Car insurance - why are we being ripped off?

Living in France, one particular year my rate shot up because although through no fault of my own in the previous five years an above neighbour had two leaks and my car was made a write off while parked legally. These were counted against me even though they were amicably settled with the other parties’ insurance paying everything. I did shop around but in every case I had to declare the previous five years so they pricing was the same. I don’t know if it is like this in the UK though.

We had the same issue Rosina, fortunately our insurer didn't increase the premiums but they did insist on logging it as a claim. Makes it very hard to do the right thing for sure.

It seems I'm far from alone - and it gets worse, because having asked them to re classify my 'claim that wasn't' as a notification, it seems that this would potentially make the premium even higher . Insurance companies will put up the cost for a 'non fault' claim, but charge even more for a 'notification of incident', which they then classify as a 'worst case scenario' as they 'don't have all the facts'. This in spite of my telling them exactly what happened, the details of the other driver, and the fact that neither of us would be claiming. It's a really underhand way of making money from customers. I am disgusted with this as there seems to be no way round it other than to change insurance companies, but the same information flags up if you try - and I have! I also reported this to the Insurance Ombudsman, whose attitude was 'this is what they do'. Great!

I am with Sheila's Wheels and have been for some time. Every year I do a check around and every year they come up the best value...most years it drops a little. Even the year a white van man swiped off my wing mirror and I notified them, my premium was unaffected. Similar with my home insurance, marks and spencer I claimed when I had an accident with my very expensive laptop, no problem with claim and no rise in premium.

My mum had the same thing happen to her but her so called friendly neighbour decided to go through insurance and then mum found she didn’t have protected NCD. Her renewal came through and on a comparison site she got the premium down by over £200. When she called her insurance company to cancel, they offered her the lower figure too! It was too late by then as she had committed to the new company. I understand that the law is being changed so loyal customers are treated the same as new customers. This however may make premiums higher for all. Change insurance companies but look out for fees that may charge for changes such as address if you’re likely to move.

Long story coming:
I had a similar issue with house insurance last month due to a water leak that flooded the garden & spun the meter for an entire week. We had to keep going out into the street to turn off at the main whenever water was not reqd, eg overnight etc.
I rang the insurance company only for advice really but they took it upon themselves to register it as a claim! They were very unhelpful & pathetic but shortly afterwards I found a local plumber who dug down and mended the pipe. I paid him myself without making an insurance claim after all!
As I was on the cusp of renewing for 2021/2022 my new insurance quote was massively increased because of my call so I shopped around. As soon as I’d cancelled my original unhelpful insurer, abracadabra they came back with a really really low re-quote & the removal of “restrictions” in connection with any future leaks . Too late Buster I’d gone elsewhere and no way was I going to unravel that.
The moral of this tale is never to talk to your insurers unless you intend to stake a claim or as the OP wisely recommends, just make a “notification “. Before you ring them assess the situation because you’ll get clobbered even when you pay for the work or repair yourself & don’t make ANY claim at all!

They go on the theory that if your car is hit you were in the wrong for leaving it where this could happen!

The advice is to change insurers each year, or at least argue the raised price.