Albany Assistance Finance Agreement

junitrules

Hi All,

Looks like ANOTHER Albany Assistance question (disappointment with Admiral)...

A car went into the back of my partner's Corsa last week, and their insurer, Directline have admitted liability for the accident.

Admiral have passed the non-fault claim onto Albany Assistance, who have sent a Vehicle Repair Finance Agreement which they state has to be signed in order to progress with the repairs and hire car.

After reading numerous stories on the web about this company we have decided that this is something that we shouldnt sign.

Current status is that the bodyshop has come out to assess the damage (Arranged by albany) and the third party (TP) have said they will arrange a hire car.

Albany have said that if we take the hire car from the TP then they cant sort the repairs as the contract with admiral is that they provide both or nothing.

Is this right? Can anyone confirm if they can do that?

From reading other threads there have been suggestions to get the TP to sort the repair work out and ditch Albany - now that Albany have sent bodyshop to assess the damage would we be hit with a charge to cover that (and admin costs i imagine) if we went through the TP insurers?

Any experiences/advice would be greatly received. We have made one decision however - we won't be going with any part of the Admiral Group again for car insurance!!!!

Thanks

Christopher7

Don't be too hasty to ditch Admiral because others have had a bad experience with Albany, there will be many, many more satisfied customers.

Insurers are no angel themselves, you are considering letting Direct Line handle the repair. Let me tell you about Direct Line

* No matter what it costs they will pay their approved repairer a fixed fee, this encourages repairers to cut corners

* They won't use Vauxhall parts, and these fake parts won't fit properly

* The repairer will not be trained to repair Vauxhall cars and won't have access to technical information.

Don't let anyone other than Vauxhall tell you where to get your car repaired.

chanz4

What a load of rubbish, sounds like he works for Albany. Take it to a garage of your choice, and let the third party pay for a hire car. Albany wont like it as they cant rip the other insurance company off without and thats why they want both

adamc260

The main thing Albany want is the hire.. .if they don't get that they are NOT interested in the repair as that isn't where they make their money.

I'd personally let Direct Line deal with it but you dictate where the car is repaired and let them supply a hire car. They'll save a bomb on the hire costs so should be happy to do it.

The most that Albany can charge for is an engineer report but just tell Direct Line you want them to cover the costs (At most it's like £50-60 and they will save that in a day or two on hire alone!)

Christopher7

chanz4 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish, sounds like he works for Albany. Take it to a garage of your choice, and let the third party pay for a hire car. Albany wont like it as they cant rip the other insurance company off without and thats why they want both

Don't criticise what you don't understand. I never supported using Albany, I was pointing out that letting Direct Line control the repair is not in their best interest.

If you think what I pointed out is a load of rubbish, then you are naive and certainly not in any kind of position to comment.

Christopher7

junitrules wrote: »

Hi All,

Is this right? Can anyone confirm if they can do that?

Thanks

Also to answer your question,

Albany can decline to deal with your repair if you are not taking a hire car. However, Admiral can't if you are comprehensively insured.

If you do not want to use Albany or Direct Line, then call Admiral and tell them that you do not wish to use your motor legal protection and you wish for them to handle the claim.

Admiral pushed you to Albany because it not only saves them handling your claim but they are paid a referral fee by Albany of something like £300+ if you take their hire car.

Don't think it is just Admiral who refer claims to credit hire organisations and take a referral fee of £300+, most insurers will, including Direct Line and Aviva.

learningaboutinsurance

Christopher7 wrote: »

Also to answer your question,

Don't think it is just Admiral who refer claims to credit hire organisations and take a referral fee of £300+, most insurers will, including Direct Line and Aviva.

And the some of the rest, Quinn, Esure etc etc

I do have state that i was appointed albany last year during an incident and i have to disagree with the negativie comments as i personally think its not the company but the people who work their but not to the company policy in customer service.

I had contacted them several time's during while my claim was being dealt with and i have to say apart from one member of staff at Albany they were really helpful and assisted me better then my insurance comapany did.

junitrules

Thanks for all your comments. We managed to get Albany to agree to us not using their hire car (after a lot of forceful talking), which was our main concern when it came to the other party paying the fees. Directline kindly supplied hire car, which they said cost them 15.77 a day... from what Ive read, a lot less than Albany.

Albany sorted the repairs so we'll see how that goes.

Christopher7

junitrules wrote: »

Thanks for all your comments. We managed to get Albany to agree to us not using their hire car (after a lot of forceful talking), which was our main concern when it came to the other party paying the fees. Directline kindly supplied hire car, which they said cost them 15.77 a day... from what Ive read, a lot less than Albany.

Albany sorted the repairs so we'll see how that goes.

Well done, it must have taken some very "forceful talking" for Albany to provide a repair only service. Still they will be happy with their 20% cut of the repair invoice.

grabem

well i have signed the agreement - because I was concerned that any cost arrising from delay would be down to me. But did send a letter to the insurer telling them not to "close the claim" as they proposed to do and holding them responsible for the repair and recovery of costs. Dunno if that is of any use.

What riled me more than anything in the agreement (apart from "you should consult a solicitor if you do not understand...") was the part where they decline liability for faulty work by the body shop - that they have selected and instructed to perform the repair! Unbelieveable!

Having reviewed this thread I'm now thinking through my options...

sonudagr88

I was asked to find cheaper car insurance for an 83 year old and checked all the comparison sites. The Post Office came up second cheapest. I decided to check out the actual Post Office website and found that not only was it £60 cheaper than the amount the comparison site gave but they were offering a £50 voucher to be spent in the PO. This was about 10 months or so ago. Martin jogged my memory today on the radio