Accident - Insurance Timescales
Discussion
My wife's parked car was hit outside our house 3 weeks ago tomorrow I initially contacted the third party insurer who stated they do not work weekends so wouldn't be looking at the claim until the Monday. This left us with a bit of an issue of no car to drive and a pile of bits that used to be a car to have removed from the road so we had no choice but to go through our insurance. This was passed to an accident management company who sorted out a car for us but 3 weeks on we are still waiting for the third party insurer to inspect our vehicle. Apparently they are waiting for the driver to sign some paperwork admitting liability.
Am I being unreasonable in thinking that 3 weeks is a long time? I think it is very unlikely that they will repair the car and should be able to right it off with one look at the pictures. We are currently almost at the end of the house buying process so have no spare money to buy a replacement outright and have been advised by the mortgage broker not to apply for any credit so need the settlement money. As my wife only has an automatic licence the AMC have given us a BMW 1 series which is costing the third party insurers around £75 a day so it is in their best interests to resolve it quickly
Picture may not look bad but the bike rack mounting is about 2 inches out on the damaged side so some twisting has occurred. Both bumpers, all 4 wheels as the passenger side have been broken by hitting the curb. Every panel interior and exterior down the side and the front wheel is no longer attached to anything. The doors no longer open and the roof is creased. The 3 party stopped 50m up the road also on 3 wheels, not bad for a 30mph road.
Am I being unreasonable in thinking that 3 weeks is a long time? I think it is very unlikely that they will repair the car and should be able to right it off with one look at the pictures. We are currently almost at the end of the house buying process so have no spare money to buy a replacement outright and have been advised by the mortgage broker not to apply for any credit so need the settlement money. As my wife only has an automatic licence the AMC have given us a BMW 1 series which is costing the third party insurers around £75 a day so it is in their best interests to resolve it quickly
Picture may not look bad but the bike rack mounting is about 2 inches out on the damaged side so some twisting has occurred. Both bumpers, all 4 wheels as the passenger side have been broken by hitting the curb. Every panel interior and exterior down the side and the front wheel is no longer attached to anything. The doors no longer open and the roof is creased. The 3 party stopped 50m up the road also on 3 wheels, not bad for a 30mph road.
Sc0tchland said:
That is a write off if I've ever seen one
That's what I said as soon as I saw it. No question of who was at fault should be a quick process. Instead they are already at £1500 in hire car costs plus the payout for the car. There are only 2 automatic Twingos for sale in the country so I am hoping they are more than fair with the settlementjpringle819 said:
My wife's parked car was hit outside our house 3 weeks ago tomorrow I initially contacted the third party insurer who stated they do not work weekends so wouldn't be looking at the claim until the Monday. This left us with a bit of an issue of no car to drive and a pile of bits that used to be a car to have removed from the road so we had no choice but to go through our insurance. This was passed to an accident management company who sorted out a car for us but 3 weeks on we are still waiting for the third party insurer to inspect our vehicle. Apparently they are waiting for the driver to sign some paperwork admitting liability.
I don't understand. If you went thru your insurance, why are they even bothering with the tp at this stage? That comes later, after they've repaired your car or paid out a total loss settlement.Get on to the AMC tomorrow, and tell them you are not interested in the tp and whether he's admitting liability, fled to Brazil or died of green monkey fever. You want your insurance company to deal with your claim...today. (assuming you have comp cover).
TwigtheWonderkid said:
I don't understand. If you went thru your insurance, why are they even bothering with the tp at this stage?
It was a very hard sell by the insurance company to use the AMC with threats like you may not get your excess back.As it was obvious whose fault it was and going to be a write off we went for the easiest and cheapest option.
Seems a bit long time wise, but doesn’t surprise me with own experience in December 2019 having been hit by a third party as took 2 weeks for car to be taken to approved repairer due to how busy they were.
Damage was much less than your wife’s car (hit in rear passenger door/wheel arch/edge of bumper/wheel), but ended up being written off with a value of £6k.
Who is the AMC, Captain Kirk’s Starship hire?
Can give you a timeline to receipt of payment if that helps in anyway?
Damage was much less than your wife’s car (hit in rear passenger door/wheel arch/edge of bumper/wheel), but ended up being written off with a value of £6k.
Who is the AMC, Captain Kirk’s Starship hire?
Can give you a timeline to receipt of payment if that helps in anyway?
Edited by lastofthev8s on Thursday 2nd December 22:25
jpringle819 said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
I don't understand. If you went thru your insurance, why are they even bothering with the tp at this stage?
It was a very hard sell by the insurance company to use the AMC with threats like you may not get your excess back.As it was obvious whose fault it was and going to be a write off we went for the easiest and cheapest option.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
It's true, you might not get your excess back, but if you don't get your excess back, it's because the tp aren't liable, in which case you won't get your car fixed by claiming directly off them. Get on to them tomorrow, and tell them you want to claim off your insurance, and when that's done, your insurers can fight with the tp.
But if the car was parked how can the TP not be liable? Unless they had a cardiac arrest or other medical issue that hadn't been diagosed before - which is pretty unlikely!
I'd rather stick to claiming from the TP than risking my NCD/NCD protection to avoid a "fault" claim on my policy, and with a TP claim you don't have to fund the excess.
Mr Tidy said:
But if the car was parked how can the TP not be liable?
.
The TP claimed there was a car coming towards them on their side of the road so they either hit the parked car or had a head on collision. If this is the case the other car didn't stop. My guess is he was going so fast that he felt like the gap was smaller than it was. He actually clipped the wheel of the van behind which may have pulled him into ours..
The police told us he admitted to driving into a parked car and I have an email from him saying sorry for all the inconvenience he has caused. My concern isn't really with getting a quick pay-out more the costs mounting up for the hire car and any issues from that. We do have another car but my job means that I could be called out anywhere in the country at short notice. My wife only needs a car 2 days a week to get to work but there is no public transport and due to buying a house we can't afford to front the cost of taxis in the hope of getting it back when the claim is settled.
Perhaps it will all be fine and we are using the AMC for what it was designed for and I am just being overly concerned having read all the posts on here.
Mr Tidy said:
But if the car was parked how can the TP not be liable?
Unless they had a cardiac arrest or other medical issue that hadn't been diagosed before - which is pretty unlikely!
I'd rather stick to claiming from the TP than risking my NCD/NCD protection to avoid a "fault" claim on my policy, and with a TP claim you don't have to fund the excess.
Surely by claiming via his own company, that choice has gone out the window? Unless they had a cardiac arrest or other medical issue that hadn't been diagosed before - which is pretty unlikely!
I'd rather stick to claiming from the TP than risking my NCD/NCD protection to avoid a "fault" claim on my policy, and with a TP claim you don't have to fund the excess.
BertBert said:
Surely by claiming via his own company, that choice has gone out the window?
I made 2 calls to the TP insurer, one the day it happened to report everything where they told me that they would speak to their customer and get back to me to arrange everything. The second call was about 18 hours later where I was told that they do not work weekends. This left me with no choice than to call our own insurer as the car needed recovering.My son's car was written off(non Fault) on the 21st Dec last year, claim payed by the new year and they payed nearly £1k more than he'd payed out for the car! Admittedly it was a very simple claim particularly as the other driver admitted it was her fault to a police officer. Even the genuine whiplash claim was dealt with within a couple of months. He was not insured with a company that normally comes up here as good for customer service, but on this occasion they could not have done it better. I did wonder if the other driver was with the same company hence the very prompt pay out.
It is now 2 months since my wife's car was hit whilst parked outside our house. The AMC collected the car on the 15th November and the third party insurer still has not inspected the vehicle. We have had an AMC provided hire car for 2 months now and along with any storage fees the total is nearing the cost of the original car.
We have been contacting the AMC weekly who have stated they are phoning the third party insurers weekly and now daily. Is there any risk for us to keeping the hire car? My wife's car is paid off next month so the hire car is free motoring. One issue is that the insurance is due for renewal next month as well, do we just renew on the car that is no longer in our possession?
We have been contacting the AMC weekly who have stated they are phoning the third party insurers weekly and now daily. Is there any risk for us to keeping the hire car? My wife's car is paid off next month so the hire car is free motoring. One issue is that the insurance is due for renewal next month as well, do we just renew on the car that is no longer in our possession?
I guess you need to keep the insurance running until the car is formally written off. Probably should speak to your insurer.
The delay does seem odd, but AMCs are notorious for dragging things out.
Having said, daughter's car was rear ended by an Argos van, she claimed off her own insurance they handled it - they sent her a like-for-like courtesy car from Enterprise but her insurer quickly wrote the car off and had the car collected so she was left high and dry after just a few days. Months later she was contacted by her insurers solictor saying Argos's insurer wasn't reponding and they were starting proceeding against them.
The delay does seem odd, but AMCs are notorious for dragging things out.
Having said, daughter's car was rear ended by an Argos van, she claimed off her own insurance they handled it - they sent her a like-for-like courtesy car from Enterprise but her insurer quickly wrote the car off and had the car collected so she was left high and dry after just a few days. Months later she was contacted by her insurers solictor saying Argos's insurer wasn't reponding and they were starting proceeding against them.
You don’t need to renew the policy for the claim to continue to be dealt with. All the costs being accrued relate to this current policy term and the premium paid was for this.
As for should you keep it insured while waiting for repair, personally I would to be safe although if it is stored somewhere that has insurance covering any further damage you may not need to. You don’t want to risk forgetting to reinsure and ending up with a no insurance conviction however.
Edit; having revisited the picture, I wouldn’t bother taking a new policy on that if it were mine. Would be extremely surprising if it was repaired.
If you don’t continue insuring you’ll need to declare SORN. Probably worth informing the AMC about the insurance and SORN situation so they are aware in that case.
As for should you keep it insured while waiting for repair, personally I would to be safe although if it is stored somewhere that has insurance covering any further damage you may not need to. You don’t want to risk forgetting to reinsure and ending up with a no insurance conviction however.
Edit; having revisited the picture, I wouldn’t bother taking a new policy on that if it were mine. Would be extremely surprising if it was repaired.
If you don’t continue insuring you’ll need to declare SORN. Probably worth informing the AMC about the insurance and SORN situation so they are aware in that case.
Edited by Dingu on Thursday 13th January 17:17
Your own insurer has done absolutely FA.
The AMC has just run up a massive hire car bill.
It's no wonder the car insurance industry has the reputation it does.
In your shoes, I would be onto the TP insurer direct and chasing the claim. Clearly neither of the other two parties have bothered their arse.
The AMC has just run up a massive hire car bill.
It's no wonder the car insurance industry has the reputation it does.
In your shoes, I would be onto the TP insurer direct and chasing the claim. Clearly neither of the other two parties have bothered their arse.
Rick101 said:
Your own insurer has done absolutely FA.
The AMC has just run up a massive hire car bill.
It's no wonder the car insurance industry has the reputation it does.
In your shoes, I would be onto the TP insurer direct and chasing the claim. Clearly neither of the other two parties have bothered their arse.
If the AMC has called the third-party insurer weekly, and now daily, they deserve everything they get.The AMC has just run up a massive hire car bill.
It's no wonder the car insurance industry has the reputation it does.
In your shoes, I would be onto the TP insurer direct and chasing the claim. Clearly neither of the other two parties have bothered their arse.
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