Think before you claim! - Admiral bad experience

[Tom T]

But its NOT unusual for insurance companies to do that even if you dont claim.. You need to seriously think about it BEFORE you even call them. My wifes car had a small dent due to someone opening their car door and even though he was seen doing it he denied it. When I phoned the insurers to ask if it was worth proceeding with a claim against him I wouldnt give our name so they wouldnt come back at us in the future..They said their suggestion was without concrete proof dont even think about making a claim..So nothing would be on our record.

Absolutely agree - you live and learn. Fortunately I have had very few issues in my driving history and it seems most were before they all got together and shared information circa 2009. Never again!

 

[Tom T]

Yes, my lad had his RS3 hit by another car side on whilst he was going around an island. So as no fault he went through insurers thinking he wouldn't be affected. Unfortunately this was not the cause as he was seen as a higher risk and his insurance went up 15%. To add insult to injury he had like for like courtesy car cover whilst his car was in the repair shop through his own insurance, even so he still had to go through court proceedings divulging everything about his income and situation so that he wasn't held liable for the courtesy car charge. Apparently the courtesy car charge was £350 a day for a BMW 540i!!!

From memory the bill was around £18k just for the courtesy car, no wonder our premiums keep going up!

15% I could live with! But nearly 50% for a long scratch that has not gone through to metal

 

[Pete Roberts]

Admiral refunded me £75 for 3 cars.... be interesting to see if they hike next years renewal to claw it back!

Well living in Wales we have been in lockdown for over 3 months and counting. And 5 mile travel limit.. The van has been on SORN for the 3 months so ZERO miles and our other car has probably done 100 miles in 3 months..I’d like to see the excuse they would make for hiking the premiums. In fact they should be making so much profit the premiums should DROP....

 

[soulstyledevon]

Be careful with screen replacements too.
I’ve had 3 screens in 18months and one insurance company told me, if I’d had another claim they wouldn’t be able to quote me for my renewal...

 

[soulstyledevon]

Yes, my lad had his RS3 hit by another car side on whilst he was going around an island. So as no fault he went through insurers thinking he wouldn't be affected. Unfortunately this was not the cause as he was seen as a higher risk and his insurance went up 15%. To add insult to injury he had like for like courtesy car cover whilst his car was in the repair shop through his own insurance, even so he still had to go through court proceedings divulging everything about his income and situation so that he wasn't held liable for the courtesy car charge. Apparently the courtesy car charge was £350 a day for a BMW 540i!!!

From memory the bill was around £18k just for the courtesy car, no wonder our premiums keep going up!

We had a courtesy car, after a bump last year. All claimed on the driver at faults insurance.
1 month with a BMW M4
2 months with a brand new Merc AMG.
The bill must have been eye watering...

 

[Tom T]

Be careful with screen replacements too.
I’ve had 3 screens in 18months and one insurance company told me, if I’d had another claim they wouldn’t be able to quote me for my renewal...

Good to know. We had screen done in October and had no impact on renewal in March, so it seems strange that a scratch should have such a disproportionate effect on price when that had no effect!

 

[Pete Roberts]

Be careful with screen replacements too.
I’ve had 3 screens in 18months and one insurance company told me, if I’d had another claim they wouldn’t be able to quote me for my renewal...

Considering screens can cost upward of £500 and you don’t normally lose your NCB..I recon you are getting off lightly..3 screens in 18 months..I suppose I’m lucky so far none in 55years...

 

[soulstyledevon]

Considering screens can cost upward of £500 and you don’t normally lose your NCB..I recon you are getting off lightly..3 screens in 18 months..I suppose I’m lucky so far none in 55years...

I can’t remember changing a screen on any other vehicle.
T6, three...
Don’t lose NCB, but it’s classed as a claim come renewal.

 

[Benh76]

yowsers. was that car arranged by his own insurer, or one of those "accident claim management companies".

No, it was all handled through his insurers ! The issue was that the 3rd party's insurer wasn't happy with the £18k courtesy car charge so wanted to take it to court, my lad then had to provide everything included savings account for court proceedings. He challenged this on principle of what am I paying my premium for but was threatened with the 'if you don't provide the information then you will become liable for the charges'. As usual the victim becomes the accused !

 

[Benh76]

15% I could live with! But nearly 50% for a long scratch that has not gone through to metal

Well it's all relative though. 15% premium increase for a 20 year olds RS3 insurance was about £200 !

 

[Sunstoner]

Its a massive scam all this.

Only yesterday I fumed at Adrian Flux for something that particularly ate my ass.

New T6 Cali owner since March this year, initially only added myself to insurance. Contacted AF to add my wife asked if she'd had any claims in last 5 years. Stupidly said, 'Whilst parked at work during a very windy period, a trampoline ended up on her car damaging it.'

We didnt use our insurance, it was my wifes companies insurance that sorted it all out. So, adding my wife to the insurance policy went from £53 to £523. What is all that sh*t about..??...


A few years back. Sheer accident, stone chip flew up and smashed a window at our home. We purely (and stupidly) contacted our insurance company to check where we stood before deciding to sort it out ourselves. No insurance used. But it upped our premium by almost 50%. What a friggin massive con all this is.

best to say nothing at all!

 

[Stoneybroke]

Yes, my lad had his RS3 hit by another car side on whilst he was going around an island. So as no fault he went through insurers thinking he wouldn't be affected. Unfortunately this was not the cause as he was seen as a higher risk and his insurance went up 15%. To add insult to injury he had like for like courtesy car cover whilst his car was in the repair shop through his own insurance, even so he still had to go through court proceedings divulging everything about his income and situation so that he wasn't held liable for the courtesy car charge. Apparently the courtesy car charge was £350 a day for a BMW 540i!!!

From memory the bill was around £18k just for the courtesy car, no wonder our premiums keep going up!

Was your son's hire car sorted out by a claims or accident management company?
This is a regular, yet apparently legal, scam. The CMC and hire company work hand in hand with the intention of squeezing the money out of the third party's insurance. I bet they repairer also delayed for ages saying they couldn't start until the insurance was sorted, increasing the length of time the hire car was required. All working together for profit.
Your son may have a claim against the CMC over the car hire and his liability for the costs - the Financial Ombudsman may help.

 

[Benh76]

Was your son's hire car sorted out by a claims or accident management company?
This is a regular, yet apparently legal, scam. The CMC and hire company work hand in hand with the intention of squeezing the money out of the third party's insurance. I bet they repairer also delayed for ages saying they couldn't start until the insurance was sorted, increasing the length of time the hire car was required. All working together for profit.
Your son may have a claim against the CMC over the car hire and his liability for the costs - the Financial Ombudsman may help.

Yes I can well believe that!
The hire car was all arranged through his own insurers and was through Enterprise if I recall. Evenutally the case was dropped as we believe the 2 insurers came to a settlement figure. Probably still an eye watering figure no doubt. The apparent delay was due to a replacement alloy wheel which needed to be ‘sourced’ from Germany on back order basis - hhhmmmm

 

[Stoneybroke]

Yes I can well believe that!
The hire car was all arranged through his own insurers and was through Enterprise if I recall. Evenutally the case was dropped as we believe the 2 insurers came to a settlement figure. Probably still an eye watering figure no doubt. The apparent delay was due to a replacement alloy wheel which needed to be ‘sourced’ from Germany on back order basis - hhhmmmm

There is a big difference between a courtesy car and a hire one. He was effectively mis-sold the hire car on the promise that the "other side will pay..."
I suggest a formal complaint to the insurers about their hire car arrangements and inflated costs. If he doesn't get a reasonable response, then take it to the Ombudsman. Just watch the times limits.
There are cases where judges have thrown out the claimed costs because it can be proved that the hire costs are inflated over market prices. When I say thrown out, I mean the hirers/AMC has been told their charges are unreasonable and they have had to accept the market rate and cannot recharge the insured or the driver at fault. Insurance companies even employ people to compare the prices to debunk the inflated hire charges at court.
If your son got sold Legal Expenses Insurance with the car insurance, see if they will fight the case for him!
A significant number of AMC/CMC complaint that go to the ombudsman are of this nature.

 

[Michael Meade]

Have had a very unsatisfactory experience with Admiral. We scratched our Beach sliding door (no fault incident, a low billed). In nearly 20 years of driving we have only ever made two claims and to be frank, where it is a scratch which requires a spray, I would have probably bitten the bullet and paid myself (given excess, hassle and potential loss of NCB). However, as it is my first Cali and because the likely cost of repair at a vw approved body shop is probably higher, I thought better to enquire Via insurance and get their repairer quote. Given scratch was just before lockdown, it took until now to line everything up and my policy had since renewed. So the claim would be under last year’s policy. On call confirmed NCB not affected and submitted details. A day later I get a letter to say that the price of this years policy has been retrospectively increased by £240 (nearly 50% hike!). No mention of this on the original call. I hastily call them to cancel claim as price hike plus excess means it really is not worth putting through the insurance. They then confirm By letter that because I notified the incident the price increase stands - even though I am not claiming. To add insult to injury that is all recorded as a notified incident on the national insurer’s data exchange! So the price of an honest enquiry is £240 and what ever else insurers in the future choose to charge because of this being on record for up to 5 years. Anyone else have similar experiences??

I have heard of the same happening and I don't think it would only be Admiral. If you are thinking of paying for insured damaged yourself you have to keep it to yourself I'm afraid and you can't compare their cost with your cost. I don't know why they do it. Maybe someone in the industry could explain.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I have heard of the same happening and I don't think it would only be Admiral. If you are thinking of paying for insured damaged yourself you have to keep it to yourself I'm afraid and you can't compare their cost with your cost. I don't know why they do it. Maybe someone in the industry could explain.

I assume that the reason, actuarially speaking, is that the stats show that someone who has some kind of incident (eg a broken side window, a bashed rear bumper), even if not caused by the policyholder and regardless of whether they claimed, is correlated with an elevated likelihood of more serious incidents/claims in the following year(s).

Unfortunately this practice of bumping up premiums on the basis of non-claim "incidents" is bound to discourage people from reporting them to their insurer: ie it penalises honest customers who are actually the kind of customers the insurers should be rewarding, because It appears well-evidenced that people who tend to be "dishonest" and therefore would be unlikely to report incidents anyway, are also more likely to behave recklessly or even fraudulently in other ways, so are a higher risk.

 

[vananarama]

Have had a very unsatisfactory experience with Admiral. We scratched our Beach sliding door (no fault incident, a low billed). In nearly 20 years of driving we have only ever made two claims and to be frank, where it is a scratch which requires a spray, I would have probably bitten the bullet and paid myself (given excess, hassle and potential loss of NCB). However, as it is my first Cali and because the likely cost of repair at a vw approved body shop is probably higher, I thought better to enquire Via insurance and get their repairer quote. Given scratch was just before lockdown, it took until now to line everything up and my policy had since renewed. So the claim would be under last year’s policy. On call confirmed NCB not affected and submitted details. A day later I get a letter to say that the price of this years policy has been retrospectively increased by £240 (nearly 50% hike!). No mention of this on the original call. I hastily call them to cancel claim as price hike plus excess means it really is not worth putting through the insurance. They then confirm By letter that because I notified the incident the price increase stands - even though I am not claiming. To add insult to injury that is all recorded as a notified incident on the national insurer’s data exchange! So the price of an honest enquiry is £240 and what ever else insurers in the future choose to charge because of this being on record for up to 5 years. Anyone else have similar experiences??

Little jobs are so not worth putting on vehicle insurance it seems. I never have. Even when someone killed my T5 I only did the legal obligation of letting my insurer know what had happened and told them to not do anything and got an independent 'ambulance chaser' to fight my corner. So I caused my insurer £0 in time spent on my accident, but even this didn't stop insurers putting up my premium for someone having crashed into me. Something's wrong with vehicle insurance.

 

[blondebier]

I hastily call them to cancel claim as price hike plus excess means it really is not worth putting through the insurance. Anyone else have similar experiences??

Sorry to hear about your woes Tom. Standard stuff, claiming on insurance, unless it's really significant, is never worth it.

This might make you feel a bit better...

A few years ago I was hit in the rear, non-fault incident, the other insurer paid up eventually after trying "Let's go 50/50 shall we?"

However, come renewal time I had to declare the "incident" (even though it was not my fault) and my premium went up and has been more expensive for the last 4 years.

To make it worse, I am also a named driver on my wife's policy and her insurance went up too.

We'll both end up paying elevated premiums for 5 years. (For a non-fault incident!)

Moral of the story - don't get married!!

 

[Norfolk Jim]

My son had a prang many years ago at some traffic lights. Car came across in front of him when filter was red for them. My son had a couple of mates in his old Ford Escort and one took a photo immediately after the accident which was quite late at night. Also he recorded using video on his phone the quick conversation about the others say all fine no-one was hurt.....................Reported it to insurers Norwich Union at the time and they started to deal with it. After a couple of weeks son had call saying they were going 50/50 as other company was part of Norwich Union and the others said my son had run a red light - one was also saying they needed to go to hospital as they had neck pain. Needless to say furious and not acceptable but insurers wouldn't budge. I got the photo of the accident scene from his friend and using Google Earth showed due to the position of the other car it was impossible for them to have been even in the right lane to cross let alone where they'd turned from. We sent that in and the recording of the incident with a request for the time & date they attended A&E as they were also trying to claim hotel overnight costs.................gave them 14 days. Result found my son was correct and also the others ended up in court for fraud as no A&E had record of them attending. Difference was offer of £600 to final payout of £2100. Always worth fighting your corner. I use LV and they've been excellent even after 2 windscreen claims my premium only rose by £18 this year.

 

[jamessclarke]

I had 2 vehicles on Admiral multi car insurance. No claims. Over 3 years premium went up and up. At recent renewal quote I rang and quibbled. Immediately knocked £150 off renewal. Insured elsewhere for another £100 less.
I am afraid it is a game for them.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I had 2 vehicles on Admiral multi car insurance. No claims. Over 3 years premium went up and up. At recent renewal quote I rang and quibbled. Immediately knocked £150 off renewal. Insured elsewhere for another £100 less.
I am afraid it is a game for them.

Unfortunately these days you are punished for loyalty. You really have to get fresh quotes every year especially if you have a number of vehicles (yes, first world problem I know).

The insurance industry is massively stacked against the consumer, as far as I can see. The old and inefficient brokerage model has been replaced by "aggregators" (price comparison sites) that add no overall value to the system (they don't create any additional demand for insurance policies), they just create and profit from churn. Plus, billions a year spent on advertising by the industry, that all ends up being paid for by... us, who are obliged by law to have insurance.

 

[PeteS]

Technically you should let your insurance company know of any damage to you vehicle even if you intend to claim or not. They will then use this to calculate future premiums based on your risk. I tend to put a high excess on my insurance with a view that I will only claim if the damage is large enough or damage someone else’s vehicle.

 

[Tom T]

My son had a prang many years ago at some traffic lights. Car came across in front of him when filter was red for them. My son had a couple of mates in his old Ford Escort and one took a photo immediately after the accident which was quite late at night. Also he recorded using video on his phone the quick conversation about the others say all fine no-one was hurt.....................Reported it to insurers Norwich Union at the time and they started to deal with it. After a couple of weeks son had call saying they were going 50/50 as other company was part of Norwich Union and the others said my son had run a red light - one was also saying they needed to go to hospital as they had neck pain. Needless to say furious and not acceptable but insurers wouldn't budge. I got the photo of the accident scene from his friend and using Google Earth showed due to the position of the other car it was impossible for them to have been even in the right lane to cross let alone where they'd turned from. We sent that in and the recording of the incident with a request for the time & date they attended A&E as they were also trying to claim hotel overnight costs.................gave them 14 days. Result found my son was correct and also the others ended up in court for fraud as no A&E had record of them attending. Difference was offer of £600 to final payout of £2100. Always worth fighting your corner. I use LV and they've been excellent even after 2 windscreen claims my premium only rose by £18 this year.

Good to know thanks. LV come up repeatedly as a mainstream insurer which seem to have a fairer approach to pricing. If I can’t get my NCID record updated, will probably speak with them

 

[Tom T]

Technically you should let your insurance company know of any damage to you vehicle even if you intend to claim or not. They will then use this to calculate future premiums based on your risk. I tend to put a high excess on my insurance with a view that I will only claim if the damage is large enough or damage someone else’s vehicle.

Appreciate that technically one could argue that every scuff and scratch (Hedges etc??should be notified - but does that actually happen? I think you are saying you don’t because you would only claim if significantly higher than your already high excess? Right?

 

[Jeeves]

Ok, so I'm no fan at all of insurers but I had a fairly reasonable experience with Admiral....Last year in Croatia whilst on a camping pitch with the tailgate open, our lunchtime was literally "rocked" as a german caravanned towed past our pitch and misjudged the gap...his caravan literally ripped off the tailgate on our California and left a huge gouge in his caravan.
we were faced with being stranded in Croatia as the van door was hanging by a thread...contacted Admiral who initially were poor, stating the vehicle would have to be repatriated to UK on a low loader (didn't understand the 4 of us were living in it !!).
Managed to get a local running repair to literally have it welded shut and limped back home.
Repairs were authorised (running into £2k ) and all I had to pay was the £400 excess ...incident was treated as uninsured loss as third party wasn't UK driver.
Admiral have chased the excess for me which I got last month and I have just renewed without any increase in premium...I have multi-car policy with second vehicle and only pay £500 for california and kia piccanto.
On top of that I got £50 covid reimbursement....
I didn't lose a penny......As I say, I'm no fan of insurers but Admiral do come up as one of the cheapest policies around for a California and I have tested the policy in the field so to speak