Scenario:
I was stationary in a car park, someone reversed into the side of me! Obviously their fault.....some months on i need to renew my insurance and my
premium raises by £200!
Elephant quote "Our studies have shown that drivers involved in a non-fault accident is more likely to subsequently have an accident which is
there fault".
To put things simpler i'm not paying because i was driven into, BUT for the accident i haven't had yet!!! (sound like a certain Minority
Report anyone?)
Not funny 
That's a problem with mass cheap insurers, might be worth mentioning "insurance ombudsman" because they are in fact increasing premium
for a non fault accident, if you are in AA or RAC check their position on this as it may be worth taking further if you can be bothered!
Caber
i had 3 claims against me with elephant, and everytime my renewal came it went up and not by 200quid either, it almost doubled!! so last renewal i
searched for a new insurer through moneysupermarket, and had a cheaper quote of 260 compared to the 700quid with elephant for the same car. the
company was BELL, and the funny thing is, BELL and elephant operate from the exact same address!! and are part of admiral, so someone please tell me
how the hell does that make sence!!
Insurance is a big scam, and they are basically legal criminals!!
Last year I was insured by The AA, this year they wanted an extra £140.00 because I had received a CU50 (unsecure load) with 3 points.
I searched Confused.com and they gave me a quote less than the previous year. My new insurance company is ..... The AA
quote:
Originally posted by Chaz
Elephant quote "Our studies have shown that drivers involved in a non-fault accident is more likely to subsequently have an accident which is there fault".
quote:
Originally posted by blakep82
quote:
Originally posted by Chaz
Elephant quote "Our studies have shown that drivers involved in a non-fault accident is more likely to subsequently have an accident which is there fault".
LOL! what the f*ck?!
I agree with you and it is not confined to cars. Had a spill on the carpet £54 per sq yard!!! so need a new carpet, then in the storms around Xmas,
roof tiles blow off. All fixed, renewal this month and premium has rocketed and excess is now £200 up from £50.
Rang up to be told that they were charging for the increased risk, or put another way to claw back their money.
Changed company no cheaper but the principle is they pissed me off.
i have renewed my insurance with directline a couple of times via the web as it is cheaper than the renewal notice they send through,
a couple of weeks later get a letter through please send us copy of your insurance proof of no claims,
phone them up,
me: how do i get that,
them:phone them up and ask for a copy for our records.
me: ok
pause do not hang up.
me: can i have a copy of my no claims history please.
them: you are insured with us.
me: yes.
them: oh ok then it is because you bought it on line, the computer thinks you are a new customer.
In a similar vien, NU quoted me a huge sum on renewal, I called back and offered a price half as much quoted elsewhere, they met with no
quibbles.......
I also have recovery, they quoted on renewal just for this £73 per month (three recoveries last year), I did not renew but took out a new policy with
NU for £84 pa...
The only problem was dealing with India, took a few phone calls to get them to understand !
my house mate had this problem too, also with elephant, someone wrecked his car in a car park and admitted it was thier fault no problems on that side but when he came to renewal they upped his insurance! in the end he had to go elsewhere, took him ages to find a decent quote.
Our local insurance broker and CIS (co-op) both beat all the online companies by a very large margin when we were looking for insurance for my van a few years ago, we went with CIS which was £500 less than one online company.
This is unfortunately a result of blindly following statistics without applying a brain. The computer that generates the quote is just following
whatever rubbish has been put in.
A guy who works at our company used to program the rules for some insurer. There is some centralised source of all accident statistics which all the
companies use apparently. The statistics are sometimes twisted by random chance in bizarre ways. He recounts a story where a statistically high
number of yellow cars were involved in accidents, so every quote for yellow cars was artificially inflated for a few months to cover the additional
risk!
Insurance companies generally lose money on insuring cars. Premiums are kept down by competition. If there is a scam, it is generally in favour of
the motorist rather than the insurer. On average that is.
They try to guess how likely you are to make a claim in order to set your premium. The analyse their claim data for trends, such as age, gender,
marital status, postcode etc. It is true to say that if you have made a claim recently, you are more likey to make a claim in the next 12 months than
someone who hasn't.
Your insurer has obviously discovered that people who make a no fault claim are statistically more likely to make a fault claim than average. It does
seem unfair on the individual. The answer is to shop arround for someone who doesn't ask about no fault claims and so doesn't load their
premium against you.
Some years ago I made an at fault claim. 4 years on I shopped arround for new insurance. Those companies that asked if I'd had a claim in the
last 5 years gave consistenly higher quotes than those who asked for claims in the last 3 years. Its worth shopping arround.
not to offend anyone, as im sure some accidents are 100% no fault, but often the law rules against one driver when it wasnt necessarily 100% his fault
- few accidents will be clear cut, but usually one party is found to blame.
I had an accident recently that wasnt technically my fault, however looking back i could've avoided it if had known that a blast of the horn
wasnt going to stop this muppet changing lane and ramming me through a railing. He subsequently made up a story about it anyway so we only got a 50:50
settlement, however if i had proven my side then it would've been all his fault, even though technically my attitude was partly to blame.
At the same time, i wonder if the car insurance business would actually be profitable if they didnt all have to support the MIB, and if EVERY driver
was insured. And if no one exaggerated their claims and losses 
[Edited on 19/4/07 by JoelP]