Car insurance and no claims bonus after a claim...

emka1984

Hi All,

looking for a bit of advice here, maybe some of you have had a similar situation before...?

Long story short:
- I currently have 40% no claims bonus on my car insurance policy (don't have the NCB protection in place, unfortunately)
- earlier in the year I had an incident where I knocked off another driver's mirror, which resulted in him making a circa €1000 claim against my policy
- my policy is due to be renewed in September, hence am expecting a new quote in mid-August.

Do you reckon paying the claim myself is worthwhile with the value of it? E.g. will I be better off paying the 1k and keeping my No Claims Bonus of 40%, or is it better to let the insurer pay it, and start my NCB from scratch?

I spoke to the insurer in the hope that they could give me an estimated quote of the insurance with and without me paying the claim, but they say they can't do it...!? Even though the claims department earlier in the year told me I would be able to get that info...

robbie99

What's your current premium and what's the no claims discount scale for your insurance company? 40% for some is 3 years claims free.

emka1984

Last year with the 40% off the premium was something around €800...

And as far as I know I get 10% NCB for each year with no claims, up to 50% after 5 years.

Corvo

Is there any form of No Claims Bonus protection in place? I.e. Step Back?

emka1984

Corvo wrote: »

Is there any form of No Claims Bonus protection in place? I.e. Step Back?

Nope, like I said, unfortunately I don't have any NCB protection in place.

To Elland Back

emka1984 wrote: »

Last year with the 40% off the premium was something around €800...

And as far as I know I get 10% NCB for each year with no claims, up to 50% after 5 years.

So, last year was €800 net of 40% NCB, which means the base rate is €1,333

Assuming no rate increases (not gonna happen), premiums are as follows

2015 €1,333
2016 €1,199 (10% NCB)
2017 €1,066 (20% NCB)
2018 €933 (30% NCB)
etc.........

If you can afford it, pay back the claim and then protect your NCB to prevent this happening again

emka1984

To Elland Back wrote: »

Assuming no rate increases (not gonna happen), premiums are as follows

Do you reckon that the rate won't increase, or at least won't increase much? That's what I am mostly worried about...

To Elland Back

emka1984 wrote: »

Do you reckon that the rate won't increase, or at least won't increase much? That's what I am mostly worried about...

Rates are going to increase significantly. Not having a bonus will restrict your ability to switch insurers

emka1984

To Elland Back wrote: »

Rates are going to increase significantly. Not having a bonus will restrict your ability to switch insurers

Even if I pay the claim myself and keep the bonus?

savagethegoat

€1000 for a knocked off mirror?

emka1984

savagethegoat wrote: »

€1000 for a knocked off mirror?

Don't even get me started! :-) the chap claimed like €400 for a car rental whilst his car was getting fixed, etc... :-(

punisher5112

Even with indicator built in most mirror complete housing would be tops €350 from a dealer and most cars you can get a replacement off motorfactors or even eBay.

Can you contact the other car owner and come to an arrangement on fix.

Explain your insurance will be through the roof and you have absolutely no problem paying but obviously that price for a mirror is wrong also it is even worse the insurance company would even be paying out on such a crazy price.

athtrasna

I had the maximum no claims bonus with step back protection. Had to make a claim on my policy to repair my car while pursuing the other driver. In the meantime my insurance renewal came up. 80% increase. I argued it with them but no budging. Third party has finally paid up so working to get my ncb reinstated and a partial premium refund.

Don't go through your insurance if you can avoid it op. It's so much more expensive in the long run

emka1984

I don't have a choice. The other guy didn't want to hear of any other way but handling it through the insurance, he even tried to charge me for fixing his bumper which I had nothing to do with! Thankfully I managed to avoid at least that charge!

As to fixing a mirror - I know that if you handle it yourself it's much cheaper, but again - my luck in hitting the wrong person - he went straight to a volvo dealer. And I checked pricing with a few - it is around the 500-700 mark...

The claim amount is not disputable anymore, therefore. All I want to know is if I'm better off paying it and keeping the ncb, or do I start from scratch?

To Elland Back

athtrasna wrote: »

I had the maximum no claims bonus with step back protection. Had to make a claim on my policy to repair my car while pursuing the other driver. In the meantime my insurance renewal came up. 80% increase. I argued it with them but no budging. Third party has finally paid up so working to get my ncb reinstated and a partial premium refund.

Don't go through your insurance if you can avoid it op. It's so much more expensive in the long run

Did you also get back the claims excess that you paid. Your insurers should have collected it on your behalf. Many people forget about that

emka1984

To Elland Back wrote: »

Did you also get back the claims excess that you paid. Your insurers should have collected it on your behalf. Many people forget about that

What's that?

CJhaughey

The excess is the amount that you pay on initiating a claim.

thebiglad

CJhaughey wrote: »

The excess is the amount that you pay on initiating a claim.

An excess is not paid on initiating a claim!

The excess is the amount you pay towards the cost of your own repair (on a Comp policy) and its recoverable from the responsible party's insurer if you are not at fault.

That does not apply here, OP was at fault and that point is not questioned by them.

emka1984

thebiglad wrote: »

An excess is not paid on initiating a claim!

The excess is the amount you pay towards the cost of your own repair (on a Comp policy) and its recoverable from the responsible party's insurer if you are not at fault.

That does not apply here, OP was at fault and that point is not questioned by them.

Correct, the fault was mine. There was also no repair costs on my side - my car didn't even get a scratch...

To Elland Back

thebiglad wrote: »

An excess is not paid on initiating a claim!

The excess is the amount you pay towards the cost of your own repair (on a Comp policy) and its recoverable from the responsible party's insurer if you are not at fault.

That does not apply here, OP was at fault and that point is not questioned by them.

I was giving advice to Athrasna who posted here about his/her incident, where it did apply

robbie99

emka1984 wrote: »

The claim amount is not disputable anymore, therefore. All I want to know is if I'm better off paying it and keeping the ncb, or do I start from scratch?

At €1,000, you're better off paying off the claim and keeping the NCB.

Your current premium is €1,333 with a 40% discount which is a net premium of €800.

Insurance premiums are going to rise regardless - http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/latest-news/motorists-warned-to-expect-further-rises-in-premiums-31433703.html - so let's say your €1,333 will probably go up to €1,500.

Different companies have different NCB scales. I know that FBD's goes 1 year = 20%, 2 year = 30%, 3 year = 40%, 4 year = 45% and 5 year = 50%. You indicated that yours is a simple 10%, 20%, 30% etc.

You've already gone 4 years without an accident. The chances are that you'll go another 4 years without one, if not longer, now that you've more experience. Let's find out the cost of making a claim with your NCB scale...

| | |Don't|claim| |Claim|| |Difference
Year|Premium| |NCB|Net premium| |NCB|Net premium| |
2015|€1,500| |50%|€750| |0%|€1,500| |€750
2016|€1,500| |50%|€750| |10%|€1,350| |€600
2017|€1,500| |50%|€750| |20%|€1,200| |€450
2018|€1,500| |50%|€750| |30%|€1,050| |€300
2019|€1,500| |50%|€750| |40%|€900| |€150
2020|€1,500| |50%|€750| |50%|€750| |€0
| | | | | | |Total Diff:| |€2,250

So, over 5 years it will cost you €2,250 to make the claim. Straight away, keeping your NCB is worth €750. Paying off the claim will only cost you an extra €250 this year but the savings over the following 3, 4 years are substantial and very much worth it.

Chris_Heilong

Also even if you pay the claim yourself, you have been in an accident on their records and this counts even if you change companies, they ask have you ever had an accident or claim in the last xx years?

I heard they will consider you higher risk even if it was non fault zero payout.

To Elland Back

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Also even if you pay the claim yourself, you have been in an accident on their records and this counts even if you change companies, they ask have you ever had an accident or claim in the last xx years?

I heard they will consider you higher risk even if it was non fault zero payout.

Some will, some won't. But it must be declared as you say

curiosity

emka1984 wrote: »

Don't even get me started! :-) the chap claimed like €400 for a car rental whilst his car was getting fixed, etc... :-(

Jeez, €400 for car rental?? Surely a mirror replacement is only a one day job? Would an insurance co even pay out on such?

emka1984

curiosity wrote: »

Jeez, €400 for car rental?? Surely a mirror replacement is only a one day job? Would an insurance co even pay out on such?

They did :-(

emka1984

Just in case anyone else is wondering - I ended up buying out/ paying the claim and retaining my no claim discount which is now 50%. I also added an NCD protection to my policy which allows for up to 2 claims within a 3 year period.

This saved me around €700 this year alone in all the reinstated discounts so paying off the €1000 claim seems to make sense seeing that if no further issues arise in the meantime - the following years should be similar.