Recovering insurance excess and expenses

Daisies

Has anyone else has trouble recovering an excess payment and expenses from a car insurance policy?

Someone (neighbour's ex-husband) drove into my car whilst it was parked outside my house in August. He drove off, but returned with his details and I put in a claim with my insurer. Insurer arranged for repair at garage, and I dropped car off and picked it up again 10 days later, having a courtesy car in the meantime.

I had to pay the £100 excess up front at the repair place and also claimed £100 for loss of earnings. I'm self-employed so wasn't available for work during the time I was taking the car in and picking it up again. My insurer then passed this onto a firm of solicitors, who are taking FOREVER to do anything about getting the money back from the other driver's insurer. They've claimed I haven't sent in paperwork that I have proof I've sent (they shut up quite quickly when I told them this!). Now they want payslips to prove the loss of earnings. I have supplied them with a letter from my contractor confirming where I was working that week (3 hours drive from the garage) and my normal daily rate. I don't think they read my original letter properly, otherwise they would know I'm self-employed and don't have payslips!

Has anyone else had problems such as this? Surely my insurer should reimburse me (after all, it wasn't my fault) and then go to the trouble of reclaiming the money themselves? I'm not with that insurer anymore anyway, the customer service was dreadful...

Astaroth

the reason they are called uninsured losses is because you are not insured for them.

Unfortunately these things can take time and a lot of stock letters are used (being cynical you could also question how high a priority it is for the solicitor firm given that they will not be paid for the work). My guess would be that you sent what ever proof you had for loss of earning to your solicitors, they would have photocopied it, put a stock letter on the front saying "find enclosed our clients claim for loss of earnings of £X with attached evidence if you dont pay within 7 days blah blah blah".

The insurance company receives it, goes through their internal mail/ backlog, looks at the evidence and decides it isnt sufficient and writes back saying so. Your solicitor writes back to you with a stock letter again.

It could be the TPI didnt realise you were self employed or didnt select the right letter to send to you and your Sols just forwarded the response to you without reviewing the file in detail or the error could have been purely your sols.

Are you aware if liability has been resolved yet or not?

I assume your insurers appointed the solicitors under a uninsured losses/ legal expenses/protection policy in which case you can complain both to the solicitor (they should give you the name of the senior partner that is responsible for handling complaints) and the insurance company. If both fail to resolve the complaint then the solicitor complaint can be escalated to the Law Society and the insurance complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Unfortunately if the TPI havent accepted liability yet then you arent going to be getting a cheque for your UIL no matter how good or bad your solicitors are.

lisyloo

Surely my insurer should reimburse me (after all, it wasn't my fault) and then go to the trouble of reclaiming the money themselves?

No, these are losses for which you are uninsured - that's why your insurer will not reimburse you.

Have you thought about making a complaint via their formal complaints procedure.
I have often found that making it formal sometimes gets things done. Sometimes it gets a completely seperate "customer relations" department involved who can take action and get things done.

Unfortunately these things do take time, firstly because of the nature of letters going back and forth but also because the insruance companies try to minimise the costs and "streamline" the work. So one solicitor will be working on many cases simultaneously to get things done via the cheapest route possible.

Astaroth

The solicitor will have to be working for a company that is totally separate to the insurance company though (the solicitors will actually pay the insurance company to get the cases, normally it is done on a postcode basis) as until the Clementi reforms come in an insurance company cannot own a solicitor firm... though obviously many insurers will have very close working relationships with the solicitors on their panel.

Solicitors are ultimately a company like any other though so will also try to streamline their processes to minimise costs... esp as they will not get paid for non-litigated non-injury cases (whilst payment cannot be done on a per case basis they have effectively actually paid to take your case for which they wont get paid)

Daisies

Thank you everyone!

The other driver admitted liability within 24 hours. (He drove off initially, I suspect hoping to get away with it, but a neighbour saw him and ran across the road to tell me. I suspect he saw her as he turned out of the top of the road, which is what made him return. I rang the police, and then went to the police station with my documents. During that time he returned and put his phone no. through my letterbox. He initially wanted not to involve the insurance company, but I refused to do it that way.)

Ironically, both he and I were insured at that time with the same insurance company!
I think I will complain both to the insurer and the solicitor. The solicitor is one of those big national ones, complete with 0870 number for enquiries (good thing I know about saynoto0870!) and you do get the impression they're just sending out standard letters...

Bossyboots

I had endless problems with the solicitors handling my PI claim.

In the end I went back to my insurer and made a formal complaint and they have appointed a new firm. They did offer to mediate which might normally have been enough, but my solicitors had made a mistake purely through lack of care and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Mrs_pbradley936

Mine is still going on after 18 months!

Daisies

Bizarrely a letter has just arrived with a cheque for £100 - not sure if this is for the excess payment or the loss of earnings. I suspect the excess as it was the loss of earnings they were quibbling about!