Car & Bike When should you claim car insurance?

renegade

Staff member
Super Mod
Till what point/cost is it advisable to bear the cost of repair yourself instead of going to the insurance company?

I have a dent on the i20 dicky door and it is not opening anymore. I was told it will take around 8K to repair and paint the door or I can claim insurance and get the door replaced.

The ordeal also involved a minor tearing of the front bumper clips. Something I can live with but if I am taking insurance then will get that replaced too.

Looking at the no claim bonus indicative table the benefit is not significant for my case to bear the cost myself.
 
8K is from authorized service centers? If they say it can be repaired ... Then even insurance auditing guys will ask you to go for repair instead of replacement. Look for local auto garages where they will do similar jobs and get quote from them. My personal experience is, local guys are lot cheaper and work finishing also not bad either, you can avoid insurance claim to...
 
But keep in mind to make a fast decision. The window for claiming insurance is within 7 days after the incident. I came across this info through the guys at Lakozy Toyota, Malad.
 
^I tried passing off a month old dent as a new one, but the service advisors were quick to point that it looks atleast 3-4 weeks old just by having a careful look at it. He clearly stated that it is highly unlikely that would be cleared by the insurance Inspector.
 
What is the point of getting insurance cover if I cannot claim it?
(I am a n00b in insurance)

You get a discount for not having ever claimed anything. If the cost of the repair is lower than that bonus, better to pay for it yourself instead of losing that bonus for however many future renewal payments.
 
You get a discount for not having ever claimed anything. If the cost of the repair is lower than that bonus, better to pay for it yourself instead of losing that bonus for however many future renewal payments.
Do Car insurances have yearly payments like life insurance?

And is this "No claim bonus" paid yearly or only at the end of the term period?
 
Do Car insurances have yearly payments like life insurance?

And is this "No claim bonus" paid yearly or only at the end of the term period?

Yes. Car insurance premiums are paid for a year. No claim bonus is more of a discount. e.g., if your insurance payment is Rs 50,000 per year, and you have no claims in the first year, they will give you a 10% discount for the next year. The longer you go with no claims, the discount keeps increasing every year.

(IIRC, this is how it works in India. In other countries, your discounts are also tied to your driving record.)
 
^I tried passing off a month old dent as a new one, but the service advisors were quick to point that it looks atleast 3-4 weeks old just by having a careful look at it. He clearly stated that it is highly unlikely that would be cleared by the insurance Inspector.
Did your claim got rejected? Anyways these are learning... Its not difficult task to make the damage as new one... next time please do that:)
 
Till what point/cost is it advisable to bear the cost of repair yourself instead of going to the insurance company?

I have a dent on the i20 dicky door and it is not opening anymore. I was told it will take around 8K to repair and paint the door or I can claim insurance and get the door replaced.

The ordeal also involved a minor tearing of the front bumper clips. Something I can live with but if I am taking insurance then will get that replaced too.

Looking at the no claim bonus indicative table the benefit is not significant for my case to bear the cost myself.

Yours is a tricky situation in which getting the replacement or going to the company make no sense.

If you go for a replacement, then there will be a mismatch in the colour, and then when you sell the car, the vehicle will be classified as accidental by the buyer, and you lose a lot of money. Same if you keep the reciepts.

So get it done from an outside garage.


8K is from authorized service centers? If they say it can be repaired ... Then even insurance auditing guys will ask you to go for repair instead of replacement. Look for local auto garages where they will do similar jobs and get quote from them. My personal experience is, local guys are lot cheaper and work finishing also not bad either, you can avoid insurance claim to...

Nope sir. They will not. They will just process the claim.


What is the point of getting insurance cover if I cannot claim it?
(I am a n00b in insurance)

You get a discount for not having ever claimed anything. If the cost of the repair is lower than that bonus, better to pay for it yourself instead of losing that bonus for however many future renewal payments.

This.

Do Car insurances have yearly payments like life insurance?

And is this "No claim bonus" paid yearly or only at the end of the term period?

Yes. Car insurance premiums are paid for a year. No claim bonus is more of a discount. e.g., if your insurance payment is Rs 50,000 per year, and you have no claims in the first year, they will give you a 10% discount for the next year. The longer you go with no claims, the discount keeps increasing every year.

(IIRC, this is how it works in India. In other countries, your discounts are also tied to your driving record.)

This again.
 
Nope sir. They will not. They will just process the claim.
Its not insurance auditing or evaluation guys job alone... If there is a possibility to repair and the process is cheaper then replacement, then definitely they will insist that. As you said if they had to just process the claim, then will approve all the unrealistic estimation given by the garage people :)
 
All my insurance has been from the guys who sell the car itself, so they assist in getting insurance.

If you have bought it separately, well, good luck to you.
 
the guys who sell the car itself
This says everything...

good luck to you
Thank you :)
OT... Next time when you renew it, please look around other options as well...you can save considerable amount of money without having any difficulty in the claim process... In my 7 years of experience, always felt the dealer are over quoting by marketing some stupid things like cashless claim or you just drop the car, we will take care everything... Just for record, my last renewal.. the dealer quoted 44K and i\ve done outside for 26K with higher IDV then what is the dealer suggested insurance.
 
What I wanna know is, how can you limit the number of claims that can be raised and have a window within which the consumer has to apply for a claim.
What if one lives in an area full of morons who constantly come and dash into his car, for no apparent mistake of his he will be penalised and then insurance company will not even accept his claims after a preset number of claims. I wanna know how is this system helpful from the consumers POV.
 
I believe you should always claim insurance. Perhaps not for every minor bump or scratch (most insurance companies will have max no. of claims in a year) but certainly every 6 months or so, get some work done on the most heavily damaged portion of the car (may be a collection of minor damages collected over time) and claim insurance. What you save by getting a no-claim bonus is hardly substantial in most cases.

My experience is to always go to private insurers (not the insurance sold by the car companies), go for cashless option (always, at least you wont get saddled with a big bill if your claim gets rejected) and never to report an incident on their help line till just before turning in the car (so they wont technically know when the accident actually happened).
 
So I went ahead with the insurance claim. The bill was for 11.5K. Got a shiny new front bumper too besides getting the dent fixed. :D
 
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