My car slid in the snow, scuffing another car, no damage, someone told my insurance company..- now my NCD/ins renewal has been refused!!

[BankFodder]

Certainly you are required to inform your insurance company about any kind of incident and if you don't then it may backfire on you – as seems to be the case here.

One of the problems is that when you don't inform your insurer then they draw their own conclusions which are generally speaking that you are trying to wriggle out of something.

You say that the incident occurred in late December – but you don't give us a date.

[BankFodder]

So why don't you give us the specific day as you've been asked?

And regardless of what the "other guy agreed to", it still doesn't absolve you from your responsibilities under the insurance contract and particularly since the police have been involved, it would have been prudent to inform your insurer to put your good faith beyond doubt.

What date did this happen please

[BankFodder]

Quote

Dear XXX

Reference number XXX – your letter/email dated XXX

Thank you for contacting me in respect of the above incident.

I'm fully aware of my responsibilities under the contract. I have a duty to let you know about any incident as soon as reasonably possible.

This incident occurred on 29 December and as you may be aware, this is right in the middle of the Christmas/New Year's season together with associated commitments and bank holidays and so forth.

It was always my intention to inform you about this at the earliest opportunity and in fact your message has pre-empted the necessity for doing this.

I'm glad that you are aware of the incident – if you need any further information or if you have any questions then don't hesitate to let me know.
Now that the festivities et cetera are largely over, I will be able to attend to this without any delay.

As you may know, the police have already been involved at an early stage and there is a reference number – XXXX.

It is clear that the accident was an unfortunate circumstance caused by my vehicle sliding down a hill in ice while it was parked in unattended and caused extremely minor damage to another vehicle.

It's unclear why my car moved when it was properly parked and I suspect that it may have received a nudge from some third-party you then failed to stop and provide details.

I look forward to hearing from you

Yours faithfully

 

[BankFodder]

You've been here since 2013 so I'm quite sure that you know what our general advice is about speaking to these people on the telephone and I'm also quite sure that you have read our customer services guide and that you have implemented the advice there anyway.

I would send them the written message first. Very important. Essential that you have a paper trail and then Irish would suggest that you leave it until Thursday if you decide to call them and if you do call them then asked them if they have seen the email and why haven't you had a response.

If they say that they haven't received it and tell them that they have lost it and you are going to send them a copy of it – make sure that you use "forwarding" so that the header to the previous email is clear for them to see. Make sure you get the name of the person you are speaking to so that you can address your copy email specifically to them and also with a reference number because by now they should have a reference number.

But you will have an idea all of this because you have read our customer services guide several years ago – won't you?

[BankFodder]

I don't think you need to show photographs yet. I think you need to find out what is going on first

[BankFodder]

I made it clear that you should be waiting until Thursday. That means between two days and three days – not two hours.

 

[BankFodder]

Because they need to understand that you have written to them and that they have all the information and they need time to be able to receive the email, process it, absorb it, attach it to the file – all of that.

If you simply answer to their beck and call then it continues the impression that if they hadn't gotten on your case about it, that you wouldn't have said anything.

I don't know if you really imagine that an organisation like this will appreciate that they've received an email from you and understood it all et cetera in two hours?

And incidentally, please don't start quoting everything I say.

I know what I've said – what we are interested in is what you say