Car Insurance Making An Insurance Claim

To make a claim you don't have to wait until office hours as most car insurance companies have 24-hour help lines. When you do this, you should expect to be sent an accident report form. Make sure, you should take the opportunity to ask the insurer exactly what they require you to do and what evidence they will be expecting.

Make sure you keep all receipts and ensure that you photocopy any correspondence that is associated with your claim. Your claim will be dealt with as swiftly and smoothly as possible if you provide the information your insurance company requires.

Don't take your car in for repairs and hope they'll be paid for. Your insurance provider will most likely recommend to you a garage and you should take your car there. The whole claims procedure will be much quicker and simpler if you follow your insurer's recommendations fully, and they can deal with the repairer directly. Your insurer may also provide a courtesy car whilst your car is being repaired. At the very least your insurer needs to approve an estimate from a repairer they didn't recommend before they start working on it.

Your insurers need to agree to pay your car's repair costs, and until then any repair costs are your responsibility. You should get concrete confirmation about the state of your claim before proceeding with your claim. Remember that you will be required to pay the agreed level of excess even if your insurer will meet the repair costs, and this payment will normally be made straight to your repairing garage.

If the claim is rejected?

There are circumstances where you may in fact have the legal right to be reimbursed for your loss even though the insurer refused to pay the claim. Although you can sometimes make this judgement yourself, it is sometimes a good idea to get legal advice.

Check the policy

If the claim is rejected ask your insurer to identify specifically the clause of the contract on which they rely. If you do not have a current policy make sure they supply one.

Is it worth the claim?

Many types of insurance contracts will have an excess. This is common in a car insurance contract, or similarly you may lose part of the no-claims bonus. Some companies now reward rating one drivers with a lifetime rating one guarantee. At times you will have to decide whether the amount of the claim is worth the long term loss that results from the effect on rating or no-claims bonuses, especially after taking into account the amount of the excess.