Third party insurer not playing fair, help with claim.

Third party insurer not playing fair, help with claim.

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sim16v

Original Poster:

2,176 posts

200 months

Wednesday 20th May 2015
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Basically, last year, a family member's car was parked in a back lane, two cars collided at a junction and one car carried on hitting family member's car.

His damaged car was recovered to a local garage and stored until it could be assessed for damage.

Rather than add to the ongoing escalation of insurance costs, family member claimed direct from the other party's insurance, and as he could borrow a vehicle short term, didn't ask for a replacement hire car whilst it was sorted.

Other party insurance wouldn't send an assessor to view the car, they wanted to take the car away, but as the family member thought it might be written off, he refused for it to be taken away, as years earlier, his car was taken away to be assessed, then lost in the system and sold to a salvage company, before anything had been agreed!

Anyway, other party insurance accepted this, and said to get a couple of quotes and pass the information on.

This was done, and the quotes were forwarded to the insurance company.

In the meantime, the insurance company also said they would not pay the storage costs, so the car had to be taxed again and parked, in it's damaged state, back on the road.

Despite a number of follow up phone calls, it took the other insurance company four months to come back with a reply, saying they would pay for quote X, but they had actually made a mistake on this, as they had missed off cost of the new parts at list price!


Due to the delays, my relative said that he had to replace his damaged vehicle, as it was a 4x4 used for towing a trailer.

A cheap replacement was bought, and is now in use.

The insurance company eventually came back with a revised offer, basically writing off the vehicle, and offering £50 as a gesture to cover the delay, cost of recovery, storage, and replacement vehicles!

As you can imagine, family member was furious with this, so put an official complaint to the insurance company, stating that he would go to the Ombudsman.

They basically came back re stating their previous offer as their final offer, and included information to contact the Ombudsman.


My family member has now been on to the Ombudsman, and it turns out that they have no control/sway over a third party insurance company when you are trying to claim, and the Ombudsman said that the Insurer would have known this from the beginning, and was giving misleading information by giving the Ombudsman contact details.

The Ombudsman said that the only way to resolve the matter would be the small claims court, so, to the crux of the matter.

If my relative was to claim, what would he expect to get?

The Ombudsman website says that for use of a replacement vehicle, you should be entitled to a minimum of £10 per day compensation, plus the cost of depreciation on a temporary replacement vehicle if one is purchased.


He would go to an accident management company, but as no injuries happened, would they take the case on?

If not, he is happy to go to the small claims court, but would he be successful in his claim?

He'd be looking for:

Write off value/repair value of car
Recovery
Storage
Costs for replacement vehicle.


So, I ask the knowledgeable folk of Pistonheads, how should this be progressed?