At the end of my tether with Aviva

Helen_J_3

Hi everyone

Long story but last September a man bumped into the back of my car at a set of traffic lights. Easy case you would think. Well it's now nearly April and my car still hasn't been fixed.

Basically his insurance company, Aviva, are disputing liability. His insured claims that a bus bumped into him which made him bump into me. I have witnesses who were in the car behind him that confirm this never happened and from where they were sitting it looked like he stalled.

Rang Aviva and told them this, told them my insurance company are sending them the statements etc, they say they are waiting for a police report, presumably because the 'bus' that was (or rather wasn't) involved didn't stop at the scene.

Today I rang the police and spoke to someone from the traffic incident department who said that the incident was not reported by their insured, that there's nothing on the system about it and therefore this report that Aviva are chasing up doesn't even exist!

After that I rang Aviva again and told them what I'd been told, they said they'd 'note it on the file'. I said this wasn't good enough and wanted to speak to someone who is going to sort this out once and for all. After arguing for 15 minutes and been put on hold numerous times I asked to speak to a manager in the UK. I was given a number which after I've tried ringing doesn't exist!

Rang head office in the UK and told them so she puts me back through to the claim handler! :mad: After been on hold for another 20 minutes I get put through to the SAME department I've already spoke to this morning, so I asked to speak to a manager straight away. After 5 minutes of giving him all the claim details etc he 'puts me through to his manager' which when they finally answer is the claims helpline! They've put me through to yet again someone else who can't help me and now she's going to get the manager to ring me back. Doubt very much that will happen.

I've never known anything like this, my insurance company is Hastings and they're bad enough but this is purposely messing people about until they give up.

They are frustrating the claim, I have witnesses that say a bus wasn't involved and police saying it was never reported. All I get when I ring Aviva is their stupid relaxing music while I wait on hold. I've spent hours and who knows how much money ringing all these different numbers and still am no further into having this sorted.

I've never been so angry in my life! :mad::mad:


Sorry for the massive rant I really don't know what else to do. My insurance company won't do anything because they haven't paid for my vehicle to be repaired, all they're doing is waiting on Aviva to sort themselves out.

Quentin

In view of the disputed liability, why don't you just make a claim on your own insurance now, get the car repaired, pay your excess then fight Aviva over getting it back off them?

Helen_J_3

Because I can't make a claim for less than my policy excess according to my insurance company, which is £500 and the damage is about 150.

mattymoo

Helen_J - relax and count to 10.

Rest assured it is not a conspiracy or a deliberate attempt to mess you around. It is simply incompetence through lack of training / experience. Aviva are known for it.

Aviva are the product of 3 insurance companies merging - Commercial Union, General Accident and Norwich Union. Each merger resulted in large scale redundancies and all the senior, experienced staff jumped at the chance - the redundancy pay offs were generous.

They spend millions on advertising and inward looking navel gazing exercises but routinely fail their customers and third parties.

If the amount you are looking for is less than £5k I would give serious consideration to commencing procedings under the small claims process. You can do this at Money Claim Online. There is a fee but this will be recovered.

Nothing acts as a better wake up call (for incompetent claims staff and a lying policyholder) than a court summons landing on the doormat.

Helen_J_3

mattymoo wrote: »

Helen_J - relax and count to 10.

Rest assured it is not a conspiracy or a deliberate attempt to mess you around. It is simply incompetence through lack of training / experience. Aviva are known for it.

Aviva are the product of 3 insurance companies merging - Commercial Union, General Accident and Norwich Union. Each merger resulted in large scale redundancies and all the senior, experienced staff jumped at the chance - the redundancy pay offs were generous.

They spend millions on advertising and inward looking navel gazing exercises but routinely fail their customers and third parties.

If the amount you are looking for is less than £5k I would give serious consideration to commencing procedings under the small claims process. You can do this at Money Claim Online. There is a fee but this will be recovered.

Nothing acts as a better wake up call (for incompetent claims staff and a lying policyholder) than a court summons landing on the doormat.

Thanks Mattymoo,

I have been considering sending them a court summons because I'm sure they wouldn't show up to court for the sake of £150ish even if they thought they had a leg to stand on.

I know insurance companies are like this with everyone it's just so frustrating!

I've already claimed to the ombudsman about my insurance company because they're just as bad and I've had numerous problems with them concerning this claim. I can't believe this is all the fuss that's made over a small bump which resulted in some damage to paint work and a broken exhaust.

Helen_J_3

Also, does anyone know if the man insured by Aviva is criminally responsible?

He's is obviously making up that the bus was involved to escape liability and even if he says he genuinely believed that it hit him he's lied to both me and his insurance company about phoning the police and reporting the accident, something which the Police don't have on their records and never have had?

mattymoo

Helen_J wrote: »

Also, does anyone know if the man insured by Aviva is criminally responsible?

He's is obviously making up that the bus was involved to escape liability and even if he says he genuinely believed that it hit him he's lied to both me and his insurance company about phoning the police and reporting the accident, something which the Police don't have on their records and never have had?

AFAIK he does not appear to have committed an offence. Perjury is committed if he was to lie in court about the presence of the bus.

To give Aviva some credit though (not something I like to do) it does sound like their policyholder is something of a spanner in the works. If the shoes was on the other foot and you were the Aviva policyholder, would you like them to settle a third party claim when you had indicated you were not at fault?

The witness evidence and the lack of police reports should have been enough for a sensible claims handler to say to their policyholder "Look matey, the evidence against you is overwhelming. Either produce the details of the bus driver / company at fault or we are going to settle Helen_J's claim". A quick phone call is all it needs - no need to drag matters out, certainly not over £150.

Jakg

Even if he was bumped by a bus - he is still liable for your costs. His insurers can then claim these costs back from the busses insurance company.

This is why multi-car pilups take aaaages to get sorted out.

mattymoo

Jakg wrote: »

Even if he was bumped by a bus - he is still liable for your costs. His insurers can then claim these costs back from the busses insurance company.

This is why multi-car pilups take aaaages to get sorted out.

Wrong - if the bus did exist then he wouldn't have been negligent so Helen's claim would fail.

Helen_J_3

Jakg wrote: »

Even if he was bumped by a bus - he is still liable for your costs. His insurers can then claim these costs back from the busses insurance company.

This is why multi-car pilups take aaaages to get sorted out.

I've tried telling Aviva that. All they say is 'we cannot confirm liability or make any repairs till we know the full story concerning the bus' and things along those lines.

Helen_J_3

mattymoo wrote: »

AFAIK he does not appear to have committed an offence. Perjury is committed if he was to lie in court about the presence of the bus.

To give Aviva some credit though (not something I like to do) it does sound like their policyholder is something of a spanner in the works. If the shoes was on the other foot and you were the Aviva policyholder, would you like them to settle a third party claim when you had indicated you were not at fault?

The witness evidence and the lack of police reports should have been enough for a sensible claims handler to say to their policyholder "Look matey, the evidence against you is overwhelming. Either produce the details of the bus driver / company at fault or we are going to settle Helen_J's claim". A quick phone call is all it needs - no need to drag matters out, certainly not over £150.

Yeah you would think so! Don't know what he thinks he's gonna achieve by carrying on like this but I'll not stop until it's sorted even if it is only £150! The reason insurance companies/people who want to lie get away with it is because they think people will just give up.