Accident Exhange - other party refusing accept claim

Irnbrufreak

Hi All,

Looking for some feedback on a car insurance claim I am currently involved in.

A few months ago a large delivery lorry reversed into my parked car whilst I was in a local pharmacy. When I returned to the vehicle a taxi driver who was parked behind me said he saw it hit the car, and continued along the lane and was in the middle of its drop offs.

I checked the car, didn’t see anything and then joked with the guy it must be my lucky day. I drove down to the end of the road and thought I’d better check again to make sure. At this point I saw a large scrape in the rear quarter. I headed back to the lorry driver who was still unloading (at this point the taxi driver had left) and confronted her, it which point she said she thought she missed me, took a picture of the damage, called it into her head office and said call them to sort it out. I also took a picture of the lorry in the lane.

So I call the haulage company and they said sort it through insurance, I called my broker (not the insurer) who transferred me onto a company called accident exchange, who after taking all the above details said they can process the claim. Bearing in mind this is the first motoring claim I have ever had i thought this was normal. So I get a call back telling me the haulage company has admitted fault and they then arranged for the vehicle to be fixed. I receive a hire car and the person asks me to sign a document saying that if there are any issues with the claim you will hear from us at the end of the year where accident exchange will seek to take legal action to recover costs.

Car gets put into garage and repaired. I then get a call from Accident Exchange saying the haulage company’s insurer is stating their vehicle was not in the area at the time and not involved in the accident. I forward the picture from my iphone which is date/location stamped showing the vehicle in the lane at the time of the accident. Insurer then responds saying it doesn’t prove the haulage company scraped the car. Accident Exchange then asks me to try to find the taxi driver (I have gone to see local taxi companies and placed an article in local paper).

At this point I ask what happens if I can’t find the witness, I get the response of ‘we shall cross that bridge when it comes’. I state that Accident Exchange had told me the haulage company had admitted fault and that if they had not done so, I would not have had the vehicle repaired until this was resolved. They told me they didn’t say this, and that it was their ‘risk model’ in repairing non fault claims in this manner. On a further phone call to update them of the situation I press for an answer to what happens if I can’t find witness and they tell me they don’t think legal action will work, so they will write off the hire car costs and seek to claim on my insurance for the repair costs.
I have a number of issues:

1. I was told the haulage company had admitted fault. If Accident Exchange had told me otherwise I would not have had the vehicle repaired until they had. Ultimately if there was no way to claim, I would have paid for the repair from my own funds, rather than claiming on my insurance.
2. I used their service to claim on the parties insurance, and therefore save my NCD. I was in no way informed that they may claim on my insurance (I need to check the small print however). Again if I had known this, taking into account point one, I would not have had the vehicle repaired before fault was admitted.

I am trying to understand my options currently whilst waiting for the witness to come forward, if he doesn’t I intend to:

1. Request call recordings to confirm they had told me other party had admitted fault
2. Request confirmation of where/when they informed me in the event of other party denying fault, and they not wishing to pursue via legal action they would then claim on my insurance

Ultimately I do not wish to pay for their risk based approach to business.

Does anyone have any experience with Accident Exchange in similar circumstances? I thought that their response of ‘we shall cross that bridge when it comes’ was an indication that they have had previously unhappy customers in this situation.

Regards
Paul

alistair.long

As you have repaired your vehicle it will be a uphill stuggle.

The witness will aid your claim, if you know which base the driver was from, and perhaps he was picking up a customer, you can write to that company and offer a fee of £30 for the information, I am sure you will get that info, and then also offer the witness loss of earnings if they attend court.

Lorries and busses are the worst companies to deal with as they are always on the road and have a lot of accidents.

InsideInsurance

Instead of them claiming their costs from your insurers you could pay them back yourself for the repairs and thus preserve your NCD.

Even with the "proof" that they gave you miss information about the TP admitting liability you are probably only about 60% of the way there as I would guess easily 95% of people have repairs done before liability is resolved. If you can prove you'd told them you wouldn't proceed until liability is admitted then you would have a much stronger case.

You will need to put in a formal letter of complaint to which they should both acknowledge it and also provide a copy of their complaints procedure which will include who you can escalate it too if you are not happy with the response.

You could also lodge the complaint with the insurance broker as they introduced to them (and got a significant amount of cash for doing so) and with that complaint you can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service if not happy with their final response.

scheming_gypsy

As they were still delivering, the company they were delivering to may still have records of deliveries on that date. The van owners may also have GPS tracking on their vans which will prove where the van was - although if you'd be able to get hold of the information without it possibly going to court, is another matter.

Irnbrufreak

Thanks for your responses everyone.

alistair.long wrote: »

As you have repaired your vehicle it will be a uphill stuggle.

The witness will aid your claim, if you know which base the driver was from, and perhaps he was picking up a customer, you can write to that company and offer a fee of £30 for the information, I am sure you will get that info, and then also offer the witness loss of earnings if they attend court.

Lorries and busses are the worst companies to deal with as they are always on the road and have a lot of accidents.

I have gone into and spoken to the taxi companies, some where more interested than others. I hadn't thought of writing with a reward however and shall consider this as a possible next step.I watched the girl driving the truck reverse into the loading platform as I was driving away from the incident. Don't think she was having a good day ...

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Instead of them claiming their costs from your insurers you could pay them back yourself for the repairs and thus preserve your NCD.

Even with the "proof" that they gave you miss information about the TP admitting liability you are probably only about 60% of the way there as I would guess easily 95% of people have repairs done before liability is resolved. If you can prove you'd told them you wouldn't proceed until liability is admitted then you would have a much stronger case.

You will need to put in a formal letter of complaint to which they should both acknowledge it and also provide a copy of their complaints procedure which will include who you can escalate it too if you are not happy with the response.

You could also lodge the complaint with the insurance broker as they introduced to them (and got a significant amount of cash for doing so) and with that complaint you can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service if not happy with their final response.

Yup, that's my fall back point, paying for the actual repairs myself. I intend to speak to the broker in any sense as a customer I was expecting to speak to my insurer and was somewhat confused to be speaking to an accident management company. I was unaware of such organisations at the time. The accident management organisation had to convince me into using their service, which I was reluctant to do.

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

As they were still delivering, the company they were delivering to may still have records of deliveries on that date. The van owners may also have GPS tracking on their vans which will prove where the van was - although if you'd be able to get hold of the information without it possibly going to court, is another matter.

I have spoken to the poundstretchers store in question and they do have receipts showing delivery. I'm able to locate the truck to the specific location using the photo graph time/date stamp so it's not much use. I did however go into the store and ask if there was any recollection of a conversation between the driver and whoever received the delivery and there was a large amount of apathy in helping me out.I guess overall I have learned a number of lessons:.

- Accident Management Organisations are ambulance chasers
- I should have been more careful in first examining my vehicle and getting the details of the witness.