Getting quotes for new car insurance and the question of Car related claims (This includes incidents where there was no claim made or someone else made a claim) comes up.
I recently had a not-at-fault accident so have listed this and it now increases my premium by ~$100/year. I dealt directly with the other parties insurance for the accident to cover the damages etc , wondering if I can just say no to this question and save myself $100 or will it come back to bite me?
Why try lying to an insurance company to begin with , that will follow you for a long time . Just be honest , it's liberating .👍
It depends on the wording of the question. However, if you answer dishonestly then have to make a claim there's a good chance they will find out about it and refuse to cover you.
This.
There's a difference between "have you made any not-at-fault claims?" and "have you had any not-at-fault accidents?"
Not sure if it comes back to bite you, but you cannot go back and bite them. You deserve to be a bit one!
You just bought a used car and asked when to insure it https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/908516 2 days ago
I did, thanks for the reminder I have to go pick it up
You didn't make a claim, the other party did.
Thats what I thought but what I put in brackets is what it says on budget direct when getting a quote; "(This includes incidents where there was no claim made or someone else made a claim)"
Weird, haven't seen that with insurers I've used, but o don't used budget direct. Can't see how they would link it to you ever
Budget Direct are notorious for looking for false information that was provided so that they can cancel your policy when trying to make a claim, plus also refusing an inusrance renewal after you make a claim (which makes getting another policy with any insurer more complex). Personally I'd never use Budget Direct but if you were going to use them make 110% sure the information you provide is correct!
Or you could go with another insurer that doesn't do this
Budget Direct also quoted me around double what RACV charge. They aren't "budget" at all.
You can also identify as a woman to save even more money off your policy. Insurance companies hate this one simple trick. If they ever question it, just go all Karen on them.
This. Nobody will ever dare do anything to upset a trans person.
Read whatever question is written CAREFULLY then answer honestly and accurately.
If it says at fault claims, its no. If it says at fault claims, and you have claimed against the other party, so yes. If lt says been in a crash, its yes. If it says made a claim on your own insurance, then its no. If you were hit and sorted it out privately and the wording is 'made a claim' then you could say no.
From what youve written as the question, youre playing with fire if you say you havent had a crash or made a claim.
"playing with fire". Agree. Insurers will be happy to take your money on your say so knowing they can investigate fully at claim time and refuse tp pay if at that time they find something relevant was undisclosed. This is particularly true of life cover, TPD etc - they don't try to check your state of health when you apply (how can they unless you have a medical examination) but certainly will go through your initial application very carefully and check against your medical records if and when a claim is lodged years later
When are you picking up the car? I feel fully invested in your car purchasing journey and would like to remain up to date.
I recently had a not-at-fault accident so have listed this and it now increases my premium by ~$100/year.
Why did your premium increase if you're not at fault? Your risk profile hasn't changed. Sounds like dodgy insurers.
The way some people drive and where they park their car can put them at a greater risk of a claim, even if they're totally within the law and deemed not at fault. Ie. parking on a busy street or at a train station.
This guy had 3 accidents which were technically not his fault. They all could have been avoided if he didn't drive so aggressively and he hit the brakes instead of the horn. As such he would be deemed a high risk by insurers.
Cheaper insurers will factor in all sorts of stuff to keep the lowest premiums. If youve been in a not at fault crash, it could be a sign that you dont drive as carefully as someone who hasnt. Theyve done the maths, and itll possibly cost them more to insure you.
Theyve done the maths, and itll possibly cost them more to insure you.
Have they? Does it though? I can find spurious correlations too if I overfit my models or use the wrong statistical techniques.
They've done the maths and any excuse to charge higher premiums makes cents to them.
There's limited government regulations, certainly nothing that would disuade them from gouging customers, certainly nothing to require them to justify premium increases (such as proving you're a higher risk in the OPs case). And insurance is not a free market so they have all the power to gouge.
Reasonably confident that a lot of insurance companies use Actuaries to help determine appropriate prices for the insurance products they offer.
Actuaries for insurance companies pretty much analyze the probability of claims and the costs for covering them. Math (and statistics) tends to make up the lion's share of the work they do.
Participation in the supply of insurance products is a voluntary decision. The govt can't force an entity to provide insurance to specific entities (ie form unwanted contracts), the best they can really do is to provide incentive to "warmly encourage" them to remain in business.
Insurance regulation primarily exists to ensure solvency rather than focus on product and pricing because most insurers are private businesses whose main goal of being in business is to make money which is generally controlled by basic market forces.
If they are prevented from providing their product at a price desirable to their goals and objectives, they'll simply stop providing their products.
The aim of govt regulation is to protect consumers by ensuring market stability for as many people as possible, not to force contracts between people who don't want to be contractually bound.
Most insurance is not compulsory and govt really can't force a private entity to provide a product they don't want to, especially at a price unfavourable to them.
However, if a govt wants to shift or share liability costs associated with particular harm, it is in the govt's best interest to keep as many entities prepared to offer insurance products to members of the general population as possible.
If a situation was created where insurers no longer wanted to offer their products, they would simply exit the market and dissolve that business model causing the industry to collapse and become obsolete.
The long and short of it is govt need insurers to continue insuring things. Otherwise they will be burdened with the provision of financial liability and the resulting social ramifications this causes.
In most cases, govt regulation looks more like legislation to support the insurers' framework. A common example of this is price caps applied to negligence laws and the corresponding introduction of the NDIS.
Insurance companies never claimed to operate in a free market. In Australia at least, this is an impossible prospect. Sure, their frameworks may appear similar to those of a free market but the inherent complexities and government oversight mean that they aren't truly free.
The concepts of risk pooling, adverse selection and the desire for social considerations create a system where market forces are intertwined with govt intervention and social objectives.
Whilst a completely free market could lead to lower premiums for some, there is a significant risk for others to be subject to unobtainable costs that would completely exclude them from the market putting not only themselves at risk for financial non sustainability, but also any other person or entity adversely affected by the actions of the uninsured.
Bankruptcy is the great equaliser if a person requires damages that another party can't pay.
@Muppet Detector: Ok. You're over-invested in this.
I hope you got an LLM to write that wall of text.
And no, I didn't read it all.
When I did a defensive driving course, I made the comment "my mother has never been in a car accident". The instructor responded with "but how many did she cause?"
From that, I could reason that even though she was never directly involved in a car accident, it is conceivable that she had some characteristics which made her a driver of indeterminate skill which caused others around her to become involved in accidents as a consequence of her actions.
Eg, my mother was a very anxious person and in my opinion was often indecisive and overly cautious as a result. Perhaps she started crossing a line of traffic (or whatever), but then second guessed herself and suddenly stopped or performed a different action mid manoeuvre without giving other vehicles in her vicinity any warning or opportunity to adjust.
This may have caused a car who was following her to rear end her or some other impact for another vehicle within her vicinity.
Sure, mum was never involved in an accident and technically she broke no laws, but that didn't mean she was a good driver and didn't leave a trail of accidents caused by her actions/inactions, in her wake.
I sometimes wonder if insurance companies ask vague questions about accidents that may not be at arms length to us, to identify a potentially poor quality driver.
Sort of like Jazz music. Jazz music is not about the notes you do play, it's about the ones you don't.
All insurance policies will have a line that says something along the lines of “if you omit information, we can deem your policy invalid”, so yeah it might come back to bite you.