Car insurance refusing to pay for wall damage

scrummy-mummy

Hi,

I very stupidly reversed into the wall on my driveway recently and knocked it down. The wall separates mine and my neighbours driveways and is owned entirely by me.

I called my insurer to organise a claim today and they insist that although i can claim for the damage to my car (minus excess) i cannot claim for the wall, because it is mine and "i cannot sue myself".

Is this really correct? What's the point of insurance if i can't claim for accidental damange?

The insurer also insists that i HAVE to accept the courtesy car offered (3 door corsa). I drive a VW Sharan, because i have two large child seats (maxi cosi tobi), a double buggy and a dog. I won't be able to fit everything in to the courtesy car, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Hoping someone can help/advise.

Thanks in Advance
Scrummy-Mummy

withabix

The insurance issue is common - you will need to claim for the wall damage on your house buildings insurance (it may not even be covered). I damaged my Galaxy once becuase I had a bike on ther roof and hit a tree branch with it - the car insurance didn't cover the bike, which was paid out on my house insurance.

As for the courtesy car, the T&Cs of your insurance policy will refer to car not being the same size.

You don't HAVE to accept the courtesy car - If you need a bigger car, you will have to hire one at your own cost.

Courtesy cars are not intended to be a like-for-like replacement and are provided by the repairing garage.

scrummy-mummy

Thanks for that

What a damned shame...i appreciate that i wouldn't get a big car as a replacement, but i guess i didn't appreciate that it would be so small either LOL

dacouch

The reason your Insurers will not pay for your wall is you have sections of your policy covering your car for damage eg fire theft or accidental damage and another section covering damage to other people and / or other people's property. There is no section covering damage to other property eg not your car under your policy.

If the wall had belonged to someone else then the section covering damage to other people's property would cover it.

You do occasionally find an Insurer will pay for the damage (It's fairly common for people to hit their garages especially the door, but this is either done on ex gratia basis or a mistake by the claims handler.

As a previous poster has mentioned, your home insurance may cover the damage to the wall

scrummy-mummy

To be honest, if it's not covered by the car insurance, i'll probably just bite the bullet and pay to have the wall repaired myself, hardly seems worth the aggravation of putting in two claims and paying two excesses.

Thanks for the advice

dacouch

You will be surprised how expensive it is to rebuild a brick wall.

When you are pricing up quotes ask for an insurance price and a price if you pay yourself, the latter price is often considerably lower. Obtaining both prices may help you evaluate the situation.

You can get a rough idea of the possible effect on your future premiums by running a quote through with the claim entered

scrummy-mummy

Last time i did it, it cost me £250.

Me and walls, we don't see eye to eye you see

vaio

rebuild it out of rubber blocks or lego, then next time you knock it over it'll be easy to repair