a main road my car was keyed with single scratch going down the whole of one side of the car requiring a full respray of that side. I was insured by Saga who do not count vandalism as a claim affecting your no claims bonus. After it was repaired I sold this car and have not used that insurance to get my no claims discount as I had the other car separately insured with full no claims. This car had a personal number plate which I took off and moved to my Jaguar.
I December 2021 my highly visible very shiny classic Jaguar was parked in my local garden centre and whilst I was browsing the plants it was reversed into causing quite a bit of cosmetic damage to the rear bumper, boot and boot lid. Fortunately, the driver left his address and phone number so I could claim on his insurance. My insurance company took over the claim, wrote my car off and recovered the full amount from the other drivers insurance. This did count as one of my two allowable claims without losing my no claims bonus.
When I bought my MG5EV I declared having two no fault claims in the five year period( by the way I have never made a claim other than these two in over 50 years of driving). Much to my surprise these two claims caused my premium to go up by over £200. After many phone calls trying to explain that I hadn’t even been in my car when either of these claim arose I gave up and paid what I thought was over the odds for my insurance which is around £450 fully comp. One of the insurers explained to me that they use a reference site which records all claims and does not differentiate between fault and no fault. I have not put my personal plate on the MG5 yet.
My insurance is due again soon. Any advice much appreciated.

 

[Lguk]

It sucks, but a non-fault claim is a claim. Historically I've had 2 cars driven into whilst legally parked on the highway. Absolutely zero to do with my driving but it still counted against me for 5 years.

Shopping around is all you can do to ensure you're paying the best price.

Cars are getting more expensive, repairs are getting more expensive, insurance is getting more expensive as a whole. When I started driving 17 year olds were paying £1000 premiums and older people were shocked etc. My apprentices told me this week they're looking at insurance policies of £3000 on their first cars and in some cases that requires a telemetrics black box. I can assure you, they're not on triple the salary I was.

 

[Les burrows]

Hi sido I had an issue like yours a few years back and the insurance company pointed out to me that it’s a no CLAIMS bonus not a no BLAME bonus, what they where saying is money has been spent to repair your car and if that is not recovered by them for what ever reason for example the keying on your car then your insurance will log that as a claim, needless to say I soon left them behind and had a shop around as Lguk as said for a better price when I got my 5 before that was a Skoda Superb estate far more expensive car much bigger and more powerful but the insurance was over £120 cheaper than the MG Why who knows I think maybe EV can be a bit more expensive on the whole to insure but I could be wrong
Les

 

[Lguk]

EV is still a relatively 'unknown' quantity to insurers, so they bake in some contingency. Those of you that hunt around for servicing on an EV will also note that you need to find garages that will work on EV's, not every garage will, the insurance company will be taking that into account too as their list of approved repairers will be smaller. Over time this will even out, but as we all know, rarely in this world to things get cheaper, the price may freeze in place for a while, but it wont go down.

 

[sido]

Hi sido I had an issue like yours a few years back and the insurance company pointed out to me that it’s a no CLAIMS bonus not a no BLAME bonus, what they where saying is money has been spent to repair your car and if that is not recovered by them for what ever reason for example the keying on your car then your insurance will log that as a claim, needless to say I soon left them behind and had a shop around as Lguk as said for a better price when I got my 5 before that was a Skoda Superb estate far more expensive car much bigger and more powerful but the insurance was over £120 cheaper than the MG Why who knows I think maybe EV can be a bit more expensive on the whole to insure but I could be wrong
Les

Thanks Les looks like I may need to live with until 5 years passes. Amazing how insurance companies use words when refuting a claim that you never see in their documents Before or after.

 

[smokie]

EV is still a relatively 'unknown' quantity to insurers

I don't think so. I think UK public awareness of EVs has risen dramatically in the past year or so (and acceptance has at last started to rise here in the UK) but they have been around now for quite a few years, and insurers have a pretty good idea of what they are dealing with.

I'd make one insurance-related generalisation based on observations and discussions - EV drivers have a larger number of "sedate" drivers than ICE drivers (or conversely fewer boy racers...).

I also think it's true that the gizmos and driver aids on current cars helps keep insurance lower, though that applies as much to new ICE as EVs.

 

[Dino]

It sucks but it’s no claim, not no blame. I’ve only had one no fault claim and it didn’t seem to affect my next premium they were more interested in confirming my no claims bonus was still intact

 

[Cocijo]

I sympathise with your position - it seems very unfair. Unfortunately that’s one of the factors underwriters use to rate your premium - fault or non-fault claims. It’s like protected no-claims, yes it protects you in some ways (% discount on premium) but your premium will still go up at renewal if you’ve made a claim.
I find it very frustrating that coming through the pandemic cars have been used less, less accidents, premiums that were rated higher based on mileage that wasn’t done, and when we renew the premiums have still gone up!

 

[Alb]

It's all about risk assessment at the end of the day. This type of situation occurs regularly and the standard justification given is that statistically, drivers involved in one "incident" (regardless of fault) are more likely to be involved in another incident in the short term. To the insurer, you are a greater risk therefore your premium rises.

 

[Kithmo]

I think insurers look at a no fault claim in their risk assessment, an example would be if you car gets hit or vandalised while parked, you're liable to park there again and so the risk of you making a claim again is higher than not.

 

[Kithmo]

It's all about risk assessment at the end of the day. This type of situation occurs regularly and the standard justification given is that statistically, drivers involved in one "incident" (regardless of fault) are more likely to be involved in another incident in the short term. To the insurer, you are a greater risk therefore your premium rises.

Just beat me to it there @Alb

 

[smokie]

I think insurers look at a no fault claim in their risk assessment, an example would be if you car gets hit or vandalised while parked, you're liable to park there again and so the risk of you making a claim again is higher than not.

Bit off topic to say the least but with travel insurance I declared a drug I'd been put on for moderately high blood pressure and my insurance shot up. I felt a bit hard done by in that there are probably loads of folks who have the same condition but not seen their doc so are unmedicated (therefore higher risk) who don't pay extra

 

[awbugritt]

I was involved in a claim by some woman accusing me of damaging her company car, which I disputed as it was untrue. Eventually after an engineer examined both vehicles the case against me was dropped and the increase in premium refunded. However, it still goes down on ALL my insurances as an 'incident'. The bottom line is you can be accused by some random person without proof, and as one of the insurance personell pointed out guilty until proven innocent!

 

[admiralross2400]

The other factor involved is that insurance companies base (at least most of) the cost to you on statistics. That's why young people pay more than older people, certain postcodes cost more/less than others etc. Someone who has made a claim before is statistically more likely to make another one. As such, you're a higher risk to them and therefore you have to pay more for cover.
It's shitty because obviously you're brought up thinking "if it's not my fault, then I don't end up having to pay", but it doesn't work that way. Thankfully it doesn't go up as much as if it was an at-fault claim (where you'd be a significantly higher risk if you'd caused an accident), but still doesn't make it sting any less.

 

[sido]

I think I had better drive more carefully than ever so if you see a DOG * in a red MG5 being driven at 30 mph up the inside lane have pity on me and give me a hoot as you pass. I will now have to park in the furthest corner of most car parks as well and definitely not in the roadway outside our house.


*Doddery Old Git

 

[awbugritt]

The strange thing is my van and my 2 motorbikes, each insured with different firms than our car, and informed of the 'incident' have charged me, to the penny, exactly the same premium as 12 months ago!

 

[Kithmo]

ISTR there was a website you could look up car crime statistics in your area, can't remember what it was called.

 

[Alb]

This perhaps?

https://www.police.uk/

 

[Hairyfool]

I used to work for a large multinational who didn’t insure their company cars, Instead posting a bond to cover all claims. I was involved in two incidents one of which included a claimed car park knock by me on another car. I refuted the claim on the basis that the scrape on the other car consisted of several parallel gouges as would be done by a concrete post, not by my bumper.
I never found out how HR dealt with it but when I left and had to insure my own car I had five years driving with NO claim made let alone fault.

 

[Kithmo]

This perhaps?

https://www.police.uk/

That's the one.