Insurance renewal-struggling to find excess under £500

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cws196

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S205 C250d AMG Premium+
As per title, it renewal time for my C43 I’ve only found direct line so far where the mandatory excess is under £500. Anyone else finding this and have any recommendations?
 
With Admiral ours is £250 I think. From personal experience I wouldn’t bother claiming for anything less than £600 or so. I did that once before and my premium went up significantly when i renewed. One other time I called about how much my premium would increase if I claimed on a no fault incident (someone hit my car when parked when in France and didn’t leave any details). Direct line who I was with at the time said my premium would increase anyway since I had reported it, whether I claimed or not! Even though it was not my fault their stance was that I was statistically more likely to make a claim in future as my car had been involved in an incident. So now I would only phone through if I was claiming for something major.
 
With Admiral ours is £250 I think. From personal experience I wouldn’t bother claiming for anything less than £600 or so. I did that once before and my premium went up significantly when i renewed. One other time I called about how much my premium would increase if I claimed on a no fault incident (someone hit my car when parked when in France and didn’t leave any details). Direct line who I was with at the time said my premium would increase anyway since I had reported it, whether I claimed or not! Even though it was not my fault their stance was that I was statistically more likely to make a claim in future as my car had been involved in an incident. So now I would only phone through if I was claiming for something major.

I had this once too. An uninsured driver hit out old Peugeot with his quad bike. I called the insurance to assess whether it was worth claiming (small bumper damage and a light). As the car was worth very little, they said it would be written off so I told them we would not claim. On renewal, it was recorded as an incident and even though we never claimed, they told me it has to be recorded as an incident and my risk of having an incident had increased. I told them it was nonsense as it was a drunk non insured driver who was racing around and happened to hit my car so how does that make me more likely to have an incident? Fell on deaf ears and I would never ask them for advice about an incident again.
 
I had this once too. An uninsured driver hit out old Peugeot with his quad bike. I called the insurance to assess whether it was worth claiming (small bumper damage and a light). As the car was worth very little, they said it would be written off so I told them we would not claim. On renewal, it was recorded as an incident and even though we never claimed, they told me it has to be recorded as an incident and my risk of having an incident had increased. I told them it was nonsense as it was a drunk non insured driver who was racing around and happened to hit my car so how does that make me more likely to have an incident? Fell on deaf ears and I would never ask them for advice about an incident again.


I expect their argument would be that your car is parked in an area where "drunk non-insured drivers are racing around on quad bikes" - evidently.

And while you are right that it would have been cheaper to never raise it with them in the first place, strictly-speaking you are bound to report it to them or risk having your policy invalidated (in the unlikely event that they ever found-out).
 
Don't involve ins companies unless you are going to claim.
It never ends well and they find a reason to add an increase, usually, off the back your honesty

We're with Admiral and apart from that rip off £25 admin for any change whatsoever, they're cheap and with excess of under £200 on a V6 petrol.
Age and postcode alongside claims history will determine what you can get though

And, as above, a claim below £500 or so isn't worth it (but I keep mine low should a larger claim need to be made.....)
 
Why worry about it?
How often do you claim?
 
I expect their argument would be that your car is parked in an area where "drunk non-insured drivers are racing around on quad bikes" - evidently.

And while you are right that it would have been cheaper to never raise it with them in the first place, strictly-speaking you are bound to report it to them or risk having your policy invalidated (in the unlikely event that they ever found-out).

From a legal point of view, do you need to report any incident to the insurance, even if you have no intention of claiming? Including someone causing a scuff? Or reversing into a wall in the car park and causing a scratch/scuff? Genuine question
 
From a legal point of view, do you need to report any incident to the insurance, even if you have no intention of claiming? Including someone causing a scuff? Or reversing into a wall in the car park and causing a scratch/scuff? Genuine question

I don't think it's a legal requirement in law, but if the policy says that you must do so (and many policies will have such a clause), then by not declaring an accident you are risking invalidating your policy.

Certainly, when you apply for a new policy, you will be asked to declare all previous accidents 'including those that did not amount to a claim'.

But there's still a grey area here, I.e. when does a minor scuff become 'an accident'? Etc.

However, in essence, the fact that you came to an agreement with the other party, or have decided not to make a claim for other reasons, does not relieve you from the obligation to report the accident to your insurer.
 
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Just gone through the motions of renewing my AA insurance policy on an E450 and the excess situation was a bit weird. First quotation was for £350 compulsory excess as they had the car value at just over £40k and 9,000 miles PA, by reducing the value to just under £40k and miles to 8,000 the premium came down and the compulsory excess reduced to £100......... a very dark art of motor quotes and final best offers.

One the notification front and self funding minor repairs when does vandalism or hit and run become "an Accident"?
 

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