Car insurance nightmare - NON fault accident

moneyworries87

Hello all, i'm wondering if anyone can advise me? Sorry for the long post!

Two weeks ago a council bin lorry ran into my partners car while it was parked outside our house. We contacted the council and they said they couldn't do anything and that we would need to get an estimate of the damage and send it to their insurers.

Unfortunately due to a very ill relative and other problems we cannot afford to be without a car, so we asked about getting a courtesy car, as the driver of the other vehicle accepted liability immediately (but didn't report it to the council!).

They said we should contact our own insurers for a courtesy car, which we did and we were delivered one 2 hours later. Our insurers told us not to get an estimate, and not to ahve any contact with the liable party, and they organised for our car to be picked up.

An assesor went to look at our car at the garage, and declared it a write off, category C. We then received a phone call from our insurers saying that our car had modifications that we hadn't declared: an air intake (Neither of us knew about this, we can't even see where it is located), alloy wheels (we changed the alloy wheels but they were the same size as were on the car previously) and a body kit, which we were unaware of. When we bought the car the guy said it was as standard. It does not look at all like a modified car.

Next step we were told we were being investigated for fraud and couldn't have our car back.

A few days later we were told the marker had been removed from our policy, and were no longer being investigated for fraud (phew!).

My partner spoke to another person from the insurers, who said we could have the car back, it would be downgraded to category D and we can get a settlement cheque for £800.

Today, a company called TCF has been in touch, I have looked at their website and they are a fraud investigation company, we tried ringing them back, but the lady said she get morethan to ring us back tomorrow but she also said it is standard procedure.

I am totally confused, is this normal protocol when claiming on your insurance or are we being investigated for fraud again?

I don't care about the body kit, the engine, etc. We are not boy racers, and dont care about the cheque (although it would be nice) we just want a car to run around in to help my sick 95 year old grandmother and get us to work.

This whole thing is driving me mad, I would understand if the accident was our fault, but we weren't anywhere near the car at the time!

Can anyone give me any advice as to where we go from here?

Thanks

PNPSUKNET

they have to look at these things, not so sure how you can miss things though but even the alloys can stop the claim alone

alistair.long

it would help if you you let us know which insurance company it is.
I am assuming esure.
The insurance company uses these allegations to stop you from claiming on your fully comp policy, and they would have probably said they want to keep the car to recover their recovery charges etc...

Do you have a solicitor talking to the other side or is it a claim handling firm?

dacouch

More Than..

Empty_pockets

Ok. Stop. Some responses so far are completely incorrect.

Are you fully comp? You insurer should arrange for their assessor to check the damage to your vehicle. You are claiming on their insurance, not yours.

If your car is modified, that irrelevant in this case. The liability is to be met by the other insurer.

'Modicications' are classed as performance enhancing equipment. Alloy wheels are not a performance mod.

The air intake is debatable but for it you count against you it must have contributed to the accident. In this case, clearly not.

You are entiled to a replacment car in the interim. A similar spec car for a reasonable period. Your insurer will arrange this and charge it to the council in the claim.

dacouch

Empty_pockets wrote: »

Ok. Stop. Some responses so far are completely incorrect.

Are you fully comp? You insurer should arrange for their assessor to check the damage to your vehicle. You are claiming on their insurance, not yours.

If your car is modified, that irrelevant in this case. The liability is to be met by the other insurer.

'Modicications' are classed as performance enhancing equipment. Alloy wheels are not a performance mod.

The air intake is debatable but for it you count against you it must have contributed to the accident. In this case, clearly not.

You are entiled to a replacment car in the interim. A similar spec car for a reasonable period. Your insurer will arrange this and charge it to the council in the claim.

If the OP is initially claiming from their own policy, their Insurers are entitled to investigate a non disclosure and take appropriate actions this may result in.

Modifications are not neccesarily regarded as performance enhancing.

Had the OP been claiming directly from the third party any modifications would be irrelevent

Empty_pockets

In that case it may be worth cutting her own insurers out and making the claim direct.

Easy enough to do. Get an estimate. Add reasonable expenses. Submit to council.

Quentin

Empty_pockets wrote: »

Ok. Stop. Some responses so far are completely incorrect......'Modicications' are classed as performance enhancing equipment.

Well... this is incorrect and should be ignored!

Modifications (for insurance notification purposes) include non performance enhancing items like alloys/tinted windows/body kits and all must be declared to your insurer.

alistair.long

Empty_pockets wrote: »

In that case it may be worth cutting her own insurers out and making the claim direct.

Easy enough to do. Get an estimate. Add reasonable expenses. Submit to council.

In theory it can be done, the company that has supplied the hire car wiill need to be paid, or the account transfered to your own solicitor.

If its been more then 14 days then things get a little tricky

kateuk20

Thanks for the replies!

The insurance company is MoreThan, I originally was going to claim just off the council, however when they ame to look at the car they told me to ring our insurers. I really wish we hadn't now!!

We now have the car back, but it is definately not driveable and we can't actually put it on the road until it has a new bumper, fixed exhaust and an MOT. (We are waiting for the settlement cheque to be able to do this)

MoreThan actually gave us a settlement figure, and said we would receive the cheque asap, but now with this company (TCF) getting involved I don't know where we stand.

If we end up getting done for fraud, what happens then? Do we need a solicitor/lawyer or is it just a case of taking the punishment that they see fit?

I thought the man said that they would claim off the otherside, but they would deal with it on my behalf, looks like he was wrong.

Thanks again for the replies, and i'm so sorry for the long posts, I've never had to claim from insurers before and i'm totally confused!