Windshield Repair Forum

We probably all know that windshield/screen repairs are NOT free even if Belron /Autoglass make the public assume it is but last night a popular BBC consumer show brought it to the attention of the general public ...it may be relevant to everyone worldwide it could also be a relevant marketing tool ..basically don't tell your insurance company diddly squat


summarised version
"Deciding whether to make a claim on your insurance can be a bit of a mind field - What's covered? What's the excess? How will it affect No Claims Discounts? A quick call to your insurer should help - but beware. Even if you decide NOT to make a claim, your call could still be logged on your history, and count against you in the future.

As Simon Clayton discovered. He took out car insurance with Budget Insurance in June, but just weeks into his cover they cancelled his policy saying it was because he had failed to disclose two previous claims. The problem was he hadn't made any.

"I phoned up my previous insurer, Swift, and they told me one was for a windscreen repair and one was a notification from where I'd driven into a pothole," explains Simon.

The windscreen repair was provided free as part of his cover and didn't affect his No Claims. And the pothole had caused no damage and was just to get a reference number for his local council. But Swiftcover had logged the incidents on Simon's history AND told Budget all about them. Why?

David Hertzell from the Law Commission explains: "Insurer's are in the risk business, they are looking at you as a policy holder as a risk to them. So they want to know about claims that you've made, but they also want to know about other thing as well, including circumstances that may have happened but didn't result in a claim. And this is your record this will travel with you whichever insurance company you're with"

Budget did offer to reinstate Simons' policy - but they demanded £500 more, double their original quote, which Simon cannot afford. And what's more having a cancelled policy on his record meant he was unable to get affordable car insurance from anyone - leaving him without transport and his car parked constantly on his mum's drive.

And Simon's case isn't a one off. Insurers share this kind of information about us all the time."

here's the link for the full expose ..http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/201 ... sions.html

Nice one Zander, I have been shouting about that for more years than I can remember, nice that the BBC are catching up.

It was Paul from the other forum that brought up the subject ..but its the fact that all you need to do is ASK if you are covered for a simple thing like a windscreen chip and you have actually made a claim

This article says a lot about the current standards, insurance companies are operating at. The risk of an error is now very high, but it always falls in their favour. Like the same as credit databases, it always worth periodically checking what is on this CUE database. I have had personal experience with Swiftcover insurance and whilst I would say they are one of the better companies I have used, they were still prone to making errors, mostly human. I also would assume that databases like CUE are used around the world.

This is another reason why for the last 5 years I have encouraged people not to take the so called free option.

With very good reason ...not only are punters fooled into phoning in to report damage ..bad move ...then the premium rises or doubles or they don't even offer a quote ..so how do we get the message out that free repairs are basically REALLY EXPENSIVE ..over to you Brent..

Word of mouth or very expensive advertising, I prefer the former. I must add at this point I do very little retail work, preferring the type of customer where I can do a lot of jobs each visit.

I'm sure we all stress enough to customers that "free windscreen repairs" are not free and will cost them for years to come, although getting that point across will be a challenge for some time to come.

Chip1 did I miss your intro?

A whole lotta hulabuloo about nothing,