UKC

I was involved in a minor accident today.

I was driving along a main road when another car pulled out from a parking space on the other side of the road. The vehicle was pointing in the same direction in which I was travelling and obviously wished to proceed in that direction, thus wanting to cross on to my side of the road.

I was aware of the vehicle crossing the opposing lane and then felt and heard an impact as it struck my vehicle on the rear off side. It came to a halt immediately behind my car.

We exchanged names and addresses but the driver was adamant that I had driven into her vehicle. I tried to explain that it was incumbent upon her to ensure that it was safe to manoevre.

Anyway I could see no damage to my vehicle although hers had sustained scratched and scuff marks on the near side.

My quandary is this; I am happy to make no claim on my insurance but I know from experience that if I inform my insurance company "for information only" of an accident they till increase the premium.

Anyone know of a solution to this? I see no reason why an effectively blameless driver should be penalised merely for informing the insurance company "for information only"

Edit: A police vehicle arrived on scene but from speaking to the officer and phoning up I do know that the other driver made no statement to the police and that as far as the police are concerned it's been closed as a non reportable accident.

In reply to mypyrex:

I'd be inclined to write to my insurance company giving them full details so as to put them on notice, but stress that you are not intending to claim. That way you've covered your back if she claims.

Are you sure your insurers will increase your premium if nothing comes of it? I've not heard of this if you don't claim.

In reply to Trangia:


About fifteen years ago I was on the way out of a petrol station when I caught some sort of bollard a glancing knock. There was no damage whatsoever but in case the garage took it further I informed my insurers but stressed that there was not going to be any claim made.
The next year up went my premium.

In reply to mypyrex:

Yes your premium would go up but we are talking v small amount. You are required to tell them. It will also help them fight the claim from dozy woman if they have your side. Be prepared for many cold calls asking if your neck is ok

In reply to mypyrex:

You are probably bound to inform them in the T+Cs. In similar circs there was no effect on my insurance, however.

In reply to mypyrex:

As your terms and conditions will oblige you to tell them, and the police attended, and there might be an insurance claim from the other party, you’re playing a dangerous game if you try to keep it secret!

In reply to thread:

When we exchanged details I gave the other driver the name of my insurer but she claimed that she couldn't remember/didn't know the name of hers.

Anyone think I should mention this?

In reply to mypyrex:

I was once involved in a collision which was the fault of the other driver although he claimed it wasn't (I shan't bore you with the details), I'm not arsed about minor cosmetic damage to my car although he was furious about his, so we exchanged details and in anticipation of him making a claim I notified my insurer (which I believe is a legal requirement).
Obviously once he'd calmed down he thought better of it and no claim was made but my insurance premium was increased the next year.
I rang them up and complained since no claim or consequent payments had been made for an accident which wasn't my fault anyway and they dropped the increase.

In reply to pec:

I had an almost identical situation and from then onward for 5 years I had £20-50 added to my premium. I questioned it and was told that the fact that this incident happened at all shows that I'm not very good at avoiding incidents.

In reply to several people:
Insurance premiums go up every year, I can't remember a single year when my requote was competitive. I always get a new quote off the internet then ask them to match it (they usually do, and if not I switch.)

The point is, if you haven't actually made a claim at all, then it doesn't matter if the requote is slightly up (as would be normal) - you just do the above.

Notwithstanding this, if an insurance company has to make any effort at all on your part now, some (including Admiral, I recently discovered) will note it as a claim but with no fault, which will still affect your no claims bonus. I am currently going through this as my car was hit (when properly parked at home) by some teens in an ancient 206 on a Saturday night. Fortunately theirs was badly damaged enough that they couldn't drive off before I came out of the house (they tried to push it...) and fault was clear. Fortunately they were insured - I was worried about this at first.

When I notified admiral (my insurers) they basically said I had two choices: either they could pursue it themselves, in which case it would be recorded as a no fault claim formally and would affect my ncb, or, they could pass it on to a company called Auxillis to deal with, and it would never be recorded against me at all. I chose the latter. Auxillis have been ok to date but I haven't yet closed everything out with them and would have much preferred just deal with Admiral. When signing up for Auxillis I had to sign a bunch of clauses in a contract I wasn't particularly happy with, but the only alternative was to lose out on my ncb, which is worth a few hundred a year.

I mention this because it seems relevant to your case and was a new experience for me. I'm not sure how long insurance companies have been sub-ing out easy cases to people like this to save costs - but it is certainly happening now.

In reply to Si dH:

Thanks. I'm with Admiral.

In reply to mypyrex:

From my experience of having actual claims... and years when I don't as well.

Premiums go up and down arbitrarily. If existing insurer puts it up, move on to the cheapest quote. Neither have any great connection to your claim/non-claim/'increased likelihood of having claims in future as you are clearly not good at avoiding them now'.

I think what actually happens is, is that if you are on notice for a claim, they can remove your no claims discount (or the appropriate number of years that 1 claim would remove'). When no claim happens you then get your NCB back. As I pay annually there has never been an intra year adjustment up/bill from them and situations have resolved before year end.... if I paid monthly it wouldn't surprise me if they adjusted the payments as that is in their control to do. They would then have to refund a period of overpayments.

Having had a period when we had a claim per year on one or other of our cars for small, no fault, recovered losses from 3d parties I can categorically state that recovered losses make no odds to our premiums. Speaking to one company involved they were very firm that having a claim which is recovered makes no difference to me or them... they do not consider me high risk 'for having accidents' or 'somebody likely to claim' - they simply take view that I (and wife) have had a few folk daft enough to drive into us (while we were in our cars, and while our cars parked and us not in it etc etc) and have managed to obtain details and successfully claim. All of that suggests to me that if you inform your company and if no claim is ever successfully made against you, you would be in the same boat as us... you have no claim - you are not making one as your car is undamaged, the 3d party no doubt can't claim as the damage patterns and description of what happened are pretty clear - how could you have driven into her if the front left of her car impacted the back right of yours... etc etc.

There may be a temporary effect. There may not. If their renewal quote is rubbish somebody else's will not be. In the year after a claim my renewal quote was unchanged. I checked around and moved to somebody cheaper. I have also had premium go up 10 or 20% in year after a claim and moved to less than prior years quote. And I have had premium go up 10 or 20% in a year after nothing has happened. Insurance is a nonsense game of moving regularly whatever happens.

If anything - going by book and doing what you are probably contractually obliged to do (informing them) you should get a tick in the 'honest and law abiding' box... which has to be better than the 'didn't inform us in hopes it would go away without being an issue' box.

In reply to mypyrex:





LOL You mean you tried to stop him pulling out.

"Here lies the body of Johnny Jay,
who died defending his right of way.
He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
but he's just as dead as if he were wrong."

Were you on your smartphone using UKC

In reply to J1234:

Given the upset this has caused me on top of other matters which are too personal and private to mention here I do not find your comment particularly amusing or warranted

In reply to mypyrex:

In fairness to bedspring, there is no way that he/she could have known about matters that you have never mentioned here!

Given that you recently posted a request for suggestions as to how to mock people doing their jobs, you're on fairly thin ice.

All that said, I am sorry to hear about your motoring incident.

If police were on the scene and details have been exchanged, you must inform your insurer.

I had a collision several years ago which was inarguably my fault. Minor scuffing to a wheelarch on my car. Broken indicator on the other driver's car.
We did not involve insurance; I simply paid for his damage and ignored mine. We had each other's details of course, in order that I could pay him (it was £70)

I then spent many months wondering and worrying that he might also call his insurers and make some additional claim - and that's WITHOUT any reporting to police having happened on scene.

For the sake of a nebulous intangible potential increase of maybe £30 on an annual premium, do you want that kind of unease, exacerbated as it will be by the fact that police were on your scene?

In reply to mypyrex:




There is none. Car insurance companies are absolute areseholes - I had my premium increased for five years due to someone driving into the back of me. How I was meant to prevent that I do not know, but yet apparently it made me "higher risk", which appears to be a catch-all phrase for "slightest excuse to extract more money from you".

In reply to ianstevens:

There is some basis for this, which is that people who drive defensively (accommodating other peoples' errors) will have fewer "not fault" claims because they are generally more careful. One not fault accident in 5 years tends to make precious little difference, while two tends to cause a noticeable increased premium. So I don't completely disagree with this practice.

In the vast majority of cases (there isn't enough in the first post to judge on this one) by accommodating an error a not-fault accident could be avoided. Such as when stationary at the back of the queue watching for approaching cars, and if possible leaving enough space in front to escape into another lane rather than putting the handbrake on and fiddling with the radio.

The one not-fault I've had (also had a 50-50 which was probably more my fault when I was about 18, plus a serious pushbike accident that was totally my fault and I was lucky it didn't kill me) was being rear-ended on a motorway roundabout. It was however partly my fault morally because I stopped quite heavily at the roundabout junction because I had misjudged a car approaching from the right on the roundabout. Had I judged that better and therefore braked more progressively the accident may have been avoided even though the other driver's insurance paid in full.

In reply to Neil Williams:




In this specific case I was stopped in a rather obvious traffic queue. Single lane, urban environment at rush hour at a time and location where stop-start traffic is ubiquitous. No amount of defensive driving could have prevented someone rear-ending my static car, yet I paid an extra ~£40 each year for the next five years. That's equivalent to around 9 months of car insurance, so not insignificant for something I had asoutely zero control over or responsibility for. I'd disagree that this is "precious little difference".

On the other hand, I do appreciate your point. I'm certain that there are many accidents which can be avoided through defenisve driving, which are often recorded as fault/no fault claims rather than 50-50s.

In reply to ianstevens:

Out of interest - how do you know you paid an extra £40 per year for 5 years?

I just get a renewal quote which goes up, down or remains static pretty randomly as far as I can tell. I then get different quotes and move if it seems worthwhile. I can't really say what affect any incident or any specific response I give to a question has on the end price from either my existing or new insurer?

In reply to Ferret:


In my case I had a taxi run in to me, 100% not fault on my part unless you count being on the road as a fault.
I declared if for 5 years and my policy went up by various amounts each year.
I know this because I run insurance comparisons both declaring it and not declaring it and not was always cheaper.

In reply to J1234:


Had myprex hit the other car or sustained damage to the front offside I could see this supposition but for the collision to be on the rear offside that means 3/4 of his car had passed before the other hit him.
I would blame the other person myself.

In reply to mypyrex: Some years ago my car was involved in an accident. An uninsured driver lost control at a junction and hit the back of a line of parked cars, shunting them into the next and so on down the line. My car was parked at the end of the line, so got shunted into an empty space, suffering a dented rear bumper and boot. The first I knew of this was when I walked home after work and saw my car about a car's length further down the road from where I'd left it, and a Police car sat opposite waiting for me. They explained what had happened and told me I would need to inform my insurance!
I called Norwich Union (now Aviva) and informed them that the accident had taken place but I was not planning on making a claim as the dent could be removed with a hammer quite easily. Their response was to immediately double my premium for the remainer of the period (I had to pay them around an extra £200 (I think, was some years ago now)) which they claimed they would refund if no claim was made against me regarding the accident after six months. At the end of the six months, no claim had been made (surprise!), but they refused to repay any of the money! Only threats of legal action against them finally got the money back, and then only as a "good will gesture". Needless to say, I took my business elsewhere!

In reply to Ferret:


Completing an online form with my details changed for a house down the road (same postcode) to see what it threw up. Initally did this due to the premium rise; I wanted to compare actual insurance rises with the effect of the accident. I avoided just unchecking the "I've had an accident button" as I know these are linked with a shared register.

In reply to ianstevens:

Cunning - thanks. I guess I've maybe just been lucky enough to never get hit with enough to be concerned.. i.e. any rise due to accident is similar to or smaller than what I 'save' by moving business around. I guess my saving would be greater still with no 'extra' due to non fault recovered losses.

That said, it's kind of what insurance is there for in the first place so I'll not sweat it too much. Even on a recovered loss, my insurance has had to work to get the recovery rather than just paying out against my policy. So long as amounts are small that doesn't seem too unreasonable in some ways....

In reply to mypyrex:

So if they put up your premium just switch insurers .

In reply to Ferret:

With increased use of telemetry boxes and dashcams it might be possible to better analyse accidents to see if they could have been avoided? I'd expect both to be effectively compulsory before long (i.e. priced into it by insurance).

In reply to thread:

Notwithstanding all that has been said earlier I have now had chance to inspect both the VERY minor damage - scarcely more than a scuff mark - on my vehicle and the photographs of the other vehicle.

The photographs of the other vehicle reveal scratches and denting which, in my view, are more serious than to correspond with the marks on my vehicle.

In reply to mypyrex:

Notify your insurers as you are legally required to.
Sue the offending party in the small claims court for any increase in insurance premium as a result of the accident for the next 5 years.

That's what Honest John, a leading motoring journalist recommends.

In reply to mypyrex:
I duly notified my insurers today. Without saying so the very helpful young lady seemed to agree that there was no fault on my part. She even looked up the location on Streetview