Is there anyone I can contact about car claim taking too long?

louloubelle76

Back in early Feb this year my local council's dustcart went into the side of my parked car and caused quite a lot of damage to it, the drive approached my dad and said he done it and willl report it once he got back to the office.

Roll on 4 months later and this is still going on, the driver admitted to knocking my mirror off but not to the other damage that he caused ( I do have a witness for this) called Zurich and he said it has gone back to the council because Im not accepting the driver just damaging my mirror, a number of time he has said he will call back and he hasnt, I have been trying to call him since 9.30am and still havent spoke to him.

Is there anyone I can go to about this claim taking so long? many thanks

AndyAndyAndy

louloubelle76 wrote: »

I have been trying to call him since 9.30am and still havent spoke to him.

I assume that means you've been trying to call the guy from the council who was responsible. I must say that it shouldn't be your responsibility to chase up the other party if your insurance company are on the case. My advice would be to call up your insurer (Zurich) and try to get them to put some pressure on the council to reply to your claim. You might also get your insurance company to agree to pay the initial outlay for the damage and recover it later from the other party if you have strong evidence to support your claim (witness statements and contact details, photos of the damage etc.)

It strongly doubt it be money out of the council employees pocket anyway as I expect the council have public liability insurance for the work they do which would pay the claim.

HTH

Andy

louloubelle76

Zurich isnt my insurance company (thank god) they are the councils, I called my own insurers and they said because Im claiming through the council they dont need to get involved.

Ive been trying to get hold of the Zurich guy but he isnt answering last time I heard he was going to chase up the council and see if their bloke has admitted to the rest of the damage and once again no phone call back.

It is starting to stress me out :eek: reason being before the accident happened I was looking at getting a new car and with this claim going on I cant as I dont know if Zurich want to look at the damage or what.

I know 1 thing I would never go with Zurich insurance.

lisyloo

So you are claiming off the 3rd party direct right?

Send them a letter (recorded delivery for 74p) not to the driver but to the correct council dept.
Stating that on date X/X/X their driver of reg XXXXXX hit your car.
You have witnesses and unless £XXX.XX is received within XX working days then you will refer the matter to the county court.
You need to details the damage and ideally send in two quotes.

The alternative if you have fully comp insurance is to claim off your insurance and let them claim the money back.
The downside of doing this is that it will be a "fault" claim until it's settled and in the mean time you'll lose NCD.

If you don't mind taking a day off work too much, and the car is driveable then send the letter recorded delivery then that's shoudl get them doing something.

mikey72

Sadly, this is why claim management companies prosper.
If you go it alone, the insurers ignores you.
If you do use a no win, no fee, you usually get paid out, plus a hire car, and quite often other damages.
It costs the insurer about 5 times the amount, and then they complain that's why premiums go up.
Contact them, give them 14 days to settler in full, or tell them you will be referring the claim to a management company.

lisyloo

If you go it alone, the insurers ignores you.

They won't ignore you if you say the right things i.e. in XX days I'll be taking you to the small claims track in the county court.
You do need to do a bit of research but it's not beyond most people.

or tell them you will be referring the claim to a management company.

That might work equally well (although if you mention the correct legal processes it does put them on notice).

Sally_A

lisyloo wrote: »

They won't ignore you if you say the right things i.e. in XX days I'll be taking you to the small claims track in the county court.
You do need to do a bit of research but it's not beyond most people.



That might work equally well (although if you mention the correct legal processes it does put them on notice).

You don't even need to threaten court action, you just need to get hold of someone with a bit of nouse.

A mate of mine (CIS) was hit by a reversing neighbour (Elephant) which cosmetically wrote her car off, CIS using Drive ASSist plonked an £80 per day (28 day loan initially) Zafira on her whilst her old car was still useable, just that the side doors were knackered. The TP (Elephant) had not yet reported the claim. Mate did not want to use the Zafira, as with 3 dogs it would turn into a muddy mess pretty quickly and there was a valeting clause at her expense. I advised her to phone Elephant, explain the situation and that she did not want to rip them off for £2240 car hire when her own car was worth little more than £700. Elephant rang their customer, she admitted liability, mate agreed an £850 settlement with the Elephant claims team, as she had saved them money in the long run, and they looked for similar on autotrader, and had her bank account credited within 24 hours. Drive ASSist may still have got 3 days from the time of delivery to pick up, but it was one heck of a lot cheaper than 28 days car hire.

Where liability is not in dispute, talk the talk and give them the money saving option.

Outsourcing claims is another major factor in the increasing costs, along with the credit hire companies. It makes me mad :mad:

louloubelle76

At last this has been finally sorted out, they admitted the damage BUT things get even more confusing and yet again Im doing the run around.

Got a call from the body works company who will repair or write my car off, saying that they will pick my car up take it back to their garage which is about 30mins to an hour away from and they will inspect the damage either repair it or write it off, if they write it off they will keep my car, now this has confused me because I would like to scrap my car myself and also claim back my car tax so if they keep my car I have to pay out money to get to the garage and also how do I know for definate I will get my money for my car even though the garage have scrapped it themselves.

Or I have to drive it to the garage myself for them to look at it and make my own way home

Im not happy with the way Zurich have treated me seems as though im running around after them even after their client admitted to damaging my car.

Is this normal with a insurance claim, I thought they come to your house and inspected your car and it all went from there, very confused can someone help me on what should happen or im i being given the run around?

InsideInsurance

Insurers normally have network repairers who have authority to authorise moderate repairs themselves or have camera & access to the insurers systems for quickly uploading the vehicle damage and estimates into a workflow tool the insurers use so an office based engineer can make the decision.

If a vehicle is a total loss it is normal for the insurer to retain the salvage and you to simply receive the vehicle valuation. If you want to retain the salvage yourself then Zurich will deduct the value of the salvage from your settlement figure. As to how do you know you will get the money? Whilst many insurers are slow, have shareholders to answer to more strongly than third parties etc very few international organisations are simply going to have wholescale defraudiing going on in terms of scrapping peoples cars and never paying the total loss value

louloubelle76

finally sorted things out I will be getting a courtesy car when they pick my car up for assesment, however im due to go away (in the uk) for a short break can i take the courtesy car?

olly300

louloubelle76 wrote: »

finally sorted things out I will be getting a courtesy car when they pick my car up for assesment, however im due to go away (in the uk) for a short break can i take the courtesy car?

You can do anything you normally do with the courtesy car. However I would phone them up and tell them in case your car gets repaired quickly.

BTW have you checked the cost of the car as you could end up with a big bill if the other side refuses to pay the cost of it. Courtesy cars are normally more expensive than hiring a car yourself.