Did You Know?! (Motor Insurance - Comments & Tips)

Name: lily7star

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Product:	Motor Insurance - Comments & Tips
Date:	10.08.01 (3376 review reads)
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Advantages: Be better informed

Disadvantages: It's tough not to be!

I’ve been driving for about 17 years now and have had my own car and been responsible for my own insurance for the past 7 of those years. Despite this, I think I’ve learnt more about car insurance and the possible pitfalls in the past month than in all those 17 years put together.

Why have I learnt more? Sadly it’s because my car has just been written off as a result of an accident which was not my fault and which happened a month ago as I was driving my children and a friend to my eldest son’s birthday party.

I’ve always shopped around for the cheapest insurance deals I could find. I was particularly pleased with the deal I got from Dial Direct (not to be confused with Direct Line!) last year and duly changed from my previous insurers to buy a policy form them. The problems started immediately, although I’ll save those for an opinion on Dial Direct. What I want to talk about in this opinion are some things I wish I’d known and which I’d like to pass along as tips when you’re next looking to buy car insurance.

What price you are quoted depends on many variables such as your age, no claims bonus and the area you live in, but are you getting the best deal by going with the cheapest company? Check exactly what your insurance will cover in the case of a claim. Did you know, for example, that although the insurance company will tell you that they’ll provide you with a courtesy vehicle should your own be off the road, they will in all likelihood not do so should your vehicle be a write off? I found only one company which said they would cover a hire vehicle in the case of your own vehicle being written off. If this matters to you, ask this question when finding an insurer.

What about buying legal protection? Many companies now automatically include this in their initial quote, but do you need it? I bought separate legal protection with my insurance from Dial Direct, but found
when it came to the crunch (pardon the pun!) that in fact I was covered by the RAC as one of their members, and that the legal company they use and from whom I have free cover, were far far better and quicker than the one whose cover I had purchased with my insurance. Think about checking whether you already have cover with (for example) the RAC and in exactly what circumstances they will cover you. Will they offer you protection if the accident is your fault, or just if it isn’t?

You may also feel you don’t need legal protection – I can only say that I have been and still am extremely grateful for the free RAC cover which I have. As I mentioned above, you will not tend to get a courtesy car if your car is written off, and at least legal protection can arrange hire for you in a clearly non-fault incident and so get you mobile again. It takes a day or so, and they do not tend to work weekends, but within a few days I was in a hired vehicle which I kept for a month while I sorted out a replacement vehicle. The costs of this have been covered by the legal company until they can be reclaimed from the third party insurers.

I will also be making a claim for personal injury and for all my uninsured losses, eg cost of physio etc, and this is all taken care of by the legal service who put you in touch with a solicitor who will handle your claim. All the costs are claimed from the third party insurers, and you do not need to pay any legal charges. If this had been a fault accident, I’m guessing that I could have needed the legal protection to defend myself if a claim such as my own had gone to court, however you would need to check this out.

A friend of mine who used to own a car yard told me never to accept the first amount proposed by an insurance company in a write-off claim, but to send copies of any documents relating to any work, especially recent work you have had done on your vehicle to them. I kept phoning the in
surance company to ask whether they had had a chance to look at the documents, and found that they upped their initial offer on my car from £800 to £1000 over the phone without having even seen the documents. At this point it’s worth noting that you may lose the hire car unless you accept the initial offer. A way around this is to say that you will accept it as an “interim payment” but wish to continue to negotiate. Apparently the second offer is usually the best you’ll get, but the insurance company further upped my offer to a final one of £1200. If I had not persisted in negotiating I would have had 50% less than I finally accepted in settlement for my vehicle!

I refused to allow them to take my vehicle for salvage until I had agreed a settlement for the claim. The disadvantage of this is that I have had my damaged vehicle on my drive for a month now, but I’m told it’s being collected tomorrow! The hire vehicle can be kept until the day when the cheque paid by the insurance company in settlement of your claim is cleared by your bank. All of this must be a lot easier if you have access to another vehicle or are not car-dependent, but living where I live we need a car for almost everything, and the written off vehicle was out only car. It can therefore take quite a bit of juggling to find and put a deposit on a vehicle while waiting for the insurance cheque to clear, knowing that you need to be ideally driving your new vehicle by that day.

My car insurance expired a week after my accident and I was sure that I did not want to renew with Dial Direct, so I have been calling insurance companies only to find that because the claim has not been settled as non-fault yet, despite my protected 6 years no-claims bonus, many treat it as a fault claim and so it affects the premiums I’m being quoted. I’ve found that this does differ immensely and that there are companies who will treat it as a non-fault claim if
this seems obvious by the circumstances. Again it seems to pay to shop around.

If you are unfortunate enough to have a car written off as we have, be aware that you can claim a refund of road tax paid for that vehicle. You can not transfer remaining paid road tax to another vehicle, but can claim a refund for each whole month remaining on your disc. In addition ask the RAC (I presume it’s the same for the AA) to suspend your membership until you need it again on a new vehicle. You can add this remaining RAC membership onto a new membership on your new vehicle or even transfer it to another family member should you wish to.

I realise that this information may not seem very relevant to many of you reading this, but the whole point of insurance is to cover yourself for unforeseen circumstances. I wish I had been better prepared for the consequences of having my car written off, and should we ever be unlucky enough to be in this situation again, at least we will be well-informed and know our way around the system a bit better. My hope for you is that you will never need this information, but if you ever do, you will at least have been better informed than we were.

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