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Run away van! Insurance or no insurance.


pete10uk

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So this evening I pulled up outside my house on a quite steep road, with my lightly loaded van. I went in the house and took a shower, after about 10 min My wife herd a crash and my van alarm going off.

 

It had rolled down 2-3 meters and hit the van in front with a reasonable whack, no damage on my van as far as I could see but made a bit of a mess of the back door of the vw transporter in front.

 

I keep a dash cam in the van with both a forward and rear facing cameras, the rear one captures me up to my left elbow and down the side of the van.

 

This clearly shows me putting the handbrake on and giving it a second tug to make sure, it's not clear if I put it in gear but when my wife gets in to back it up,it appears but it is not conclusive she took it out of gear to start it up.

 

In the 10 min prior, the van takes 2 slow squeaky jolts forward, only by a couple of inches or so but it's obvious. When the van actually moves, all you can hear is a click and the van freewheels.

 

Now my question is do I claim through the insurance or not. I can see the repair being a minimum £1k at vw but it could easily be £2 k.

 

As I can prove I engaged the hand break would it be a no fault claim ? Would I loose my no claims for the next 5 years or would it be easier just to pay myself?

 

What would you advise?

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Devils advocate

 

Why "and giving it a second tug to make sure" did you need to make sure, were there any maintenance issues with your van?

 

Did your last MOT have any advisories? Did you have any reason whatsoever to think that there was any work than your van required.

 

Your insurance policy will require that you keep the vehicle in good condition - can you prove this?

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it's not clear if I put it in gear but when my wife gets in to back it up,it appears but it is not conclusive she took it out of gear to start it up.

 

It might be an interesting experiment to sit the van somewhere on the same hill, and release the handbrake with it in gear. See if it'll actually move or not. With limited load in the vehicle my hunch is that it won't budge.

 

What age is the van you hit? If you get the insurance involved, it will end up at one of their approved repairers, which means the job will be costly. Get a quote off a local bodyshop (or whatever) and if the owner is agreeable, get it done there and just swallow the cost.

 

In 15+yrs of van insurance, we have (touch wood) only had one claim, for a relatively simple parking bump. Our premium the following year went up by the exact cost of the claim (which seemed like a bit too much of a coincidence for me). Shopping around brought it down a little, but all the same we easily repaid the cost of repairs over the following years. The insurers will get their money back from you - one way or another...

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My van is 4 years old, it had its first mot 9 months ago with the only advisory of tyres which have been changed since. There has been no issues with the van at all. Last week it was parked in exactly the same location fully loaded with a heavy load.

 

I've never claimed on any insurance policy, just sorted any issues myself. But the van it hit it relatively newish and the owner looks after it, so would want to fix it up as good as can be, but as suggested I know this will cost, knowing vw a lot more than it should! I'm guessing £600-700 for a new tailgate, £500 reprinting cost and whatever damage to the bumper.

 

Not disputing responsibility just this is not a couple of hundred quid wonder, I'm thinking what's the point of fancy insurance if I'm never going to claim, I might as well just have the minimal legal required.

 

It's a "no claim" discount, not a "no blame" discount. If you make a claim, your discount will go.

 

But that said, I did fork out for no claim discount protection, I've got 15+ years ncd so keen not to loose it.

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But that said, I did fork out for no claim discount protection, I've got 15+ years ncd so keen not to loose it.

 

Remember, it's 'no claim discount' protection not 'if you claim we won't put your premium up' protection.

 

So, after a claim, you get the same discount but your premium is likely to go up.

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I had a minor accident (my fault) in 2009 when I clipped someone's wing with my van, he was parked up against a junction but of course it could never be his fault for being parked illegally....

The claim was about £450 against me. At renewal they took ALL my no claims and the premium went from about £200 to over £1K, which was enough that I didn't renew and took the van off the road (it wasn't for business as such as was partly converted to a camper).

The only way I could afford to keep the van was to finish the camper conversion and re-register, and then insure as a motor-caravan. Insurance was then about £250!

 

Sadly I doubt I could have done a private deal as it was a company car and some snotty suit driving it. But if anything similar ever happens I will do my best to avoid an insurance claim!!!

 

Incidentally, I've just had a letter telling me that insurance is about to rocket for all of us due to some change in how compensation is worked out - apparently payouts are not nearly enough according to the government. Plus IPT is going up another 2%. So expect anything from about £70 - £1k extra next year :( :(

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I'm thinking what's the point of fancy insurance if I'm never going to claim, I might as well just have the minimal legal required.

 

Indeed. The whole point of insurance is to pool liability, averaging out risk so that one unfortunate sod doesn't end up penniless from a major crash. Their misfortune is paid for by the others who hopefully haven't had anything happen. That works for large, potentially ruinous payouts, that are relatively rare. The arrangement isn't so good for more common things, like parking bumps or losing your mobile phone. You can get insurance for anything, if you are prepared to pay a high enough premium. But getting cost-effective insurance isn't going to happen for an incident that's likely to happen to almost everyone in the "pool" at some point or another.

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I can't really comment on the insurance part of the question. From what I gather Brian is exactly right when he says the NCD protection protects the NCD (which works as a percentage of your premium rather than an absolute amount), but the initial premium is likely to get hiked. How much is anyone's guess, but it may not be as huge as you might expect.

 

In regard to the actual incident, my mother in law recently found her car further down the hill from where she'd parked it and promptly put in a claim for the damage. She was told that if the handbrake isn't applied firmly enough then as the brakes cool it can then slip.

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...the NCD protection protects the NCD (which works as a percentage of your premium rather than an absolute amount), but the initial premium is likely to get hiked. How much is anyone's guess...

 

I managed to write-off my car last year after the guy in front stopped quicker than I did.

 

My before-NCD premium went up 75% on renewal.

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In regard to the actual incident, my mother in law recently found her car further down the hill from where she'd parked it and promptly put in a claim for the damage. She was told that if the handbrake isn't applied firmly enough then as the brakes cool it can then slip.

 

I've now read this elsewhere, they say it happens when vehicles have rear disc breaks instead of drums and the disc cools, which is quite likely as I had just done a 150 mile trip! That said I can be clearly seen and heard pulling up the handbrake and then giving it a few extra clicks just for good measure.

 

Not sure what happened as I would expect it to slowly creep down and just kiss the van in front but it clicked and just started to free wheeled. The hand break is fine now and holds it fine. It looks as if I left it in 3rd gear as my hand didn't touch the gear stick after I stopped, which is my bad practice and will turn out to be an expensive lesson!

 

I'm just concerned how easily it went from stop to full speed in the blink of an eye, luckily the van was there as It could have been a whole lot worse.

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I would say don't claim ... I stupidly reversed the car into a concrete pillar a while ago, cost about £1500 to fix, even though I pay for protected NCD you have to declare the claim to all insurance companies so not only did the insurance for that car go up by 50%, but so did the insurance for my wife's car which I am insured on. This extra cost is quickly overtaking the cost of fixing the car.

 

You are supposed to report all accidents to the insurance company even if you don't claim, to allow them to hike your premium as you are obviously a higher risk...

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You are supposed to report all accidents to the insurance company even if you don't claim, to allow them to hike your premium as you are obviously a higher risk...

 

I'm awaiting my renewal quotes with some trepidation this year. One of our vans was written off (by a bus ploughing into the back of it). Clearly not our fault, but it seems that insurers take non-fault accidents into account. Just the fact that you've had an accident seems to indicate that you hang around the sort of places where accidents take place...

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