Insurance Queries?

[v12]

Hey guys,
I need some answers on some of the Insurance ploicies. I've heard that if u dont make claims on ur insurance, u get a discount on the next years premium. Is this true??? Its called "No Claims Bonus".

Also whats the difference between Comprehensive and Third Party Insurance??? Do insurance policies cover accessories as well??? Also how many times can I use an insurance cover in a year??? Is it only once or till I finish off the entire amount of cover i've paid for???

[GTO]

Here you go V12,

1. The no-claim bonus is your insurance companies way of thanking you for not smashing and taking enough car of your car. See, by providing you with an incentive for the next year, they are actually protecting themselves against a payout. Smartly, they adjust the no-claim bonus against your premium toward the next year.

2. Comprehensive Insurance, as the name suggests, is a comprehensive coverage. It covers your vehicle against theft, fire damage, accident damage etc. Third Party insurance is coverage only to the third party...Say you knock down a pedestrain..your insurance company will provide you an X amount of coverage against the third party i.e. the pedestrian.

3. Yes, for an added premium, most insurance companies cover accessories. I have my alloy wheels, music systems full covered.

4. You can claim damage more than once a year.

As for your last question, I didnt quite understand it. Can you rephrase?

GTO

[RJK]

hey GTO,

r u sure that claim can be made more than once a year ? i was under the impression that i could claim it only once a year..if u do claim it more than once then does ur premium increase ?

M3

[GTO]

My sister once smashed the car twice in the same year. Claimed both times. No problem at all.

Butttttttt I did miss out on the no-claim bonus....

GTO

[ported_head]

some people are pretty fond of the no-claims bonus as my friend and i managed to find out. we had a little fender-bender with the new honda city in the recent past, and the guy was actually asking us to pay for the damage, which in honda terms would come to about 10k..so we naturally asked him to claim his insurance, which he and his bro didn't want to becuase they would lose their no-claim bonus.
so simple enough, we went to the cops, registered a complaint and it seems that he had to claim his insurance after all. and he didn't get his no-claims bonus either. double-whammy.
take it fro me guys..never let money exchange hands in an accident. go straight to the cops.

[v12]

what i mean to ask is, if my insurance cover is for 10K, then can i keep on using the claims till I completely use up the 10K.

Also, doesnt Third Party Insurance cover theft, accident etc etc??? It is mandatory to have insurance done according to the Motor Vehicles Act. What type of insurance??? I mean Do we have the choice to choose the type of insurance???

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by GTO

1. The no-claim bonus is your insurance companies way of thanking you for not smashing and taking enough car of your car. See, by providing you with an incentive for the next year, they are actually protecting themselves against a payout. Smartly, they adjust the no-claim bonus against your premium toward the next year.

Is there any thumbrule/percentage by which the insurance on a car reduces every year (assuming no claims all throughout) ?
I mean if one pays say 20K insurance when buying a new car, what would be the expected premiums in say the next 5 years ?

[GTO]

Is there any thumbrule/percentage by which the insurance on a car reduces every year (assuming no claims all throughout) ?

Insurance companies have pretty similar structures, for e.g. for the first year with no claims you could get a bonus of 10 - 15%. There is a table that they follow, and this has to be present in your insurance policy.

After 5 years of no claims on any of my cars, each and every one of my policies enjoys a 65% discount.

GTO

[bigman]

In the UK claims can be classified as a fault claim or a not fault claim.

If it is a no fault claim (eg someone hits you) then you do not lose your no claims discount (but there are exceptions to this). The exceptions are things like your insurance company not being able to recover the cost from someone else who was at fault.

Not sure if the Indian auto insurance market follows similar rules but it sounds absurd to penalise someone when the other party was at fault (and they have insurance).

That is why people are meant to exchange insurance details after an accident. If you are not going to exchange details then it makes things like third party fire and theft insurance pretty useless.

The cops may make a bit of noise but they cannot really do much. It is more of a civil matter than criminal when it comes to exchanging details after an accident.

You can get protection for you no claims discount for a small additional cost (I think it cost me an extra £12 this year to protect my 65% NCD)

[bigman]

Rough guide :

Year Discount
1 - 30%
2 - 40%
3- 50%
4- 60%
5- 65%

It is down to companies as well. there is nothing legal or statutory when it comes to the NCD. Some companies in the UK give 70%.

Remember in 5 years the market value of your car would have depreciated a bit (unless you own some sort of classic car that is in demand). So you will need to factor that in when looking at your cost of insurance in 5 years.

[Aroongupta]

Folks, if I am not wrong, if you claim for accidents, not only your no claim bonus goes the next year, you are also charged an 'overloading' to a maximum of 25% (I am not 100% sure if the figure is correct). So if you hit and claim, the next year you pay a higher premium than teh first year. The overloading also has slabs - something like 10%, 20%, 25% and depends on one of the two (again not sure - sorry) - either its the no. of claims you made in the year or a function of teh total claimed amount.

[srasania]

Originally Posted by GTO

My sister once smashed the car twice in the same year. Claimed both times. No problem at all.

Butttttttt I did miss out on the no-claim bonus....

GTO

Yes,you can claim more than once in a year..but your premium might increase by 5-10%,depending upon case to case basis by Insurance cos.
A single insurance claim in a year won't increase the premium for the next year,but 2 or more claims "can" increase the premium..I guess insurance cos. must be considering many factors,like the amount of damage,whether the claimants fault,or others fault,etc. and then deciding whether the premium remains same/increases a bit.
I got to know this from Tata AIG Claims Dept. customer care.
v12 - I don't think there is that limit that you can claim only upto the insured amount of the vehicle..but yeah - if the repair charges in a single claim are more than 75% of the IDV(Insured Declared Value),then insurance cos. will give a total loss.

sr

[sbasak]

In India, after accidents parties don't exchange their insurance details - rather they argue, shout and sometimes fight!

You can definitely make multiple claims in a year (till the limit of your insurance). But they will increase your next years premium accordingly.

Insurance claims in India is usually a battle with insurer. They often refused to pay the exact amount and will show you 101+ excuses.

[bigman]

I see what you are saying about accidents in India. I have seen a few fights.

Nothing different to UK insurance companies. They will offer you a price you would struggle to get a similar car for. Reject the offer a few times and they slowly increase the payout.

I was in India several years ago and some bloke hit a tree and died whilst on a motorbike. His family refused to move his body or the motorbike as they claimed he had life assurance and they wanted an assesor out from the insurance company to see the accident scene. So they sat their with his body and the insurance company denied they had received the premium (agent had not been passing the premiums on to them).

[tsk1979]

No claim bonus:
You do not make any claim, you get discount for next year
Third party insurance:
you hit someone. that someone sues you and wins, if you have 3rd party insurance you need not pay, your insurance will pay
Comprehensive:
You hit someone, or get hit, go to workshop, get the job done on your car and your insurance company pays

In India the most common is the comprehensive insurance, though law says any is okay. there is a second party insurance also which means you hit someone, your co-passenger gets injured and sues you. Your insurance pays.

As for claims, you can claim upto the value of vehicle insured, per incident. Suppose your brand new vehicle is insured. Now you paid 140000 rs for the 3.5lakh cover(approx). So your insurance company pays for that damage. In case of total loss they give you the (depreciated) cost of the car.

No of times:
I have used it 4 times in a really bad year, with no fuss from TATA AIG. It was the second year, but since all were paint and dent jobs, i ended up paying 500rs access cost + tax(200rs) for each job. total cost was 40000rs(1 fender, two doors, 1 doors, one fender).
So I guess you can keep using it.
My latest job hit the insurance company > 70K, and i ended up paying close to 20K due to the depreciation costs(Old car you see).

Accessories:
If you want they will. you will have to get separate cover for that.

so dont worry about finishing the cover. I have claimed 70K in one shunt though my car was insured by paying 8K(Old car, so low value). this 8K bought me 200000rs worth of insurance. If my damage would have been greater than 150000, I would have got total loss.

an important thing to note while buying insurance is that they should have cashless facility with your fav workshop.
No cashless means, you pay for the entire thing and then wait for the check. My firend did not have cashless. He had to pay workshop 100000 and then wait for the 96000 check which came after 2 months. Now thats a lot of money and if taken on a personal loan it will cost you 10K in interest!
If he had cashless, he would have to pay only 4K to workshop and take his car away.