Making a motor insurance claim

Get help fast with our 24/7 claims helplines

How do I claim on my motor insurance?

In the unfortunate event that you need to make a claim on your car or van insurance  we have a dedicated claims team ready to take your call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For more information on what happens when you make a claim, please click here.  

Phone
Claims helpline

0344 412 2127

RAC with Budget Insurance
Breakdown helpline

0330 332 8468

Useful information to have when calling us

Policy reference number
Policy number

9 characters in length.

Crime reference
Police reference number

Only if a crime has been reported.

Windscreen damage

If your windscreen has been damaged and you need it either repairing or replacing,
please use the buttons below to book a repair or call Auto Windscreens.

What to do if you have an accident

As we all know accidents can and do happen. If you are one of the unlucky ones
and are involved in an accident you need to know what your responsibilities are.

Frequently asked questions

No, you do not need to make an insurance claim for all incidents, it’s up to you whether you want to claim on your insurance or pay for any damage to your vehicle yourself.

Depending on the level of excess you have on your policy, for some smaller repairs it may be cheaper to pay for the repairs yourself rather than claiming and paying the initial excess cost.

If you’ve had insurance for a number of years without having to make a claim, you may also have built up several years of No Claims Discount (NCD). This could potentially be more valuable for you to keep so that you benefit from the NCD discount on your insurance premium overall.

What happens to your NCD will depend on the type of claim you’re making.

If you’re claiming a non-fault claim where recovery can be made, or for repair work, for example to a chipped windscreen, then it is unlikely to affect your No Claims Discount, you will just be required to pay any relevant excess.

If you’re claiming a fault claim or a non-fault claim where recovery can’t be made your NCD will be affected as shown below:

  • If you have 5 or more years NCD your NCD will reduce to 3 years
  • If you have less than 5 years your NCD will reduce by 2 years

If you have 4 or more years NCD, we may be able to protect it for you for an additional cost. This means that if you make a claim during the year we won’t reduce your NCD unless you are unfortunate enough to make 2 claims over a 3 year period. 

If you find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance where your vehicle has been stolen, call the police and file a police report immediately. You will be provided with a ‘crime reference number’.

Once you have a crime reference number, contact our claims helpline for further support. The following information would be useful to have to hand:

  • Your full name, address and date of birth
  • Your crime reference number

We’re currently experiencing a high volume of calls into our contact centre and whilst we are doing our very best to maintain service levels, we ask that you only call our contact centre if absolutely necessary so we can keep our phone lines available  for vulnerable customers and those who don’t have access to online services.

If you need to check any details or make a change to your policy, please  log in to your Self-Service Centre. It will be much quicker for you to make changes to your policy online at the moment. Once logged in, you can also use our Webchat service which is available Monday- Saturday 8am-6pm and Sunday 10am-4pm to make changes, accept or decline your renewal or if you need to let us know about a claim. To log in, please click here.

We also have some other information that may be useful. Click here to read our FAQ’s, and information on what we are doing to support key workers can be found here.