Pjamie

I live in the middle of the country with my nearest neighbour over 1 mile away. Car was parked in my driveway when someone did a 3-point turn into the driveway and scraped the bumper and wing of my car. I know who did the damage but I can't prove it as I didn't see it happen - I did see the white van drive away but I wasn't suspicious enough to go out at that time and I didn't see the damage till about 2 hours later when I went to the car. Called police. They interviewed the suspect. He denies it. Can't be proved.

Called insurance company, got a quote to fix the damage, they were happy for me to get the work done.

Today I received a letter (5 weeks after I reported it) from the solicitors acting for the insurance company asking for me to provide the details of the accident so the insurance company can attempt to recover their costs. I have no problem with that and I'm happy to provide details to them. But what has really irked my is this sentence in their letter...

"Until your insurers make a full recovery, your No Claims Discount (NCD) may be suspended and it is therefore in your interest to have the claim dealt with in order that your NCD can be re-instated".

I pay extra for protected NCD and my policy document states I can make 1 fault claim during the period of insurance without affecting my NCD. I've never claimed on car insurance in 28 years of driving. I've looked through the information I have from my Agent and insurer and I don't see anything about suspending NCD. It's even more irritating that the size of the claim is not much more than my policy excess, and I'll be paying more than they will for the repair assuming I don't sell the car before the repair is done.

My nature, when I read threats of this type, is to be difficult and to have some sport with the moron who writes such things, but I'm not completely up on car insurance so I'm wondering...

Can they actually suspend my protected NCD?

or, as the letter suggests, it is suspended and only if I help will it be re-instated.

I appreciate that I'll need to give them the information or they may refuse to pay up due to me not helping, but I'd have thought that would be a different matter from threatening to suspend my protected NCD.

my94wrx

iTrader: (4)

what insurance company are you with?

M4RKG

iTrader: (22)

By the sounds of it mate, looks like they either dont have you down as having protected NCD or they've just made an admin error and sent you a letter that would have went to someone with unprotected NCD

M4RKG

iTrader: (22)

Basically, following any claim that goes through your insurance company it will go down as a fault claim until they recoup every penny they paid out to you... if they dont get it all back then it will stay as fault against you. If you unprotected then yes, you lose you NCD (or have it reduced to 2 years under the insurance companys maximum i.e. maximum being 7yrs, would reduce to 5yrs and so on)... but if protected should be fine. It has nothing to do with whether or not you help them

Pjamie

Thanks for the replies. I feel a little better now.

It's definitely protected but I'm planning on selling the car before it's repaired so maybe I can have a little fun with the solicitors in the meantime, just out of badness.