Car insurance renewal with unresolved claim.

[nuyorican]

Earlier in the summer I was hit by another vehicle. I made a claim on my insurance, and that was that.

Some time later my insurance company wrote to me to say that the other party has denied it, and as there were no witnesses it will be treated as a 50/50. And as such, I will be losing my NCB.

So it's still unresolved, and it's now renewal time. I'm assuming my current insurer have provided for/or know the likely outcome of this incident when calculating my renewal quote? But I'm not sure how best to proceed when doing the shopping around on the comparison sites. As it stands at the minute I still have my NCB, and so comparison quotes are coming in a lot cheaper if I include that. My current renewal quote too is showing my NCB.

So my question is: do I just accept my renewal. Or take the cheaper comparison quote. And what happens, if anything once the claim is fully resolved. Will my insurer then be asking for more money to reflect the change of circumstances? I always pay annually if that makes a difference.

Thanks

[ozzuk]

Just my thoughts, but as you have an unsettled claim the comparison sites likely won't work for you - at least I've not seen an option to declare that. You'll likely need to speak to insurance companies and explain the status.

[alscar]

Your existing Insurers renewal dept may not be quite as up to date with your circumstances as you might think especially if the NCB is showing as unchanged from the previous year ?
I’m assuming your NCB isn’t protected ?
Is the existing quote acceptable though ?
I think you will struggle to get alternative quotes via comparison sites so perhaps try a Broker and just explain the situation ?
I think personally I would also just be checking with my current Insurer that their quote does take the outstanding claim into account.

[jeremyh1]

ozzuk said:

Just my thoughts, but as you have an unsettled claim the comparison sites likely won't work for you - at least I've not seen an option to declare that. You'll likely need to speak to insurance companies and explain the status.

I have always complained about there being no "Thank you " button on this site

Thank you for that I had no idea

[mattvanders]

Wouldn’t the renewal quote have the details of where you stand with it effecting no claims bonus?

[nuyorican]

mattvanders said:

Wouldn’t the renewal quote have the details of where you stand with it effecting no claims bonus?

You would think wouldn’t you.

When I checked the details, the NCB section was locked with a little padlock.

Strangely too, it had me down as married. When I changed it to single my premium came down

[CloudyNight]

I had this issue where my Insurance company couldn't get in contact with the other driver's insurance company. They had looked at my dash cam footage and agreed I wasn't at fault, However the claim was sitting on the database they share with other insurance companies as being my fault, which is the standard way they do it for unresolved claims. As mentioned above I couldn't change insurance companies come renewal time as all the new quotes I got were far more expensive than normal. Even my own insurer put up my renewal. I ended up renewing with them as they promised to refund the extra once the claim was resolved. Over a year later, after monthly chasing by me they finally resolved it and to their credit they did refund me the extra they charge when I renewed with them.

It's a total PITA and a really poor way of handling things, despite doing nothing wrong I was penalised by their system.