Anyway, things are still dragging on and a court date has now been set in January to prove our case against the third party and their insurers. Happy with this as I wasn't prepared to accept a split settlement on blame - particularly as it would hit future renewals, depsite a protected NCB.
Anyway:
- the good news is that my insurers have said the economics of the case mean that they would prefer not to go to court, so they have asked me to accept an 80/20 split in my favour in return for full reinstatement of my NCB. In their letter they state that they believe we would have won the case! This will cost me about £160, which is cheaper than the cost of flying the AuPair back from Germany to be a witness at court, so this is probably going to be acceptable to me.
- the bad news is that it is renewal time and the price has gone up (even after allowing for removal of the AuPair from the multicar policy)
A little check online - involving applying for a policy in my wife's name rather than my own (for exactly the same cover arrangements on all three cars) results in a saving of almost £200 on the renewal price - so we are heading in the right direction.
However, I am still trying to work out how, when I have not made a claim for myself, that the premium for the B3S has jumped from £160 to £380, at the same time as my wife (who has had her photo taken once this year and had a carpark ding) has seen the premium on the Espace drop from £450 to £350.
My guess is that they just make it up as they go along and hope you don't check
Apparently the rating has changed but they can't possibly discuss price sensitive information. When I pointed out that, as far as I am aware, all 8 B3S Tourings in the UK haven't had any major claims made against them in the last twelve months, this seemed to fall on deaf ears ...