Should the insurance company be informed?

pmorrison_2

Hi,

My girlfriends sister sent her car into thr garage to have some work done. They quoted £700, it was accepted and they carried out the work. However, during their final test drive of the car, they somehow managed to write it off.

The garage have informed their insurance company and have made an offer to her for the car. However, she wont ring her own insurance company as she is worried that it will increase her premium. In my opinion she needs to contact them so that they can act on her behalf but shes having none of it.

What is the correct thing to be done here?

Cheers

huckster

If the garage people were driving the car, it would have been Insured under their trade policy and this is what the claim would be under.

The claim or accident is nothing to do with the girlfriends sister or her Insurers.

She will obviously need to speak to the Insurers to tell them the car is no longer in her possession, as it was written off by a garage doing work on it and has been kept by them. I am presuming the car is with the garage or their Insurers salvage company. Her Insurers should give her advice about suspending the policy cover for a short period, until she buys another car and can change the cover over.

McKneff

She still must inform them of the incident and make sure it is for information only.

Further down the line if she ever wants to make a claim it could be refused on the grounds of non disclosure.
All insurers now use a national database and undoubtedly it will pop up somewhere' and bang goes her claim.
Can she afford to take the risk if she prangs her car, injures someone, claim for car, claim for personal injury etc etc.

This happend to me not long ago and it didnt affect my policy, it doesnt with most companies.

huckster

Mckneff has a point, if the car was written off on the road, as the Insurance is noted on the MID, if there was any involvement with a 3rd party, her Insurers will need to know what the score is. They could be contacted by the 3rd party or their Insurers.

I think she should find out, how they managed to write off the car. She needs to know the full story.

It is not unknown for garages to write off cars in their workshop i.e. falling off a ramp. If this happened and not a road test, they would have had to call in the health and safety people, with the garage being closed down while investigations take place etc. This happened locally, when one of the mechanics was seriously injured. The garage owners were fined, hundreds of thousands of pounds and the placed was closed for a few months.

bouncydog1

Tell her that she should advise insurers of the incident in writing, ensure that she clearly defines within the letter that it is for information only, as she was not liable for the incident in any way as the vehicle was in the custody and control of the garage.

She should also ensure that she keeps a copy of the letter for future reference, as we all know that sometimes messages given in telephone calls are not correctly passed on!

huckster

bouncyd!!! wrote: »

Tell her that she should advise insurers of the incident in writing, ensure that she clearly defines within the letter that it is for information only, as she was not liable for the incident in any way as the vehicle was in the custody and control of the garage.

She should also ensure that she keeps a copy of the letter for future reference, as we all know that sometimes messages given in telephone calls are not correctly passed on!

Sometimes phoning first and putting it in writing is the way to go. Before she does this, I think I would find out what happened to the car i.e. basic accident details and I would also find out the details of the Insurance the garage are using to cover the claim, e.g. Name of Insurer, office address dealing with it, policyholders name and policy number. This is just in case her Insurers are contacted about any accident. With the information, they can point whoever contacts them in the right direction. She should also keep these details for her own reference for a number of years to come. She wouldn't want a PI claim to suddenly be submitted to her say 3 years down the line and then panic not having these details.

pmorrison_2

Thanks for all your replies and advice. I will pass on the information. Hopefully this will save her from any comeback in the future

olly300

When she sends the information to the insurer in writing she should use "recorded signed for" and keep the receipt with a copy of the letter.

That way if the insurance company ever claim they didn't receive the letter or get the phone call they will not be believed if she needs to take further action.