Dear fellow Eriba owners,

Following the damage incurred to my 530 during a recent excursion (covered in my post maiden voyage...) I have submitted a claim to my insurers, Eric Pickles, who are underwritten by MB&G. I have now had a curt email reply requesting further information in order to validate my claim. One of the requests is for a copy of the CRIS certificate.....

I am aware of what CRIS provides and my understanding is that it is not a pre requisite for insurance. I didn't think the process was worth it, especially as my van is always under close control with ample security and I declared that it wasn't CRIS registered when I took the policy out. However, I know that insurers will try anything to evade liability. On checking my policy schedule it lists CRIS/serial number the / being of possible useful relevance should the claims handler choose to make an issue of this.

I would value any advice or experience any of you may have had regarding this potential issue - hopefully my concern will not materialise but my suspicion is based on why they would ask for something like this when it has no bearing whatsoever on the claim and it should be clear if they check my schedule that the van is not CRIS registered.

Thanks all

D

Hi Randa,

Thanks for your response.

I'm confident that I covered the absence of CRIS registration and I can not find anything to the contrary in the paperwork. Re the obvious question you ask - I am asking exactly the same. The van wasn't stolen so it has no bearing on the claim. I suspect it may be an excuse to invalidate my claim.

I will catch up with the CRIS thread but I am satisfied I made an informed decision not to have it registered. In my opinion it only provides an added means of identifying a van post theft. As we know theres very little police resources to investigate such matters, so I decided to spend my money on securing my van to prevent theft. - I clamp both wheels and the hitch with different recognised security devices. Separately I would also consider a tracker before CRIS registration.

I shall see what happens when I provide the quote and purchase receipt etc.

Cheers

D

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for your response - it provides me with some reassurance and suggests that CRIS is not a requirement throughout the caravan insurance industry. I think I may be being a little over concerned. Probably due to a bad experience I had years ago when my landrover defender was stolen from my driveway. It took me six months of battling before they settled - basically I had to prove I wasn't complicit in the theft of my own vehicle! One accusation they posed was they couldn't understand why I didn't hear the thieves and intervene whilst they were quietly uplifting my defender (I was in bed at the time)... think the experience has left me scarred. But hey ho I'm still hear to tell the tale - I was quite a fit unit back then and would have confronted anyone messing with my beloved Landy but may have come off 2nd best against a team of Gypsies.
Anyhow I digress. I value your experience - it makes me 'prepared for any battle'..

'Don't tell em your name Pike!'

I was with the caravan club and CRiS registration was not required, however as they were always very expensive I wanted to use another insurance company.When I asked most lot of them insisted with CRiS registration. Eventually I got my 2015 Eriba CRiS registered, the cost of the registration was soon paid back with the saving. Unfortunately non UK made vans are not automatically CRiS registered like the UK made vans which causes the problem, I hope you get it all sorted.

Earlier this year I had nearly £7k repair claim sorted with no reference to Cris, I'm with C
MC insurance and my recent renewal only went up by just about £30 which amazed me
Edit : should have said it was my caravan insurance
Having had a slight, and I mean in my case it polished out, coming together in a car park my car insurance went up nearly £150

Amazing! 😆

When we told our car insurers that we had a tow hook on the car and would be towing a caravan, we received a REBATE !!!

Work that one out.

Towergate have sent out my renewal, I feel they don't want my custom.

Their quote is 25% more than one of the best companies on the comparision sites. I know the polices and cover are like for like because both are Towergate... That's 2 years in a row that has happened.

As a member of the Camping & Caravan Club I see the cover may be better and their quotes fit between the 2 from Towergate. Anyone recomend the ClubCare cover?

I might add I was asked if I had CRIS but wasn't a requirement to get a quote.

Hi Big Al

We use Camping & Caravan Club to insure our Troll 540GT. My experience with them has been strange. At the first renewal it fell in price fairly significantly; and then gone up a bit, & then gone up a bit again. This year it went up by over 20% which was a shock. I rang them and spent an age getting through. After a long conversation the only way I could get a significant reduction was by changing my cover, which I refused to do. I eventually got a £10 reduction

When I got the paperwork I could see that they had altered the company I was insured with from the one I had always been with, which wasn't mentioned. I also asked them to change some personal details which they made a note of. When I got my documents these had not been changed.

This happened at a time when we had a lot of things on. I have made up my mind not to use them again despite being a long-standing club member.

I have to say that until this year I have been happy with them but I have never made a claim. This is just my experience, yours may be totally different

Good luck
MikeT

I was with the caravan club insurance for a long time, I got a shock when I realised they were only insuring my 2015 Familia for the basic price which was £14000. I pointed them to Lowdhams website which showed them more than £20,000 to buy new. The quote went up to well over £500, I went with CarvanGuard which was £200 cheaper.

Quote: Sportique wrote in post #11

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When we told our car insurers that we had a tow hook on the car and would be towing a caravan, we received a REBATE !!!

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