Car-Insurance-UK-Supermarket.co.uk
compare online quotes the easy way
|
||||
|
||||
New legislation will enhance car insurance consumers' rights18 May 2011by Janice May The Government is considering a change to the rules governing car insurance policies that would put the onus on the insurer to gather all the information they need from their customers. At present, that onus is on the customer to disclose all relevant information. The change would tighten up the information gathered by insurers to ensure that all relevant areas are accurately recorded. The consumer would need to be truthful in their responses but could no longer be held accountable for non-disclosure to the insurer of material facts if the insurer had not clearly asked about these. The move is intended to prevent insurers from turning down claims where the consumer unintentionally gives the wrong information to the insurance company although claims will still be invalid where an application has been fraudulent, as, for example with the 'fronted' policy. According to Endsleigh Insurance that reported on this issue, the Law Commission has estimated that the change could result in insurance companies paying up to £20m more in insurance claims (excluding life insurance). However, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) says that the figure would be much less and that the insurance industry is already working on improvements to their information gathering when people apply for insurance. The insurance industry has been working hard to reduce fraudulent car insurance applications as well. The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) regularly alerts individual insurers to cases of suspected fronting (typically, where an over 25 pretends to be the primary driver for an under 25) while insurers themselves look out for fronting and regularly refuse claims where it is detected, entirely lawfully. The Government this year will be giving insurance companies access to the DVLA data in relation to whether drivers have points on their license; so non-disclosure of this will soon not be possible. While the insurer's access to this data will require the consumer's consent, withholding of that consent would generally result in a refusual by the insurer to insure them. In addition, the industry is already sharing previous claims data and the car insurance applicant should not assume that his insurer will not check up on his record of past claims, rendering non-disclosure unwise with the potential risk that the consumer will be black-listed as dishonest which could render future insurance applications problematic. Of course, the public's perception of the insurance industry is often that it will seize every opportunity to deny claims even where the grounds for so-doing are limited or challengeable. Clearly, the aim of this new legislation is to force insurance companies to 'play fair' with their customers and not refuse claims on the basis of what might reasonably be construed as an innocent oversight. As we've reported on extensively in this blog, however, fraud is extremely common in car insurance applications as well as claims and it might be argued that anything that stengthens the consumer's hand may provide greater and new opportunities for personal gain by deception; something the industry has been working hard to counter. |
||||
|
