Do I need to declare this claim when applying for insurance?

[Ruggerbugger]

In May I hit a stationary car in a company car park whilst doing my job in a company van (separate companies). A claim was made against my company insurance policy. Some people have told me that I don't need to declare this claim when renewing my private insurance policy as, in their opinion, the accident occurred in a private car park. What I'm not sure of is firstly, whether the car park is private or not as there are no barriers to entry from the public road; secondly whether the "private land" issue makes a difference anyway.

I did report the incident to my insurer at the time, and it has made a difference to my renewal premium. The private car park issue has come up since, and I'm not sure whether to put it in when I'm shopping around.

If anyone has proper legal knowledge here, I'd appreciate your advice, or point me towards something official.

[peterb]

Not legally trained, but "You should declare anything hat might materially affect the underwriters decision to offer insurance"

Does an accident affect that? Well if it doesn't they will take no notice. If it does, then it has to be declared.

More to the point - if you don't declare it, and you have an accident and it is subsequently discovered, your insurance may be invalidated, and the claim rejected.

Declare it and let the insurer decide if it is material or not.

[finlay666]

You declared it, your insurance company knows about it, IMO it's fraud to say it hasn't happened. I don't think it affects NCB on your private policy as that wasn't what it was claimed against.... but the claim was still made

[Ruggerbugger]

That's basically what I've done. From the quotes I've got, it's adding between £70 and £100 to the premium. According to what I've read on police and insurance forms, the law was changed in the early '90s so that it's only private land if public access is barred somehow.

[Betty_Swallocks]

If a claim was made I think you'd need to declare it. You don't want to give them any excuse to reject a future claim because they will grab onto anything they can.

[MadduckUK]

If a claim was made I think you'd need to declare it. You don't want to give them any excuse to reject a future claim because they will grab onto anything they can.

and there are loads and loads of stationary objects around, so i wouldn't take the risk.

[Saracen]

....

If anyone has proper legal knowledge here, I'd appreciate your advice, or point me towards something official.

There is no point in not declaring it, and every reason to declare it.

Let me explain.

An insurance contract relies on a far more onerous standard than most contracts, and is known as "utmost good faith", or "uberrimae fidei" is you want the Latin. What it means is that both parties have a duty to disclose any facts that may be material to the other.

In your case, the relevant point is whether the insurer regards those details as relevant, not whether you do. So if you have any reason to think they might so consider it, you need to tell them.

Consider the alternatives.

1) You do tell them and it's not relevant, so they ignore it. You lose nothing by telling them.

2) You don't tell them, and it was relevant. If they find out later, it is grounds for voiding the contract, whjich will mean it is as if the contract never existed. If they've already paid a claim, they can reclaim it, and if you have a claim pending, they can deny it. YOu will be on your own.

Now consider the implications of 2). YOU have an accident, and do £30,000 of damage to someone else's car. You, personally, will be liable for that, and with no insurance, you'll probably end up in court if you can't (or don't) pay up. Oh, and you get to fork out for your own car too.

And if all you damage is the cars, consider yourself lucky. Suppose there's a personal injury claim too. Suppose you hurt someone so badly that they end up physically disabled for life, and unable to work. The claim then almost certainly will run into the high hundreds of thousands, and could be over a million pounds. And you are still personally liable for it.


So, back to the options. If you don't need to tell them and do anyway, you lose nothing. If you should have told then and didn't, and the worst happens .... resulting in them doing checks that reveals what you didn't disclose ... well, the downside is potentially HUGE.


Rarely do I dispense actual advise, but this is an exception. Tell them. If it costs you in a bit of extra premium, well, so be it. But it's one hell of an enormous gamble to not tell them.

In my opinion, the Golden Rule is to declare anything they they might think relevant, even if you don't, and to think quite hard for anything you may have missed.


As always, I am not a lawyer and the above is opinion only not advice, save for the advice to tell them, because it's not worth the risk not to.