Head Breaking

Just had a mate take a big off in front of me and have been debating the following....

Can he call his insurance company to ask how much his insurance will go up by if he claims?

There was no damage to any other vehicles/property, just his bike (and his pride).

If the bike needs more than, say £1000 of work, he might be better of to claim and take the hit on the extra premium on insurance for the next five years.

Could always try an online quote engine, like H&R.

Sorry - Didn't finifh my thread....

So. Is this legal?

If you tell them you've crashed, will the insurance company up your premiums even if you don't claim?

Any help would be great!

This largely depends, but the main question you can't claim at all unless your mate has fully comp insurance

They only ever ask if you've claimed, they don't ask about crashes. Where would you draw the line, would you have to disclose every little drop?

I think strictly speaking you have to disclose everything but if there was no other party involved and you don't intend on claiming then then just keep quiet. If you informed them but didn't claim it wouldn't surpirse me if they bumped up your premium anyway.

I don't have a very high opinion of insurers.

try phoning a different insurer, one you're not insured with.

Im sure they have similar policies, IMHO im fairly sure that its only actual claims that adjust your premium.

You are really supposed to report any accidents at all whether you make a claim or not.

I was involved in a hit and run about 18 months ago which I foolishly told my insurance company about as I was hoping that the offender might be tracked down at the time. They weren't, partly because the police couldn't be bothered following it up, and it goes down on my insurance as a fault accident ("because the fault has to be assigned somewhere"!!!). The result being that I am still paying for this on my insurance because of an accident that wasn't my fault, despite paying for the repairs myself.

Originally Posted by Massive Action

Just had a mate take a big off in front of me and have been debating the following....

Can he call his insurance company to ask how much his insurance will go up by if he claims?

There was no damage to any other vehicles/property, just his bike (and his pride).

If the bike needs more than, say £1000 of work, he might be better of to claim and take the hit on the extra premium on insurance for the next five years.

A few years ago I had an off on my own. My Mrs called the insurance as I was out of it for a time, to see if I could claim. (TPFT- crashed with noone else around. I couldn't claim) From this inquiry a note was put on that I had had an accident but with no claim. This caused my insurance to go up.

Had a prang in the car, light one, not much damage so paid for it myself. Didn't think I'd need to mention it to a new insurer a while later, so didn't. While checking through the details they noticed this themselves and asked about it. I asked them whether it still counted as there was no claim, to which they replied that they need to be informed of any accident, whether claimed or not. Made that insurance go up by about £50.

My advice. Don't tell them if you're gonna fix it yourself.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Ed

They only ever ask if you've claimed, they don't ask about crashes. Where would you draw the line, would you have to disclose every little drop?

Indeed. What about dropping a bike when taking it off a centre stand? What about scraping the mirrors when wheeling it out of the garage? They ask about claims, not accidents.