some advise ALBANY C**P ASSISTANCE

please_help

Hi
i insured through elephant and had an accident on monday (non fault somebody drove into the back of my car) i rang elephant and after being on the phone for 3/4hour was told as i had legal assistance i would be able to use Albany Assistance which would mean that i would have the use of all the free advise and help i needed i would not have to pay my excess and it would affect my no claims (which were full years and protected) and that i would get a free hire car..... yipppeeeeee

and then the poo has hit the fan...... my car went into one of the repairers where it has been for 1 week and i am told i sud get it back xmas eve.... then i get a WONDERFUL repairer finanace agreement for the repair of my vehicle that states that if the other parties insurers do not pay then i have to.
I have paid for full comp insurance SURELY to god this has to be against the law full comp means i dont pay a penny other than my excess
today - i have just received other letter about the crap hire car i havce that i am scared to drive
i have been told that again if the other parties insurance company doesnt pay that i must but they are pleased to tell me that that they offer me a free credit protectionpolicy.... WFT

Does that mean i dont have to pay for anything....... i am soooooooooooooooooo worried

Proc

What Fu*k The are you talking about?

andyd

please_help wrote: »

Hi
i insured through elephant and had an accident on monday (non fault somebody drove into the back of my car) i rang elephant and after being on the phone for 3/4hour was told as i had legal assistance i would be able to use Albany Assistance which would mean that i would have the use of all the free advise and help i needed i would not have to pay my excess and it would affect my no claims (which were full years and protected) and that i would get a free hire car..... yipppeeeeee

and then the poo has hit the fan...... my car went into one of the repairers where it has been for 1 week and i am told i sud get it back xmas eve.... then i get a WONDERFUL repairer finanace agreement for the repair of my vehicle that states that if the other parties insurers do not pay then i have to.
I have paid for full comp insurance SURELY to god this has to be against the law full comp means i dont pay a penny other than my excess
today - i have just received other letter about the crap hire car i havce that i am scared to drive
i have been told that again if the other parties insurance company doesnt pay that i must but they are pleased to tell me that that they offer me a free credit protectionpolicy.... WFT

Does that mean i dont have to pay for anything....... i am soooooooooooooooooo worried

This is a very common situation following a non fault RTA.

Albany are arranging "credit repair" for you and "credit hire" which means they will claim their outlay from the insurers of the other vehicle as its a no fault accident. They will earn more than normal from your repair and hire because in theory they are taking a "risk" by laying out for these items on your behalf and the rates they will claim from the other drivers insurers are higher than standard rates for repair and hire.

There shouldn't be any risk to you as long as your version of events is correct but you should check with Albany that you wouldn't be liable for the repair and hire costs in the very unlikely event that your claim isn't successful. Normally the paperwork they ask you to sign is just to "formalise" the arrangement legally rather than to indicate that you are taking any financial risk.

Hope this helps

please_help

what i cant understand is that whether i was at fault or not (and i have been told that the other insurance company has admitted liabilty) that i should only in any case have to pay for the excess and nothing else.
I paid fully comp for a reason it seems that they are totally taken advantage and to be quite honest this process has been stressful enough without getting letters telling me that i MAY have to pay for hire cars and repairs to be vehicle.... I may aswell have taken out 3rd party.

please_help

thank u for your help by the way sorry

andyd

No problem

You actually are under no obligation to use Albany at all as they are a legal assistance company and merely have an arrangement with Elephant to assist their policy holders if requested to do so.

If you are really concerned you could cancel Albany's instructions but if liability has been accepted as you say then there should be no problem in Albany recovering their outlay from the other drivers insurers and your car will be repaired shortly and you'll be back on the road having returned the hire car without having paid anything, even your excess.

Hope this has reassured you a little. Albany really should have explained all this more clearly to you however to reduce the stress you are feeling.

soolin

Thank heavens for MSE.

My son who is a named driver on my husbands car was crashed into yesterday, the other party has admitted full liability.

Phoned Admiral who have taken all the details and confimred that we have been paying extra on our premiums for a courtesy car. Explained that our policy had 5 named drivers and was assured that the hire car would be like for like and that we could all drive it.

Got a call from Albany saying they are acting for our insurers, and the problems began. They won't allow all the named drivers to drive a hire car, we have to sign all sorts of credit forms (but we are insured for an automatic hire car) and worst of all we all have to make conference calls from our house to DVLA with Albany in attendance to confirm our driver details.

It's all sounding rather odd, OH told them they were wasting our time and intends to go back to insurance company tomorrow and ask them what is going on.

dacouch

soolin wrote: »

Thank heavens for MSE.

My son who is a named driver on my husbands car was crashed into yesterday, the other party has admitted full liability.

Phoned Admiral who have taken all the details and confimred that we have been paying extra on our premiums for a courtesy car. Explained that our policy had 5 named drivers and was assured that the hire car would be like for like and that we could all drive it.

Got a call from Albany saying they are acting for our insurers, and the problems began. They won't allow all the named drivers to drive a hire car, we have to sign all sorts of credit forms (but we are insured for an automatic hire car) and worst of all we all have to make conference calls from our house to DVLA with Albany in attendance to confirm our driver details.

It's all sounding rather odd, OH told them they were wasting our time and intends to go back to insurance company tomorrow and ask them what is going on.

Did you notice the parts about Hire Car and Credit Forms, your Insurers are not giving you a courtesy car you have been given an expensive Credit Hire vehicle hence why your signing credit agreements. What happens is they hire you a car on a credit agreement of 51 weeks, if they don't recover their hire costs within that period you are normally responsible for the costs which will be surprisingly hire especially if Albany are involved as they are incredibly slow.

Advise Albany if they cannot cover all the drivers you will go elsewhere.

P.S Have a read of what you are signing so you understand the implications.

P.P.S Albany and Probably your Insurers would have earned a commission of circa £150 for putting you in a credit hire car

soolin

We (our rather my OH as he is first named on insurance ) have already told Albany that we have no intention of signing anything. OH has taken a few hours off work tomorrow so he can phone Admiral first thing and tackle them about this, we paid extra for a courtesy car and the paperwork says nothing about us possibly having to pay for that if they can't recover funds. Frankly if we have to pay for a courtesy car we will go without but we'll make sure that we get a refund from Admiral for all the premiums we paid to guarantee us a courtesy car.

We are also very unhappy that thinking back on the rest of the conversation it appears that Albany are handing the claim as they made some strange references to being responsible for having chosen where to get our car assessed and also they mentioned that we may have to pay our excess to a garage and then reclaim, even though other party has admitted full responsibility and given us their insurance details to make a claim if we prefer.

dacouch

Soolin I know from MSE that your pretty savvy. It is not that hard if the other driver has accepted liability and advised his Insurers for you to go direct to his Insurers. They will arrange the repairs to the car, a like for like hire car for all the drivers and with no risk to you and no excess.

If you have the Insurance details just contact them directly or you can find them for a fee from here https://www.askmid.com

(If there are any injuries it is generally best to use a solicitor / claims company for that part).

P.S If admiral are making you pay your excess it means they are paying for the repairs under your Insurance, in these cases their approved garage would generally provide a courtesy car (Only small basic car) but it's normally only while your car is in for repairs.

soolin

Thank you dacouch, I think we may end up going via the other persons insurance if Admiral are difficult tomorrow. We are all a bit in shock really and no one thinks straight when they get a phone call at 1am in the morning to say their son has been involved in a serious accident and although he appears unhurt can we get there to collect him as the police are in attendance and don't want to leave him alone in case he is in shock.

It doesn't help that the car was approx 7 months old and the same model now is £2k more than we paid for ours so whatever happens we can't replace it.

We will deal with Admiral and Albany and I hope I am savvy enough not to let OH sign anything that feels wrong. I'm just pleased that MSE is here for the serious issues as wel as for some of the frivilous threads I tend to post on and I welcome the knowledge and expertise of others on these specialist boards.