some advise ALBANY C**P ASSISTANCE

dacouch

Admiral may well not contact the other Insurers to check the liability for some time as they it does not make much difference to them paying out for the car. Insurers often don't start trying to recover their outlay for a long time after the claim.

As I mentioned before you can contact the other Insurer yourself if you have the details or use the link I gave you. Alternatively another simple method is if the other driver is friendly you can ring them and ask them if they have reported the claim to their Insurers and did they say they were at fault to their Insurers. This will give a good indication as the Insurers normally ask if you felt you were at fault and generally follow this unless they think their driver is wrong and they want to try and defend it.

What sort of accident was it eg did they hit you from behind etc.

Do you know which Insurer the other driver is with?

Do you have any type of GAP cover on the car if it's on finance

soolin

We have full details of the other policy, including policy number and type of insurance so we could phone, Admiral appeared to suggest that this was not something we should even consider doing.

Accident was on a mini roundabout at a cross roads. My son was on the roundabout going straight ahead and a car coming across the roundabout on the 'cross road' didn't stop or slow down at roundabout and basically ploughed into side of son pushed the car down the road and it was stopped when it hit a fence.

Our car has lost the passenger side wing and the door, the driver side is a little scratched and marked from the fence. The airbags did not go off as it was a side impact.

The other car suffered damage to the front and their air bags went off, although the car was able to be driven away after police attended.

I have to go to work now but will report back to OH later and suggest that maybe if Admiral does not call us back today that we contact other insurer. The driver of the other car BTW was unhurt but very shocked and we have spoken to her by phone to confirm details of her car and that's when she gave us more details of the policy. She has remained helpful and apologetic throughout and we have no reason to suppose she will change her mind.

As for GAP insurance we did take out a Citroen policy for new cars to cover a write off, however reading that suggests it only covers the difference between the amount insurance company will pay out and the original value of the car.

We paid 2k less for our car than a comparable model today which is our problem we basically got the scrappage deal without having to actually scrap a car). We can't even see a second hand one for the same price we paid last year.

dacouch

There is no reason why you cannot contact the other Insurer and ask are they accepting liability and can they provide you with a car etc. This in no way affects the liability issue and if anything strengthens your case.

The people at Insurers who deal with claims initially are often poorly trained in addition their advice can be affected by the juicy commisson they get paid by Albany for the credit hire and personal injury claims should you use Albany. Obviously if you go to the other Insurer for a car Albany won't pay them commission.

As the other driver is friendly and apologetic, a quick call to her asking has she reported the claim to her Insurer and by the way do you know are they accepting liability would do no harm.

The only way you could prejudice Admiral is if you get into a conversation about what happened and you give a different version of events to what you gave Admiral, if the conversation with her or the other Insurers starts going this way you can simply say I think you should deal with my Insurers on that issue.

Let us know which Insurer she is with as some Insurers are much more helpful to third parties than others so we may be able to give you some pointers

soolin

The other insurer is Churchill.

dacouch

Ahhhh Yesss

Churchill / Direct Line are good on third party claims (Unless your a cyclist!) as they like to keep their costs down if they know they are at fault. Providing the other driver has reported the claim they should be more than happy to help you.

If you want to ring them just ring one of their claim tele numbers and ask for "Third Party Claims".

Personally I would recover your own excess rather than involve Albany as the other Insurer is Direct Line as they will issue a cheque pretty quick if they accept liability

soolin

Again thank you. I'm surprised at how much of a meal I am making of this. I just keep seeing the car in bits and my son standing there in the rain with the policeman and my brain goes to mush.

dacouch

At least your son was ok that's the main thing, it was probably a good thing that he was in a new car as the safety features are much better than old cars

soolin

dacouch wrote: »

At least your son was ok that's the main thing, it was probably a good thing that he was in a new car as the safety features are much better than old cars

That's why we bought this car brand new as it had the highest NCap (is that the correct term?) rating.

That's another reason why we would want to replace like for like rather than end up paying more for an older car or a different car.I'm still hoping they can repair though rather than write it off.

dacouch

If there is a lot of damage it sometimes pays to commission your own engineer to inspect the car, it will cost between £80 and £200 (Probably nearer the £150 mark). They will go through the list of work the Insurers / Garage are proposing and advise of any of work that needs doing or for instance if they think a part should be replaced rather than repaired etc.

soolin

Just an update, Admiral were still a tiny bit evasive on the phone about what was happening and what we should do, so we phoned the other insurance company. Their client has admitted full liability so they are going to take over our claim now. It means a slight delay while they find someone to come and assess the car in the garage where Admiral finally arranged for it to be taken, but they were much clearer about the process and there is no need to talk to third parties.

It looks like we won't hear anything until the end of the week now, but at least they sounded like they knew what they were doing and we feel a lot calmer and reassured.