Bizare situation, how to claim against tesco insurance.

vertical_fool

Hi all.

I've been with tesco's insurance for approximately 3 years from a fiesta, astra, various transit vans and then to my Daihatsu hijet van.

When I got my hijet it was very expensive to insure, more than my previous long wheel base, high roof transit despite it being a minivan 1.3 engine with a factory fitted LPG system. Here's a pic and another , note the corsa in the background for scale. Although on the log book it was stated as being 4x4, it was not and also that it was classed as a goods vehicle apparently unchangable even through the DVLA, they were not interested one iota. I gave up trying to change either of these points because of hitting brick walls.

So my idea of a cheap little van was foolish with insurance at over £1000 and tax at £180 even though it was 1.295 litre engine, no tax reduction for LPG either or <1.3 litre.

I kept it because I developed a soft spot for it, it made me laugh when I drove it, it was surprisingly nimble and responsive!

Now I'd spent alot of time trying to lower the tax and also remove the 4X4 status on the log book all to no avail.

I finally got round to trying different insurers hoping they may disregard the 4X4 status as I assumed Tesco's were just basing there insurance premium on the specs from the DVLA. My insurance quotes were for a 4X4 1.3 hijet van.

I got a quote from the market traders confederation, there aimed at market traders and so were giving free insurance, I think public liability. This was handy because I was doing a few car boots a year. They seemed an honest company and were cheaper than Tesco's without any pressure to match other quotes. The excess was also significantly less. So my mind was made up.

I'd left it late in the day to get quotes as my Tesco's insurance was due to be restarted at 19.00. I'd phoned Tesco's in the early afternoon to cancel my current policy which would be automatically renewed at 19:00. When I spoke to them the advisor said it was renewed at 12:00 or 13:00. I was gobsmacked and devasted to be told this even though I'd had the renewal time of 19:00 stated in the automatic renewal correspondence. I lost my train of thought and became very passive, basically letting the Tesco rep bully me into accepting the policy. I think the date was 22.12.09.

A day or two later I got a phone call at around 23:00 asking me where my vehicle was. I said I thought it was outside where I'd left it but it transpired that it had been stolen. Now this was the really cold winter so when they asked me if I would be coming to get it or contacting the insurers to do so. I didn't know what condition it was in apart from the forced entry, the ground was thick in ice so I decided it would probably best to get the insurers to recover and then I hoped to get it back and repaired.

Now I'd tried on a number of occasions to contact Tesco to see if I could get it back and repaired for as low a cost as possible. I was using my mobile to contact them so I was very wary of long expensive calls. So sometimes I gave up due to time on hold. When I did get through on two or three occasions I was told that firstly the computers were down which I found hard to believe with the size of Tesco's but accepted this and tried at a later date, this time twice I think I was told that due to weather there was not enough staff available to deal with my situation and that I should contact them at a later date.

I think I did get some contact by the recovery company but remember this vaguely. My next contact was from an engineer who was just trying to low ball me on the value of my Daihatsu. He'd asked me about the damage to it and I can remember saying to him that I'd had it repaired but due to thinness of the metal that there was dents all over if you really looked, it was metallic and sign written so it required alot of looking to see them but if it was a rolls royce being checked for imperfections it would have yellow chalk marks all over the place. I was probably too honest with him, I was taken with him due the fact he was an engineer and not just an administrative robot. This was despite my previous and only other engineer contact being highly dubious. He offered me I think around £1250, but I thought this was too low, it was a 53 reg and had a factory fitted LPG system, he agreed but acknowledge previous damage and said OK £1500, it may have been £1450. I agreed to this and thought I'd just get paid out.

However it wasn't an automatic payout as I'd expected, now shortly after this, towards the end of January I was involved in a strange, bizarre incident, set of circumstances that led me to suffer significant injuries by people that I had assumed were good sensible, hard working, decent individuals. This led me to be sectioned against my will and eventually forcibly medicated with a legal medicated health system that I thought was a historical bygone age that diminished with the defeat of Nazi Germany. How wrong I was.

Anyway whilst sectioned and medicated I was oblivious to my previous life and didn't deal with anything for months and months. I remember eventually having correspondence from Tesco's stating that due to lack of communication from me that they were ending my current policy. I made a vague mental note of this but didn't respond.

Now over the last week I've been feeling better than I have for months, over a year in fact. So I don't really know where to start but today I've made baby steps contacting my other utilities so there more economical for me. I was hoping I could just contact Tesco's by email, explain my position and hopefully get my approx. £850 payout. I'm on a PAYG phone now after ending my contract so I was reluctant to phone Tesco's 0845 number, get put on hold, passed around etc and by the time I get to the right person I'd be mentally exhausted (the meds that I have to take purely for sleep etc make me asleep/zombified for well over 20 hours out of the 24) and would forget what to say. So I wanted to send an email to explain what I felt I needed to say. I could not find any way to contact them besides on the phone. So I'm back on my old stalwart, MSE. I've not really been on the forum for a significant amount of time. Todays been a progress day, I've only wrote this message and 2 other emails but I started at 18:00 thinking I could get them finished in half an hour. As I'm typing now it is after 10:00 in the morning so over 18 hours!

So my issues are:

1) How do I contact Tesco's to explain/interact with them ideally in text, I get too flustered and forgetful on the phone. I don't want to pay fro being on hold either.

2) If I've been overcharged for my policy due to it being classed as a 4X4 vehicle. Do I have a leg to stand on to get reimbursed?

3) I regard myself as being overtaxed due to the excessive road tax band. Do I have a leg to stand on here?

4) When I phoned Tesco's to cancel my policy, I was manipulated and I believe the insurance forcibly by not giving me a way to back. It was stated that it had been an automatic renewal, despite my correspondence saying differently. They never mentioned any cooling off period, just seemed to steamroller me into accepting there more expensive, inferior policy.

I mentioned earlier about my previous experience with a tesco's engineer, well I did have a big high roof, long wheel base LPG transit. A women drove straight into the back of me whilst I was stationary at a set of lights. I decided to claim as more of a blessing because she'd caused more damage to my rusty looking doors, making them much more precarious. So I claimed and had to take it to be assessed. I was happy because I thought I'd get some replacement doors. I'd have been happy even if it was just cheap used doors that were hopefully the same colour but more functional.

Again I feel like the engineer/system was playing hard ball with me which I could understand. If I was a third party I'd agree that I was taking advantage, hoping to end up with better doors but I'd have expected a back street garage to give me a satisfactory job for £250 maybe a bit more.

Anyway they decided to write my vehicle off as a category B write off therefore only fit to be broken up by people with a waste management licence I think. I wasn't happy, I contacted Tesco's stating this and if I remember correctly I was told the senior engineer would reassess my claim. Now when he spoke to me he agreed to write it off as a category C write off which meant it could still be legally driven on the road, it meant I could buy it back and get it repaired myself, plus getting paid out for the vehicle loss. However, now this is in my opinion highly unusual and suspect, I felt I was being punished for playing the system because he would only do it to a Cat C write off if I had the doors repaired, which would then be assessed by one of their engineers to be of an acceptable standard. Once this was completed he'd get the van reclassified from a Cat B to a Cat C write off. Highly unusual.

I can't say highly unusual enough really even though I have little experience of this area. What I do know though is that vans don't need hinges etc to be of a significant quality. In fact they don't even need doors, ie the post office etc who have a roller shutter, no hinges etc. But I think it's even more bizarre than that because I don't think doors are needed full stop. I think if you had a transit to take into MOT and you had removed the rear doors I don't think it would fail an MOT or any reason to stop it from being driven on the road.

Another thing that this senior engineer said to me was that If it was classed as Cat C that it would require a VOSA check/test plus a new MOT. This was not true as commercial vehicles that are Cat C write offs do not require a VIC check, just a fresh MOT. I would expect a higher level of knowledge from an engineer let alone a senior engineer. That information should be bread and butter to an engineer working in assessing vehicle damage for a massive company such as Tesco's.

So this gives me another question:

5) Would I be able to get any compensation for this as the hoops that I was being made to jump through I think was unreasonable, unfair and possibly personal!

I think I've covered what I wanted to, maybe not posted as well as it could have been, or maybe in smaller posts but for me I had to start from the beginning and go from there. Putting all my fractured memories, data, history etc together. Running out of medication seems to have been very productive for me. I've dealt with a few issues over the last almost 20 hours that I should have dealt with a significant time ago but these issues were just of my radar.

So I hope you can help. If you can't, thanks for taking the time to read some if not all of my maybe bloated, maybe incoherent attempt at providing as much info as I thought needed to be stated.

Regards

Vertical Fool.

thenudeone

Wow.
I can't help you, but I think you win the prize for the longest non-spam post on the site!

Quentin

thenudeone wrote: »

but I think you win the prize for the longest non-spam post on the site!

You should get one too! (As you know that it's non-spam - this means you must have read it all!!)

agrinnall

vertical_fool wrote: »

So I hope you can help. If you can't, thanks for taking the time to read some if not all of my maybe bloated, maybe incoherent attempt at providing as much info as I thought needed to be stated.

Regards

Vertical Fool.

The problem is we have no idea which bits are important and which are just filler. I doubt if many people will be bothered to read it all. If you really want people to help you I would strongly advise editing it down to a manageable size - if it goes over more than 1 screen it's generally too much.

ACG

I got half way through thinking i was near the end then scrolled down and just gave up.

can you not put it in bullet points? We dont need to know about your astra and corsa, how you were unhappy with the premium etc. Just stick to the facts, not your thoughts and feelings.

olly300

All I can say is don't write such a long letter to Tesco it won't be read.

Phantom247

Essentially, as the others have said try to keep it to the point with going off on a tangent as this would not help in this situation, I would look and find your insurance documentation and firstly lodge a complaint with Tesco and forward it to them, making sure to keep a copy and send by recorded delivery to ensure it is received and you have evidence of doing so.

I would address the letter and the envelope to the Chief Executive as this normally gets their attention. You can also ask them as part of the complaint to reimburse you for the telephone calls and that you request compensation for the way you were treated at that time, if you are unsure about talking on the
phone you can ask them to take down the details of someone you can trust giving their name, first line of address and DOB ought to be enough so they can speak on your behalf?

In regards to being over-charged for the insurance, A Daihastu hijet is looking at the various images on the net appears to be more of van/pick-up truck rather than a 4x4 in most cases, the designation on whether it is 4x4 or not is dependent on the body type and from the pictures you have provided it appears to be more of the former than the latter and an insurer normally goes by how the DVLA describes the vehicle, although sometimes there are differences but that is at the Underwriter's discretion. Also it is possible, that Tesco may consider the LPG conversion as a modification which maybe causing an increase in the premium.

As for the tax that is down to the DVLA and they have set criteria for it, I would have thought the tax would fall under the LGV which would be around the £130 area but you would have to check with them and the rates are based on what is announced at the budget and normally come into force almost immediately, if they state that your vehicle is for example £160 per year, unless you can prove to their satisfaction that it is a 4x4 then you are I am afraid a tad stuck.

As for the automatic renewal it is standard practice for an insurer to automatically renew
your policy, unless they are told otherwise, you normally are sent reminders so you are given a chance to contact them so that you can decline prior to renewal.

As for the situation in regards to the category of your previous vehicle, which I have noticed you have discussed on other forums, If a vehicle is classified a total loss a MIAFTR entry must be completed in respect of all total loss vehicles, indicating salvage categories (A, B, C or D as appropriate) as soon as reasonably practicable. Completing a MIAFTR entry meets the regulatory requirements for insurers to notify DVLA under the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002.

Furthermore, A VIC or Vehicle Identity Check. Since April 2003, all cars and certain light vans categorised as A, B or C require a VIC before a V5C registration certificate is re-issued by DVLA. The check is carried out by the Vehicle Operator and Services Agency (VOSA).

As for recategorising vehicles between B and C, it depends on the circumstances, if there was significant damage i.e. structural such as one of the pillars to a car had been compromised then there is no chance of repair and has to be broken for parts as no longer structurally safe on the road, cat B can also be used to describe vehicles that in the engineers' assessment is beyond any form of economic repair not just over an insurance write-off.

I hope this makes sense.

custardy

vertical_fool wrote: »

Hi all.

I've been with tesco's insurance for approximately 3 years from a fiesta, astra, various transit vans and then to my Daihatsu hijet van.

When I got my hijet it was very expensive to insure, more than my previous long wheel base, high roof transit despite it being a minivan 1.3 engine with a factory fitted LPG system. Here's a pic and another , note the corsa in the background for scale. Although on the log book it was stated as being 4x4, it was not and also that it was classed as a goods vehicle apparently unchangable even through the DVLA, they were not interested one iota. I gave up trying to change either of these points because of hitting brick walls.

So my idea of a cheap little van was foolish with insurance at over £1000 and tax at £180 even though it was 1.295 litre engine, no tax reduction for LPG either or <1.3 litre.

I kept it because I developed a soft spot for it, it made me laugh when I drove it, it was surprisingly nimble and responsive!

Now I'd spent alot of time trying to lower the tax and also remove the 4X4 status on the log book all to no avail.

I finally got round to trying different insurers hoping they may disregard the 4X4 status as I assumed Tesco's were just basing there insurance premium on the specs from the DVLA. My insurance quotes were for a 4X4 1.3 hijet van.

I got a quote from the market traders confederation, there aimed at market traders and so were giving free insurance, I think public liability. This was handy because I was doing a few car boots a year. They seemed an honest company and were cheaper than Tesco's without any pressure to match other quotes. The excess was also significantly less. So my mind was made up.

I'd left it late in the day to get quotes as my Tesco's insurance was due to be restarted at 19.00. I'd phoned Tesco's in the early afternoon to cancel my current policy which would be automatically renewed at 19:00. When I spoke to them the advisor said it was renewed at 12:00 or 13:00. I was gobsmacked and devasted to be told this even though I'd had the renewal time of 19:00 stated in the automatic renewal correspondence. I lost my train of thought and became very passive, basically letting the Tesco rep bully me into accepting the policy. I think the date was 22.12.09. so far I see nothing of use

A day or two later I got a phone call at around 23:00 asking me where my vehicle was. who from? the Police?I said I thought it was outside where I'd left it but it transpired that it had been stolen. Now this was the really cold winter so when they asked me if I would be coming to get it or contacting the insurers to do so. I didn't know what condition it was in apart from the forced entry, the ground was thick in ice so I decided it would probably best to get the insurers to recover and then I hoped to get it back and repaired.

Now I'd tried on a number of occasions to contact Tesco to see if I could get it back and repaired for as low a cost as possible. I was using my mobile to contact them so I was very wary of long expensive calls. So sometimes I gave up due to time on hold. When I did get through on two or three occasions I was told that firstly the computers were down which I found hard to believe with the size of Tesco's but accepted this and tried at a later date, this time twice I think I was told that due to weather there was not enough staff available to deal with my situation and that I should contact them at a later date. again nothing of interest

I think I did get some contact by the recovery company but remember this vaguely.huh? My next contact was from an engineer who was just trying to low ball me on the value of my Daihatsu. He'd asked me about the damage to it and I can remember saying to him that I'd had it repaired but due to thinness of the metal that there was dents all over if you really looked, it was metallic and sign written so it required alot of looking to see them but if it was a rolls royce being checked for imperfections it would have yellow chalk marks all over the place. I was probably too honest with him, I was taken with him due the fact he was an engineer and not just an administrative robot. This was despite my previous and only other engineer contact being highly dubious. He offered me I think around £1250, but I thought this was too low, it was a 53 reg and had a factory fitted LPG system, he agreed but acknowledge previous damage and said OK £1500, it may have been £1450. I agreed to this and thought I'd just get paid out. okay. so car stolen,recovered,engineer quotes £1500 payout

However it wasn't an automatic payout as I'd expected, now shortly after this, towards the end of January I was involved in a strange, bizarre incident, set of circumstances that led me to suffer significant injuries by people that I had assumed were good sensible, hard working, decent individuals. This led me to be sectioned against my will and eventually forcibly medicated with a legal medicated health system that I thought was a historical bygone age that diminished with the defeat of Nazi Germany. How wrong I was. getting somewhere now

Anyway whilst sectioned and medicated I was oblivious to my previous life and didn't deal with anything for months and months. I remember eventually having correspondence from Tesco's stating that due to lack of communication from me that they were ending my current policy. I made a vague mental note of this but didn't respond.umm yeah

Now over the last week I've been feeling better than I have for months, over a year in fact. So I don't really know where to start but today I've made baby steps contacting my other utilities so there more economical for me. I was hoping I could just contact Tesco's by email, explain my position and hopefully get my approx. £850 payout. I'm on a PAYG phone now after ending my contract so I was reluctant to phone Tesco's 0845 number, get put on hold, passed around etc and by the time I get to the right person I'd be mentally exhausted (the meds that I have to take purely for sleep etc make me asleep/zombified for well over 20 hours out of the 24) and would forget what to say. So I wanted to send an email to explain what I felt I needed to say. I could not find any way to contact them besides on the phone. So I'm back on my old stalwart, MSE. I've not really been on the forum for a significant amount of time. Todays been a progress day, I've only wrote this message and 2 other emails but I started at 18:00 thinking I could get them finished in half an hour. As I'm typing now it is after 10:00 in the morning so over 18 hours!

So my issues are:

1) How do I contact Tesco's to explain/interact with them ideally in text, I get too flustered and forgetful on the phone. I don't want to pay fro being on hold either. in wtriting

2) If I've been overcharged for my policy due to it being classed as a 4X4 vehicle. Do I have a leg to stand on to get reimbursed? classed by the DVLA? no chance. you took the policy

3) I regard myself as being overtaxed due to the excessive road tax band. Do I have a leg to stand on here? not a chance

4) When I phoned Tesco's to cancel my policy, I was manipulated and I believe the insurance forcibly by not giving me a way to back. It was stated that it had been an automatic renewal, despite my correspondence saying differently. They never mentioned any cooling off period, just seemed to steamroller me into accepting there more expensive, inferior policy. that would be in your documentation.little chance.anyway. you made a claim. would you like to forget about the claim and pay back all the recovery,engineer costs?

I mentioned earlier about my previous experience with a tesco's engineer, well I did have a big high roof, long wheel base LPG transit. A women drove straight into the back of me whilst I was stationary at a set of lights. I decided to claim as more of a blessing because she'd caused more damage to my rusty looking doors, making them much more precarious. So I claimed and had to take it to be assessed. I was happy because I thought I'd get some replacement doors. I'd have been happy even if it was just cheap used doors that were hopefully the same colour but more functional. no idea what your point is

Again I feel like the engineer/system was playing hard ball with me which I could understand. If I was a third party I'd agree that I was taking advantage, hoping to end up with better doors but I'd have expected a back street garage to give me a satisfactory job for £250 maybe a bit more. again no idea

Anyway they decided to write my vehicle off as a category B write off therefore only fit to be broken up by people with a waste management licence I think. I wasn't happy, I contacted Tesco's stating this and if I remember correctly I was told the senior engineer would reassess my claim. Now when he spoke to me he agreed to write it off as a category C write off which meant it could still be legally driven on the road, it meant I could buy it back and get it repaired myself, plus getting paid out for the vehicle loss. However, now this is in my opinion highly unusual and suspect, I felt I was being punished for playing the system because he would only do it to a Cat C write off if I had the doors repaired, which would then be assessed by one of their engineers to be of an acceptable standard. Once this was completed he'd get the van reclassified from a Cat B to a Cat C write off. Highly unusual. again,I dont see where you are going

I can't say highly unusual enough really even though I have little experience of this area. What I do know though is that vans don't need hinges etc to be of a significant quality. In fact they don't even need doors, ie the post office etc who have a roller shutter, no hinges etc. But I think it's even more bizarre than that because I don't think doors are needed full stop. I think if you had a transit to take into MOT and you had removed the rear doors I don't think it would fail an MOT or any reason to stop it from being driven on the road. still going?

Another thing that this senior engineer said to me was that If it was classed as Cat C that it would require a VOSA check/test plus a new MOT. This was not true as commercial vehicles that are Cat C write offs do not require a VIC check, just a fresh MOT. I would expect a higher level of knowledge from an engineer let alone a senior engineer. That information should be bread and butter to an engineer working in assessing vehicle damage for a massive company such as Tesco's.

So this gives me another question:

5) Would I be able to get any compensation for this as the hoops that I was being made to jump through I think was unreasonable, unfair and possibly personal! hoops?

I think I've covered what I wanted to, maybe not posted as well as it could have been, or maybe in smaller posts but for me I had to start from the beginning and go from there.you really didnt Putting all my fractured memories, data, history etc together. Running out of medication seems to have been very productive for me. I've dealt with a few issues over the last almost 20 hours that I should have dealt with a significant time ago but these issues were just of my radar. Im not so sure your meds help

So I hope you can help. If you can't, thanks for taking the time to read some if not all of my maybe bloated, maybe incoherent attempt at providing as much info as I thought needed to be stated.

Regards

Vertical Fool.

this is a lot of tosh

van got nicked
van got recovered
you got sectioned
now you are atepting to get a payment from Tesco insurance as you didnt respond to their letters.

yes?

somalt

That's a lot of information.

1 http://www.tescobank.com/personal/finance/insurance/carins/contact.html it says that their policies may be with different insurers, so you need to check your paperwork and find the name of the insurer. Then write to them, explain why you haven't been in touch and say you are now looking to claim. If you have been sent a letter offering settlement refer to it and say something like "In your letter of XX XX XXXX you offered a settlement of XXX, please forward this payment to XXX (if you have changed address) Ask them to contact you in writing or by email.

2 They offered a premium, which you accepted. Given you are looking to make a claim on the policy, I wouldn't try to argue that the policy should be invalid.

3 You say you have been in touch with the DVLA and got nowhere, I'm not sure where you can go with that but don't go into it with the insurer as it's not relevant to your claim with them.

4 If you want to claim on a policy, then you can't say you were forced into taking it or it was missold as you would not be able to benefit from it.

I wouldn't bring up your issue with your other claim in the same letter as it would only confuse the person responding. Is the other claim settled?

5 Define what inconvenience you have experienced, is it in addition to the inconvenience of making a normal claim? Keep it focused on this claim. Can you quantify and prove any additional costs? If so give them the details. If not, I wouldn't bring it up. The only service issue related to your current claim I am picking up is that it wasn't an automatic payout as you expected. But, at this point, you don't know if they did send you a cheque and you haven't received it. So I would start by asking them why you haven't received payment before you ask for compensation.
Do you have any records in relation to why they cancelled the policy? On occasion when a claim is made that does result in the policy being ended.