Car Insurance Problem

kateshortforbob

Hi,

I'm hoping this is the right board, but if it's not - sorry!

At the end of June, my sister bought a second-hand Ford Fiesta for a reputable dealer. I am also insured on it. On 28th August, I was hit side-on by a driver who failed to stop at a junction. I went over the centre verge and hit a third car coming in the other direction. Thankfully, no-one was badly injured, but my car and the car I hit had to be towed. The person who hit me was cautioned by the police for careless (?) driving. She was able to drive away.

The next day we contacted our insurer, Quinn Direct to initiate a claim, although we made clear we didn't believe we were liable. After several weeks of phone calls, forms and an inspection of the car by our insurer, we were told that they couldn't do anything more, and we should wait for the liable driver's insurance company (Axa) to pay up.

After no contact for several more weeks, my sister wrote to Quinn, asking for all the information they had so she could contact Axa directly. They apparently never received the letter, but provided the information when my sister phoned them.

On contacting Axa, we discovered that the driver who hit me was refusing to accept liabililty, and Axa had not yet contacted the police for their report. Two weeks later, they still hadn't spoken to the police because "the police officer was on nights". We also discovered that their client hadn't told them about her caution, and Axa hadn't inspected our car. My sister got them to agree to send out an engineer on 20th October, and the car was declared a write-off. After phoning several more times, Axa agreed a settlement, and even contacted our dealer to find us a replacement (after suggesting we buy one at auction - we have no experience and wouldn't be comfortable buying a car that way) although apparently our car had depreciated by £1000 in the two months we were able to drive it.

At this point, we found out that the third driver (who I had hit) had claimed through his own insurer, and left them to deal with Axa. We were now told that this is what we should have done, although this had never previously been suggested by our insurer, and in fact, they had told us it was out of their hands.

Here's the problem, though. The car has been sitting in a tow-yard since 28th August, incuring charges of £12 per day. We had to fight with Quinn to get them to admit that these charges are not our responsibility (as it's not our fault we were hit, and it's not our fault that the insurers took so long to get moving on the claim). Now, however, both insurers are saying that we ARE responsible for charges from 20th October, when Axa sent an engineer and established that the car was a write-off. We signed the wreck over to them on Friday as part of the deal, but now we're disputing the charges, they say that the scrap-yard costs are still mounting and we may have to pay all the fees which are currently over £800, although we don't even own the write-off anymore. I don't believe we should be liable for any of the charges to the scrap-yard, and I'm thinking of writing a recorded delivery letter setting this out and asserting that we will not be paying any scrap-yard fees. My sister thinks we may have to pay and then take either the other driver or the insurer to the small claims court to recoup the money. Has anyone got any advice on what I should write/what we should do next? I've told my family not to communicate with them over the phone anymore, as I think it's better to have everything in writing, and not to agree to pay anything at this point.

Sorry this is so long, this whole thing seems to have been going on forever!

vij1366

The Charges To The Scrapyard Belongs To Axa .not You They Made A Settlement Figure To You And By Reading Your Notes It Seems You Accepted This Therefore This Now Falls On Axa To Sort This Out..speak To The Third Aprty Claims At Axa And Advise That This Is Their Problem Not Yours A S They Have Accepted Laibility.(the Onus Is On Them .make Sure You Have Some Sort Of Written Confirmation From Axa That They Have Agreed The Laibility And They Ahve Made An Offer To You.
If They Refuse To Play Ball Complain To The Insurance Ombudsman (which Axa Have To Give You By Law )and Let Them Deal With It As They Can Also Be Fined .which I Am Sure Axa Dont Want .if Tou Have Legal Cover On Your Policy(this One Is Seperste As You Pay A Small Chargew Fr This When You Take Out The Car Insurance Then Contact Them .as They May Help You.
If You Dont Have That Then Check Your House Policy It May Be Included And They Can Advise.

smcaul

Looks complicated to me, I would put a post on http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/threads.htm?f=2 as there are some people with a very good knowledge of the car insurance industry on there.

Astaroth

Ok... on a dail in meeting at the moment but it is damned boring so apologies if I lose track of what I am saying at some points

Just a first few things to establish....
1) what level of cover does your sister have with Quinn? (TPFT, Comprehensive?)
2) Does she have legal expenses cover? if so, has anyone been appointed under this?
3) has liability been established yet? If so when was it agreed

As a non-fault party in an accident she has a legal requirement to minimise the amount of her claim (mitigate her losses). Insurers (and then the courts) will judge if your costs are reasonable or not, if they arent then they would only give you what is considered reasonable - as a more obvious example, if you had a ford fiesta damaged in an accident and went out to hire a BMW SL 500 whilst yours is in for repairs this wouldnt be considered reasonable and so rather than the £600 a day you claim for hire you would get about £15.

The question is therefore, is it reasonable to leave a vehicle in a storage compound acrewing charges of £12 a day when it has already been confirmed that it should go to a scrap yard for what would sound like a couple of months? The answer here certainly sounds like a big no however it does sound that she may not have been given the advice she should have received (depending on the level of cover she has with her own insurance)

Be very very careful with issuing court proceedings yourself.... you can legally only take a person to court once over a single incident so you have to make sure that EVERYTHING is included (including any costs your insurers have incured) as otherwise you cannot go to court a second time (and your insurers may look to get their money from you if your issuing proceedings prevents them grom making a recovery)

kateshortforbob

Thanks for all the advice.

vij1366: I'll get in touch with Axa 3rd party claims as soon as possible. Axa have sent us several letters, so I'll have to check when I get home exactly what they said, but my understanding is they accepted liability.

smcaul: Thanks for the link. I'll post on that site and see if they can give me any advice. Definitely complicated - I haven't even been involved in the claim and it's making my head spin!

Astaroth: My sister and I both have comprehensive cover on the car. However, no legal expenses cover as far as I'm aware. Liability was only agreed 12 days ago (IIRC).

I understand what you're saying about minimising the claim - that seems perfectly reasonable to me (our insurance schedule says that quinn will pay "reasonable" amounts for transporting etc. although it makes no specific mention of scrapyard fees). I think the dispute is whether it is reasonable to expect us to have the scrap removed from the yard - to our home, presumably - when it was declared a writeoff, only to go back to the scrapyard when the claim was finalised.

Thanks for the information about court proceedings. I hadn't thought about including everything. I feel that this could be settled without a court, and don't really want to go down that route, but my sister is awfully pessimistic about these things!

kate

Astaroth

If you have comprehensive insurance there is certainly a big question for Quinn to answer on why they actually inspected the vehicle (and therefore could have settled the claim) and then stopped handling it. I personally would ask for an explaination of why they "couldnt" do any more (I had assumed that you were going to say you had TPFT/ TPO cover)

It sounds like you have 2 arguements:

1) Quinn - why have they abandoned the claim 1/2 way through (this covers the length of the claim aspect) and why were you told that they would cover the costs and then gone back on this - if you had been told this from the outset you could have had the vehicle towed to your home address in the first place and therefore avoided all storage costs.

2) If axa are only disputing after the 20 oct the question is, did they actually tell you that the vehicle now had to be moved? Whilst they are the defence and you are not their client they are still supposed to help you where possible to mitigate your losses/ inform you of their requirements.

The one problem with these types of arguments is the age old part of do you have to pay for it and then claim the monies back from (potentially) the different parties or should the different parties really get together and deal with it themselves... unfortunately there is no clear cut answer.

Unless there is a good reason that Quinn stopped handling the claim (unless there was a query with cover I cant think of any other than laziness) I would put them as my top company to pay for it - they can then reclaim the costs from Axa and if they dont recover it all then put the complaint in that it is their own miss management of the claim that has caused the escalated charges in the first place.

kateshortforbob

My sister's been to the CAB, who directed her to the Association of Car Insurers (?) & the Financial Ombudsman. Apparently, both said that while she probably shouldn't have to pay the charges, it's likely that the insurers will stall on paying forever (I think she was probably paraphrasing here!). At this point, the best approach seems to be to get the claim sorted as-is, and then complain to both insurers about the situation. I know this isn't ideal, but my sister is very worried about the costs (which are still mounting).

We've learnt our lesson though: in future, check everything the insurers tell you, and make sure they keep moving on a claim.

Thanks once again for all the good advice,

Kate

thecremeegg

Vij, please don't start every word with capitals.....completely pointless

JohnInDebt

thecremeegg wrote:

Vij, please don't start every word with capitals.....completely pointless

I think that the posts are written entirely in capitals and the forum sometimes reduces the text down (except the first letters of each word).

Astaroth

kateshortforbob wrote:

My sister's been to the CAB, who directed her to the Association of Car Insurers (?) & the Financial Ombudsman. Apparently, both said that while she probably shouldn't have to pay the charges, it's likely that the insurers will stall on paying forever (I think she was probably paraphrasing here!). At this point, the best approach seems to be to get the claim sorted as-is, and then complain to both insurers about the situation. I know this isn't ideal, but my sister is very worried about the costs (which are still mounting).

We've learnt our lesson though: in future, check everything the insurers tell you, and make sure they keep moving on a claim.

Thanks once again for all the good advice,

Kate

I assume you mean the ABI (Association of British Insurers) which is a self governing body of insurers.

An FOS complaint can only be raised against her own insurers - the FOS does not get itself involved in third party claims as this is governed by the Law of Torts which is common law rather than the whole host of insurance/ contract law which is governed by legislation that gives the FSA and the FOS the power to act. The FOS would only get involved once you have exhausted the complaints process of your own insurance company... their decisions are binding on the insurer but doesnt prevent the insured from taking the final step which is court action against their own insurer.... of cause if this final step was necessary it would be possible to call her own insurance company and the third party as co-defendants and allow a judge to decide which (or to what proportion) is liable for the bill (and what percentage of it)

kateshortforbob

Well, as of yesterday, insurers have apparently agreed the claim and our insurer (Quinn) and the other driver's insurer (Axa) will split the cost of the scrap yard between. My sister contacted the customer services manager with regard to initiating a complaint, and 20 minutes later this offer was made. However, I'll wait til it's all settled and in writing before I start celebrating (I've told my family about a dozen times to communicate in writing, but will they listen?!)

Anyway, hopefully, this whole thing will be settled soon. Thank you once again for all the good advice - it's made it possible to deal with our insurers in a much more informed manner.