Albany Assistance - Steer clear

londonTiger

Quentin wrote: »

You got a "bonus" when they offered to let you off paying your excess. This was never covered by your insurance - you agreed to pay it when making a claim - and was your "reward" for allowing them to refer you to a claim handler!

You always did have a third option, (claim direct off the third party, or use your own claim handler/solicitor to do so), but said you didn't want the stress!

You cannot expect your insurer to go to the expense of pursuing the third party for a "resolution" without first actually making a claim. They have nothing to pursue for!

I found out about the 3rd option with the benfit of hindsight and from scouring this forum. This option was never given to me on the phone call. It's like I had to pick either to use my excess and then recover the excess when found not at fault. Or to get forwarded to their partner claims handler.

I fully expect the insurance company to talk to the third party drivers insurance to work out who was at fault without asking you to make a decision on whoto repair your car to. After all we are paying a lot of money for our premiums... They must do *SOME* work for it.

I only mentioned that incident because you said

If a third party insurer has an "innocent third party claims department" and you are truly "innocent", then they are usually bending over to save you any stress/headache, as they don't want you going off to put your claim into the hands of a claim handler with credit hire/credit repairs on their minds!

Which just isn't the case at all. I was having issues with Albany and complained to Admiral about Albany's slow rate of response. Admiral told ne not to worry and I will be found not at fault the staff reassured me that they don't ususally refer customers to Albany unless the customer has a water tight case and they believe that I will get a not at fault claim.

I don't know why you got the idea that your insurance will want to deal with the claim in-house when you're not at fault and pass you off to a claims handler when you are at fault. If anything it should be the reverse. Passing someone onto a claims handler means that there's another company taking a cut out of the pie which means if found at fault your insurance will have to pay out more than if no claims handler was involved.

londonTiger

Lee_Jones wrote: »

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/admiral-reveals-referral-income

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036344/Car-insurance-referral-fees-crackdown-force-premiums-higher.html

regarding the daily mail article. How does that work in practice? Unless an insurance company out there is positioning itself where they are getting a disproportionally high numbers of not at fault accident drivers then at fault drivers this assertion is farcical.

if we assume that on average any give insurance company will have an equal amount of "at fault" and "not at fault" accidents. Then removing the referral fee deals will have no real benefit or loss to the insurance companies. Sure they might not be able to make an extra buck from referrals fees. But at the same time, on the other side when their customer is at fault they don't get charged excessive costs from the third party insurer.

Quentin

londonTiger wrote: »

I found out about the 3rd option with the benfit of hindsight and from scouring this forum. This option was never given to me on the phone call. It's like I had to pick either to use my excess and then recover the excess when found not at fault. Or to get forwarded to their partner claims handler.

I fully expect the insurance company to talk to the third party drivers insurance to work out who was at fault without asking you to make a decision on whoto repair your car to. After all we are paying a lot of money for our premiums... They must do *SOME* work for it.

I only mentioned that incident because you said


Which just isn't the case at all. I was having issues with Albany and complained to Admiral about Albany's slow rate of response. Admirals position was we don't ususally refer our customers to Albany unless the customer has a water tight case and we believe they will get a not at fault claim.

I don't know why you got the idea that your insurance will want to deal with the claim in house when you're not at fault and pass you off to a claims handler when you are at fault. Passing someone onto a claims handler means that there's another company taking a cut out of the pie which means if found at fault your insurance will have to pay out more than if no claims handler was involved.

Well.....you did say you didn't want the stress/headache of dealing direct with the third party so went via your own insurer!!!

And you cannot expect your insurer to take on a third party without you making a claim. How can they pursue a claim against the third party when they have no expense to chase?

And you seem to have misunderstood my post.

Where have I said your insurer passes you to a claims handler when you are at fault? This clearly won't happen!

A claims handler usually only takes you on when they are certain that you are blameless! So it's win/win for your insurer, as your misfortune has now earned them £100s on referral fees!!

You "fell" for the sweetener of no excess to pay and reclaim if you allowed your case to be passed to the management company!

londonTiger

you argue for the sake of argueing and then go back and forth endlessly. Don't make assumptions and take bits of soundbites from one part to another and then use those words against the writer.

this is not the first time you misunderstood me and this probably won't be the last.

loopdaloop

Quentin sounds like he's from albany.
The fact if you are not at fault, you should always take the third option and claim direct from the third party! as they do bend over backwards and organise the cash quickly!!

operauser

I read the above threads with great interest, because we too are having to deal with two incompetent companies, yes you know who they are. Both of them seem to appear as soon as you search for Albany Assistance in various forums...

We had none fault claim as a result of this Admiral passed us onto Albany. First, Albany wanted us to sign the hire purchase agreement for the courtesy car. Now if you look at the adverts on television Admiral is very happy to mention that you get a courtesy car for free, my foot.

When looking at the HP contacted the exuberant charges and us having to fork out £15.00 up front for the fuel, we decided that we did not want the courtesy car after all and contact Admiral, they got in touch with the repair centre and somehow negotiated and informed us that a courtesy car would be provided. This never materialised, because we wanted our car repaired, we went ahead with the repair of our car without the courtesy car.

Now here is the bombshell, after nearly 5 months, we got a letter from Albany requesting us to sign a Finance Agreement, we were totally shocked, so wrote to Admiral, who never replied to us, but instead forwarded the complain to Albany.

Albany than wrote to us with apologies to start with for messing up with us and ended the letter with what we would say it is a threat, stating that this was their final reply and we should sign the Finance Agreement and return it to them as soon as possible, so that they can claim from the 3rd party.

What the Finance Agreement stats is that I am borrowing the repair cost for 49 weeks, until they get repair cost + their mark up from the 3rd party. We do not understand why we have to sign something which was going to be claimed from the 3rd party.

We would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has been forced to sign such Finance Agreements from Albany and what the outcome was if one decided not to sign it.

Phantom247

I work at a top 5 insurer and deal with defending Credit Hire claims on a daily basis, I can say that Albany (Also known as Swift, Helphire, Cab Aid) are one of the better firms at least in providing their documentation.

A number of organisations do a number of similar things:

1) Add days on after the repair has been completed.
2) Stall on providing documentation which could allow the fault insurer to send a total loss settlement cheque to you quicker.
3) Basically try anything to make sure the hire goes on longer as they get paid more.

In regards to the finance agreement, it sounds like they provided or looking to provide the repair on a credit repair basis and if you sign they will be able to recover this from the TPI, if you don't they will not be able to recover it from the TPI as the credit agreement is not enforceable as it is effectively unsigned. Once you sign, essentially you become liable for the charges if the other insurer does not pay up.

I would suggest getting contact with Albany and ask them to explain what is going on, if you are not satisfied with the response, advise them you are not signing it. Normally when dealing with Albany they ask you to do something online which normally prints "electronic signatures" which were a problem a few years back but have been resolved, if you have not signed something and they should have asked you to do so, that is their fault, they cannot expect you to sign a contract after the services have been done and you have not had time to consider the implications, also if they are putting under duress a contract generally, although I am not a lawyer can also be deemed unenforceable.

In regards to Albany/Admiral side of things, they are both linked at the hip, most insurers will look to try and refer you to their preferred supplier as they get a reduced charge for the privilege and in some cases get something in return.

At all times and something that EU has gotten right, is that you have every right to go to which ever repairer you wish and use any services you wish, an insurer can not force you to go to Albany as an example. I am hoping that Albany does not become the new Drive Assist as that thread went on for years, but as the Competition Commission is looking into the whole industry there may be a few changes, well, there is always asking Which to do an investigation?

poet123

Admiral have cancelled their contract with Albany very recently, they now use a different firm.

dacouch

poet123 wrote: »

Admiral have cancelled their contract with Albany very recently, they now use a different firm.

Due to a change in the law preventing them receiving commission

Phantom247

So who Admiral use now?