Help / advice – Car insurance claim

My wife has had a bump in her car – someone in the supermarket scraped along the rear wing and bumper while parking. It’s clear cut, wife was looking on at the time and it’s clearly the other person’s fault. However, they want it to go through insurance and have given details even though it’s prob only a few hundred quid.

So, my wife called her insurers (the AA) this am and they tried to push her to Claimfast. Well, it rang an alarm bell over something I’d read here before about car hire cost scams and the like so we declined it. So now the AA have said they can progress the repair and ‘try’ and get the excess back from the third party, or we can just contact the third party / their insurers direct and try to sort it out with them. Which to me seems like the best bet – might be more hassle initially but we shouldn’t have to fork out our excess and then pester the AA to get it back ‘if they feel like it’.

Anyone in insurance who can advise / got any experience of the like? Last claim either of us had we just called our Ins Co and they handled it, none of these 3rd party claim support companies or ‘evasiveness’ over whether we’d get our excess covered, just a straight ‘leave it to us, we’ll fix it’ followed by a call from a nearby garage arranging to send an assessor.

I dealt directly with the other parties insurer. As long as their insurer calls and says ‘yep their insured’s fault’. I found it very very quick to resolve.

I imagine using someone such as Claimfast will be drawn out, with a hire car for your leisurely use for quite a while.

Good call on avoiding Claimfast. I used to be with the AA & got duped into letting them deal with the whole affair. Never again! 🙄

Claimfast are much like most other “accident management” companies & make their money through claims fees, introduction fees & commissions on things such as credit hire.

Credit hire is very costly to the insurance industry & has got to the point where insurance co’s are fighting back – any claimant is expected (under the terms of their policy and in common law) to mitigate the loss as much as practical & not increase it via unnecessary expense. This is where some folk come unstuck – you, the end user, sign the credit hire agreement but the management co endeavour to recoup the cost form the third party. If they fail, the agreement states that you are responsible for any shortfall.

If the car is driveable I’d stick with it and have the repairs carried out by a bodyshop that will provide a courtesy vehicle. Even taking this route, you should be able to use Claimfast to get your excess back WITHOUT the need to use their vehicle hire facility.

Alternatively, you could simply contact the third party’s insurer yourself & ask them if they’d like to deal with the claim directly – they may welcome this.

They sounded too good to be true, which in my mind means one thing….

seems like their MO is that they collect your car and take it off for repairs and provide you with a hire car in the meantime. Which they charge a management fee for. Then the repair takes aeons to do (bodyshop really busy / can’t get the parts, etc.) so the extended hire x the management fee is where they make the money. Which they then claim off the third parties insurers, who fight back, ending according to some examples in court cases where the innocent party has to attend to justify why they needed the car, etc.

I just called them to cancel, and was frankly lied to on the phone about losing NCD, excess, etc. if we decide to go direct. Nasty.

Going direct to their insurer may keep the overall cost of the claim down which is good as we all pay for all accidents.
The real shitter is that you will now have to declare the claim for the next five years, which will almost certainly up your premium, even though it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t you who claimed.

This is one thing forgot to mention. Calculate quotes on confused.com – one with the claim/not fault one without and x5 the difference. Print and keep this to show as evidence/proof to the other parties insurer. Ask for this additional sum to be included in the settlement.

Thread rebump; more advice needed

So we told the other party that we were happy to deal direct with their insurers and got the details. Then they called back to say that having thought about the impact on their excess and NCD, they were considering paying for the repair. So we offered to take it to a local bodyshop for an indicative quote. They said they’d think on it and get back to us.

Now a week’s passed and we haven’t had an answer and aren’t getting responses to the calls and texts we’re sending. We just want a simple instruction to go direct or through their repairer. I’d have thought if you’d knocked in someone’s rear (fnarr) and been caught in the act you’d want to sort it out reasonably, ignoring it won’t make it go away!! Was possibly prepared to give some grace because it was half term week and people go away (although it’s a mobile number we have) but the kids have been back a week now.

So – do we go direct to their insurer and let them worry about the aftermath (will they even deal with us, without confirmation from the third party?)

Or get a quote done, send it to them (registered post, etc.) and inform them that if we don’t hear one way or the other then we’ll be getting the work done and sending the bill to them. I’m guessing at a few hundred, so if necessary that’s a small claims matter if they still keep ignoring it, yes?

Its a good solution, but don’t you need to get a quote for repair as you agreed? Just do that and call them with the ‘number’.

Tell the bodyshop its a payment, not insurance – and make sure its paid BEFORE you take the car in.

I have just e mailed you.

Sorry, reading your new post I think you have to go through your insurer.

Do you have anything in writing (i.e. email) conversation with the other driver?

Email/call them – leave a message stating what has happened to date and that you are going through the insurers now.

They may comeback asap- if they do ask them for £400 to end the hassle/close it off.

If not – straight through your insurer. They may battle this however if you just walked away some tossers just cost YOU money. Remember to factor in any potential premium hikes for you into your sides claim.

I managed to make a successful and quick claim going straight to the third party’s insurer. The story goes… I had a driver crash into the back of my car while it was parked outside my house last month. He then tried to drive away, got to the end of the road, abandoned his vehicle and fled. This happened in the early hours of sunday morning and I got woken by the police at the door, having reports of a abandoned vehicle and then seeing my car they put two and two together and chapped my door. When they told me my heart sank because… I’m 19. my first years insurance was £2600 and my second £900 (54 Ibiza 1.2 might I add). All paid for by my income.
So it looked kind of obvious he had been drink driving, oh I forgot to say it was his works van!! (I won’t mention who but it was a small local landscaping company). So the police took my details, contacted the company and told me that the boss said he would find out who was responsible for the van over the weekend and get back to the police on monday. I was actually quite surprised that the police left it at this because for all they knew the driver could have been lying in a ditch somewhere. So I phoned my insurance company and they asked wither I wanted to wait to see if the third party accepted liability or claim through my insurance. If I had claimed through my insurance I would have had a £500 excess to pay, then I would have lost my no claims, had to buy a new car and I don’t even want to think what my insurance would have been. Basically I would have been f**ked. By the way, from here on out I heard nothing from the police, not a word, not a follow up, nothing. I understand that it might not be the most important case in the world, but to me, if I hadn’t had a good outcome it would have been a disaster. For someone with family and friends in the police force I was a little dissapointed. Anyway, I phoned the landscaping company and they told me that the driver hadn’t turned up for work but they were not accepting liability because they didn’t know 100% that it was him driving. Ok fair enough. I told my insurance company this, they admitted it didn’t look good for him. I phoned again Tuesday they said he still hadn’t shown up for work, I asked for their insurance details and they very rudely said that they would not give me them. So I told my insurance company this and they said if I had the vans registration they could find their insurer and not have to deal with the landscaping company at all. Luckily a neighbour had taken it, so they contact them and I got a phone call on wednesday afternoon saying that their insurance company had been in contact with the landscaping company and been told that the van had been reported stolen… on wednesday… 3 days after it “was stolen”. And they couldn’t provide a police incident number. Fishy. Then on friday I received a phone call from the vans insurance company asking for my details and anything I knew about the incident. They told me that the van has been stolen and they may not be responsible for it. This is dragging on so I’ll wrap it up… I had to repeatedly tell their insurance company all the things that did not add up about the crash, felt as if I was going no where, pointless phone call after pointless phone call. Then nearly two weeks later my insurance company phoned me and said that they had spoke to the other insurance company and they would pay out for the claim, that I was to deal with them directly and it would not go through my insurance at all. So I did, they got me a courtesy car that day, had a guy come to assess the car a week later, was written off, got the car picked up a week after that and a cheque a few days later. And that’s it over.

Really they shouldn’t have paid out if I was stolen I’m sure, but I got a result so, as happy as I could be under the circumstances. Was my first car as well, loved it, didn’t want it to end like that!!

Your situation is a bit simpler than mine, same situation with it being quite clear who’s fault it is. I definitely did not want to pay my excess. It took me a lot of persistence to get that result. Keep on their tail and keep chasing it up, I wouldn’t leave it up to the insurance company.

Maybe this story is a little irrelevant but I thought I’d share!! haha

I had a no fault bump a couple of years ago. Own insurance co passed me around personal injury firms and credit hire firms it didn’t seem interested in sorting the car. Told them all to ram it, called 3rd parties insurer and explains Id prefer to play with a straight bat, they took the car, provided a courtesy car and even sent a cheque for several hundred pounds to replace child seats that were in the car at the time of the accident (tho not occupied) couldn’t have been easier. Very disappointed withy own (premium branded) insurer

That sounds like individual Police officer incompetence as I’m sure other forces would be looking for the driver as a matter of course.

Why don’t you put in a complaint regarding this at your local station with the Inspector?

Its a good solution, but don’t you need to get a quote for repair as you agreed? Just do that and call them with the ‘number’.

Not exactly – we said we would if they wanted us to, and they said they’d think about it. However, my wife through a local business network knows a lady whose husband runs a local bodyshop, so we have sent photos and a description and they’ve estimated the cost at between £500 and £800 depending on whether the wing needs pulling out or replacing. So it’s that ballpark that we’ve suggested (by text) as an ‘indicative’ price for sorting it out privately and that they’re ‘mulling over’ vs the cost of their excess and NCD.

Whatever the case, we’re not happy to just take a cash settlement and that be it. We want to be above board; if they want to settle it privately (without involving their insurance) then we’ll take it for a proper written quote and will expect them to foot the bill when the work’s done.

That sounds like individual Police officer incompetence as I’m sure other forces would be looking for the driver as a matter of course.

Why don’t you put in a complaint regarding this at your local station with the Inspector?

You are right, I was annoyed about it. Someone crashed into my car, fled the scene of a crime, and did not report an incident. They should really have found out who was responsible for the van that day, went straight to his house and breathalysed him. Rather than give him time to sober up/come up with a story. That’s assuming it was him and the van was not stolen! But what could really come out of filing a complaint? Saying that I suppose I wouldn’t like to think this happens a lot, picking and choosing what crimes to chase up!

If they havent bothered to respond, I go through your insurance and get them to claim off theirs.
We had similar, someone bumped our car, admited liability, we exchanged details, got a quote through our insurers and claimed off the third party’s insurance, after giving her the option to pay herself.
Personally I’d rather go through the insurance as it can’t be wriggled out of. Say they agree to pay for the repairs and refuse to pay the bill once the work is carried out, what do you do then?

Saying that I suppose I wouldn’t like to think this happens a lot, picking and choosing what crimes to chase up!

It has to though doesn’t it?
Unless we’re prepared to pay out for a massive increase in police resource, they’ll always need to triage all reports of a crime being committed.

…we’ll be getting the work done and sending the bill to them…

DO

NOT

DO

THIS.

Because they won’t pay, and why would they?

You will have no ‘evidence’ that your car was ever damaged to go through the insurance, and no contract that they have to honour so they don’t have to pay it.

It has to though doesn’t it?
Unless we’re prepared to pay out for a massive increase in police resource, they’ll always need to triage all reports of a crime being committed.

DUI + Crash ontop isn’t treated lightly though by the Police though. The Police were there/at the door. So not ‘somewhere else answering a domestic’….

cheers to Margin Walker; now sorted on course of action.

Go on….

No, that was between me and he. He’s a pro and it’s up to him if he wants to make his advice freely available on the web or not.

You’ve hired a hitman? 😯