No fault, so why premium rise?

Three weeks ago my car was scraped by another vehicle in a car park. There was minor damage to its rear bumper.

The other driver, seeing my choir sticker in the back window and knowing where we rehearsed, kindly sought me out to say what she had done. The car has now been repaired by the nominated repairer of my insurer, Sheilas’ Wheels, and everything seemed resolved. WENDY NEALE, SURREY

However, when you received your renewal quotation it was significantly higher than the previous year’s.

Sheilas’ Wheels, part of Esure, said this was because its claim on the other party’s insurer was still outstanding and liability could still be contested.

However, you needed to know what the final premium was to be so you could either accept it or go elsewhere. A quote you obtained from a different insurer also reflected the incident even though you had not been at fault.

Esure said: “In these circumstances, and when a policy renews when there is an open claim, the premium would be temporarily increased while we wait for the case to close. Once it’s settled, the premium would be recalculated and any additional premium paid would be returned.”

However, further to my involvement, because the other driver had readily admitted liability, Esure now marked the claim as settled before it received payment from the other insurer. This brought the premium down from £264 to £201 but it was still £33 more than last year’s.

Esure said the past year had seen a spike in claims costs, which had been reflected in premiums.

The AA British Insurance Premium Index, which came out recently, shows that the average comprehensive car insurance quote is £82 higher than a year ago. Insurance premium tax has also risen. That said, I find that insurers tend to be very coy about how they assess specific premiums. The root cause of a rise is often hard to fathom. owner didn’t even owe the money as they had paid for the work before its completion.

The invoice was now cancelled and it was arranged for your late mother-in-law’s details to be removed from the profile on British Gas’s system.

British Gas agreed to pay £200 as a goodwill gesture and assured you that no information about this had been passed on to any debt recovery team.

I was unconvinced, however – a view that surprised you when I expressed it to you but which is born of past experience. Sadly I was right – you report that following the supposed resolution you had three further invoices from British Gas, including a threat of debt collection proceedings.

I am absolutely assured that this has now really been sorted out. Another £200 has been sent to you.