claim car insurance or do it on my own

Kilmurray

Hi all,

I was driving out of a petrol station and even though I saw the low barrier wall ,I turned the car to the left too early resulting hitting passenger side door onto the edge of wall. (Honestly if the wall is was rightly aligned, I should have been ok without driving out to the opposite side of road)

The story is insurance excess is 300euro.
Car crash shop says new door(560)+ fitting & painting of whole left side of car to match(350) + vat: if I claim
or
second hand door from car dismantler(150) + fitting & paint on door only(260) total 410 euro: if I pay my own

I am not sure how much more premium I need to pay next year if I claim. I have been driving for over 15 years and never claimed before. Would it be once off increase or would I lose no claims bonus all together?

Any advice appreciated

peteb2

depends what your policy says. If you have step-back protection you may lose two or three years. If you don't you would lose it all.

whomitconcerns

so your options are 300€ through the insurance plus whatever your policy goes up and losing your NCB

OR

You pay 410€ and thats it....

the second option is by far the cheapest in overall cost...

Kilmurray

Thank you for your insight. I didn't know I would lose all of no claims bonus. I thought I would lose only one year and increased premium. It's good to know this. I should buy no claims protection option as well in the future.

Marsden

Don't bother with no claims bonus, its like payment protection on loans..a load of crapp. If your around Ballyfermot theres a garage owned by a russian lad called autozone or something on the kylemore road. I've went to them a few times and there always very cheap.

coylemj

OP, this is a total no-brainer. Pay the €410 and hold on to your no-claims bonus.

Far more importantly, you will be able to answer 'NO' to the question: 'Have you made a claim on a motor policy in the past nn years?' when seeking a quote from other insurers.

Even if you claim off your current insurance company and it (in theory) doesn't affect your no-claims bonus, the fact will remain that you have made a claim and this effectively will prevent you from moving to another company for the next few years which will tie you into your existing company and will make nonsense of any no-claims bonus because you will be stuck with their quote on your next renewal with no option to go elsewhere.

If you make a claim on your policy, you will be unable to go to another insurer for the guts of five years.

Kilmurray

That's is insane. I always bought no claims protection except this year as insurance premium was high enough(You know current environment). Thank you anyway. I will look out for that garage in kylemore road. Really appreciate it;)