I consider car insurance part of the home expenses. And I hope I've posted it at the correct place.
Anyway, I was totally amazed that our 13 years of no-claim bonus, got busted totally, with one claim of vandalism on our first car in the UK!
When we lived abroad, an act of vandalism was not considered a damage done by us, so therefore, the no-claim bonus remained intact.
So, basically, the policies went like this: if you damage your car yourself, i.e. you are proven the cause of the accident, because of bad weather (police report must prove that you could prevent said accident), you were driving under influence of either drugs or booze or both, and you have caused the accident due to your own negligence.
Meaning that if someone else had caused the accident, your insurance repaired your car and went after the other driver or drivers.
Vandalism, after you have taken all the precautions to prevent theft, breakage etc. your car is repaired your no-claim bonus remains and the police report filed, if known assailants then they are prosecuted and/or the city has funds to pay for assailants damages.
So, why here in the UK, after getting our first car upon our return to the country, must we lose this for yobs who have nothing better to do, apparently, the police can't catch them, or won't prosecute them, I should say, because they're under-age and the council doesn't seem to have funds to repay us.
We are left having to pay through the nose now for our car insurance and we've never had accidents (directly caused by us), and we are victims of vandalism and victims of car insurance rip-offs!
Are you of same opinion that it is wrong of us to be victims twice in these cases?
The general public, suffers enough at the hands of vandals, can't we do something to get these victimising rules and laws changed?
Hi WM, you've been unlucky but I'm afraid that vandalism is a growing trend nowadays and obviously our Insurance Companies take a different view to some countries abroad... to them a "no claims" bonus means just that - No Claims! If you claim you lose it unless you paid extra to protect it, I take it you didn't...
I can see their point, if they have had to pay out then you have claimed, even if it was vandalism, so you lose the no claims, otherwise they would soon go out of business... There is a fund for those who have been hit by uninsured drivers but I don't think there's anything for this, unless the Police actually caught the culprit and you could sue them yourself...
I agree that car expenses are part of the "living expenses" but don't think that it is a fair comparison to compare the risks of Home Insurance against Car Insurance - I'd suggest that Car Insurance is a much higher risk than Home in the vast majority of cases... if the car was in your home (ie on the drive) you might try your Home insurance, but I don't hold up much hope...
Like you I worked hard to get my NCB and have always taken the view that it is too valuable to lose over one claim, therefore have always protected it, and extra £20 or so per year is in my view money well spent... Just a thought but were you on maximum NCB? If so I don't think you should have lost the lot - it may be worth checking...
Otherwise its a question of reading the Policy carefully when you get it and buying those little add ons they offer such as protecting NCB or Legal Cover (another avenue to investigate if you took it out?) or good old "Accidental Damage Cover" on Home and Contents insurance....
Paying to 'protect' your NCD is one of the biggest cons in motoring and I'm amazed that neither the general public or Ombudsman has not hauled motor insurers over the coals about it.
eg. Scenario - You have 5 yrs NCD. You pay the premium to 'protect' your NCD. Your car is then damaged and you have to claim on your insurance. The claim is logged on your file. You get an increased premium at the end of the year. So you shop around for a deal, but all insurers require details of recent claims and blame, so the 'protected' NCD you thought might help is effectively cancelled out, because you crashed anyway, and you're a higher liability.
Originally posted by Sulphur Man: Paying to 'protect' your NCD is one of the biggest cons in motoring and I'm amazed that neither the general public or Ombudsman has not hauled motor insurers over the coals about it.
eg. Scenario - You have 5 yrs NCD. You pay the premium to 'protect' your NCD. Your car is then damaged and you have to claim on your insurance. The claim is logged on your file. You get an increased premium at the end of the year. So you shop around for a deal, but all insurers require details of recent claims and blame, so the 'protected' NCD you thought might help is effectively cancelled out, because you crashed anyway, and you're a higher liability.
Try not protecting your NCD and then see what happens.
I've never protected my ncb. If you have say 65% ncb protected, and you make a claim your premium goes up in the normal way. But your discount on that "higher" premium stays at 65% not the 50% if you'd not had protected ncb.
The bit I'm sceptical of is whether the insurance comp will deliberately increase the premium enough to offset the protected ncb.
Originally posted by Sulphur Man: Paying to 'protect' your NCD is one of the biggest cons in motoring and I'm amazed that neither the general public or Ombudsman has not hauled motor insurers over the coals about it.
eg. Scenario - You have 5 yrs NCD. You pay the premium to 'protect' your NCD. Your car is then damaged and you have to claim on your insurance. The claim is logged on your file. You get an increased premium at the end of the year. So you shop around for a deal, but all insurers require details of recent claims and blame, so the 'protected' NCD you thought might help is effectively cancelled out, because you crashed anyway, and you're a higher liability.
Try not protecting your NCD and then see what happens.
I don't! And I stupidly used to. I've had this out with a previous insurer who hiked up my annual premium after a claim, when I'd paid for protected NCD. They basically admitted that NCD protection payments are simply money for nothing. Car insurers will always attempt to balance the books against your claim, however 'protected' you might think you are.
To repeat, you're legally required to inform your future insurer of your claims over the past 3yrs. That information directly affects your premium, cancelling out the protected NCD value and meaning you've been paying protection money for years for nothing, (cue Sopranos theme....)
Plus protected NCD is a 'loyalty' tie in. You stay with your insurer each year and pay protected NCD, to help keep the premium down. However, if you claim, and the premium goes up (which it will) you either pay it or find another deal, which involves admitting your claim and suffering the consequences.
The insurance get-out is that they do honour protected NCD, which they do, provided you don't claim. The claim gives them the opportunity to raise their premium on some other premise. You then look for deals elsewhere, who don't care about protected NCD as they want to the details of your claims - the real cost of insuring you.
Disgusting really - but then isnt everyone making a buck out of motorists.
I've posted this (my original post) exactly for this and I'm happy I did, I felt we were alone in this mess.
We're hoping that the Insurance Regulators would understand that there should be a FUND for vandalism. We shouldn't pay twice or thrice etc.
We've had enough (as an example) of waking up one morning (which was shopping day) get in the car, start up, and a strange noise below me the passenger, and I told hubby to pull over, as I was sure it felt like a flat tyre.
Indeed it was, we call the RAC (we've been members for a while now, they're great), and the guy was there like 15 seconds flat, and told us that he had been doing nothing but that, that particular morning, i.e. replacing the tyres, he said that about 12 cars so far (making ours lucky 13 ah!) had between 1 and 3 tyres slashed with knives, yep ours was too!
So, now had the spare put on, went to garage, get tyre fixed, same day, oops Midnight the door goes, knock, knock, oh dear I hate to bother at this late time (our neighbour below us) but you've got 4 flat tyres!!! Er what?
Yes, we now had a total in the same day (it had just got to midnight) of 5 tyres slashed, this to be repaired again the next day at 100 pounds it's no laughing matter, and that time, which was the last of our cars to be damaged, we did not bother reporting it to the insurers.
The police came to see us 3 days later and asked us if we had heard anything, how on earth can you hear anything when your car is park across the street and you live in the highest maisonette of a 4 floor flat building? I'd like to know. We were so frustrated sometimes, that we used to tell the police this: wait I'll see if I can press this button on the car and turn it into a briefcase like that cat in the cartoon LOL!
But needless to say, we have to get them regulators to change the laws, we are hit enough, with road tax, petrol, insurance etc. and unfortunately we need a car.
I'll finish with this, in the local newspaper a few weeks back, a newly fitted brand new van for a wheelchair bound kid and his family, went up in flames by vandals, how heartless can they be?
We only hope that the ones who cause all of this heartache will pay the price when they get their own cars, right?
Originally posted by Sulphur Man: Plus protected NCD is a 'loyalty' tie in. You stay with your insurer each year and pay protected NCD, to help keep the premium down. However, if you claim, and the premium goes up (which it will) you either pay it or find another deal, which involves admitting your claim and suffering the consequences.
The insurance get-out is that they do honour protected NCD, which they do, provided you don't claim. The claim gives them the opportunity to raise their premium on some other premise. You then look for deals elsewhere, who don't care about protected NCD as they want to the details of your claims - the real cost of insuring you.
Disgusting really - but then isnt everyone making a buck out of motorists.
Yep - insurance as a principle is sound, but it hides a lot of doges and scams by the companies..
The Goons did a show based on it once: "Insurance - The White Man's Burden"
---------------------------------------------------- "mad-g" is the display name of "mad-git"
