appalling service from chaucer car ins

helen_vasey

to cut a very long story short, we are having endless problems with chaucer re my husbands classic escort rs turbo . it started last september when hubbie damaged the door by reversing into a post on our drive( i know!) the car was declared off road as he was restoring it to sell. he made a claim as it was fully comp and they said no problem , we will collect it and repair it , hubbie was a little concerned when it was taken off to a vauxhall garage but thought no more about it until two weeks later he got a call saying it was " irrepairable" . he got straight on to chaucer who said because the hinges were damaged , it wasnt worth repairing "a tatty old escort". hubbie pointed out that it was only tatty because he had removed most of the interior for minor cosmetic work, and if they knew anything about classic cars,( it was on a classic policy.) the cars value was @ 2500. they argued for weeks , first offering 500 towards repairing it himself, then in december offered 1000 plus the car back. we thought ok, even in bits the car is worth 1500, so they brought it back. omg! the state it came back in was unbelieveable, it turns out that it wasnt in storage as they had promised, it had been kept in a scrap yard field! the front body kit was hanging off, the back end was a mess and there was rust appearing everywhere, not surprising as it had been outside for three months, there was also evidence of mice inside it! my hubbie went mad and refused to take it back, as it said on the form that he was taking it in the same condition that it had gone in. when he tries them on the phone they are never available, they say that they havnt received al the photographic evidence he sent, and he has been emailing them every day for 2 weeks, as yet he has heard nothing! he has contacted the ombudsman but they seem to be very slow, is there anything else he can do, apart from contacting watchdog, which i would do if i thought it might do anything. now he will settle for nothing less than the insured value which is 2500.plus he feels he should be compensated for the way he has been lied to and generally treated. ok rant over.

nadnad

basically you only get waht the car is worth - now although you say its worth 2500 - its probably not, it doesnt matter about money you spend on a car its the book price that counts and unless you have the car on an"agreed value" policy you will not get the value you think its worth. i dont know anyhting about chaucer insurance - they dont sound very professional, i work in insurance and they should never have said they would fix it and then go back on that - they should have had someone out to inspect the vehicle first to decide whether it would be a total loss or not. when they said it was in storage insurance companies generally dont man in a garage - they simply mean at as been stored at a secure location - usually a scrap yard, so that explains that bit. If the car is in as bad a state as you say then you must make a complaint to the company - do it in writing with pictures as evidence - detail exactly what has happened and wait for their response - they have to reply to you within a certain time limit - see this website http://www.financialombudsman.co.uk/consumer/complaints.htm. thats the best i can tell you i'm afraid. good luck.