Cat C write-off - Rejecting car valuation

NurseMoneySaver1122

I recently posted about a non-fault accident whereby my Dad, (a named driver on my policy), got hit in the rear. Other driver admitted liability, I kept my NCD. My car suffered only cosmetic damage, but they have said it is unecomical to repair and so stated it's a Cat C write-off.

My insurance company's engineer placed a value on my car, which I have since rejected by letter, and as supportive evidence, I included a Glass's valuation and 2 local advertisements for similar car (same modal, similar mileage etc).

I ended the letter stating "I look forward to hearing from you within 14 days". The letter was sent by 'recorded signed for' on 13/08/12, and was received and signed for by them on 14/08/12. I am assuming I need to give them 14 working days, which means they had up until 31/08/12 to reply. And I've not had a phone call, letter or any other reply.

My question is, what should I do next? Should I take this to the Financial Service Ombudsman, or should I send another letter demanding a reply?

I have a hire car at the moment being charged to third party, and as I am kindly reminded of my "duty to minimise my losses" rule, surely this applies to my insurance company dragging it out therefore increasing the time hire car is needed.

Thanks for any help

InsideInsurance

You cannot take it to the FOS yet. Assuming you have addressed the letter as a complain then the FOS will only take on the case once they have either (1) given you a final response or (2) 8 weeks have passed.

Even after you register the complaint with the FOS it can take up to 9 months for someone to even be appointed to look at the case - I have 3 complaints with them in the last 18 months and only the one from April 11 has been resolved yet.

Are you in a credit hire car or is the hire car being provided directly by the TPI?

Have your insurers sent you an interim cheque for the initial offer?

What is the gross offer (ie not deducting your excess) and what are you looking for?

If it is only cosmetic damage why are you in a replacement vehicle?

Whilst you had to send in the evidence by letter you really should be using the phone to chase etc rather than letters.... insurers can have backlogs of weeks (or months) of post! Whilst it is catagorised by priority sometimes letters get miss identified and go in the wrong priority queue

rs65

NurseMoneySaver1122 wrote: »

My question is, what should I do next? Should I take this to the Financial Service Ombudsman, or should I send another letter demanding a reply?

You need to raise a complaint before you can take it to the FOS. From what you have said, you have just written to dispute the value. That is not a complaint as such.

Do you know if they have actually received your letter?

ps I would be wary about ending up being stuck with the hire car costs. From your other posts, this accident happened a while ago and the car was declared a write off a while ago. The other insurers won't fund a hire car forever.

NurseMoneySaver1122

Thank you for your replies.

I contacted Insurers yesterday, and they confirmed they had received it (I sent recorded signed for so I knew that it had been signed for), and apologised for not replying. They said they will pass to the engineer who valued my car, who will be in contact with me. I asked that they reply in writing as I am a night shift worker, but also because I want more than a telephone conversation as evidence of offers made to me. In addition to the Engineer having a tendency to patronise me like a 'clueless woman'.

Low and behold this morning, whilst I'm sleeping after a 13 hour shift, the engineer calls me. I missed his call (in a sleepy daze), but was so angry that my request had been ignored. I called Churchill to complain, who suggested seeing as I'm awake "I may as well contact him now"...clearly no idea about human beings need for sleep!!! She stated that I was mis-informed yesterday, as they are not able to send a response in writing and I have to do this with the engineer over the phone. Really...is this some kind of conspiracy?! What is difficult about writing a response stating we accept or decline your request to reconsider the valuation of your car???

Do I have a right to demand that my letter is responded to in writing?

Quentin

You can demand anything, but no-one has to respond to your demands!

You will get advice quicker resolution if you comply though.

Take your phone off the hook if you don't want anyone to disturb you!

NurseMoneySaver1122

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You cannot take it to the FOS yet. Assuming you have addressed the letter as a complain then the FOS will only take on the case once they have either (1) given you a final response or (2) 8 weeks have passed.

Even after you register the complaint with the FOS it can take up to 9 months for someone to even be appointed to look at the case - I have 3 complaints with them in the last 18 months and only the one from April 11 has been resolved yet.

Are you in a credit hire car or is the hire car being provided directly by the TPI?

Have your insurers sent you an interim cheque for the initial offer?

What is the gross offer (ie not deducting your excess) and what are you looking for?

If it is only cosmetic damage why are you in a replacement vehicle?

Whilst you had to send in the evidence by letter you really should be using the phone to chase etc rather than letters.... insurers can have backlogs of weeks (or months) of post! Whilst it is catagorised by priority sometimes letters get miss identified and go in the wrong priority queue

Thanks for replying. To answer our questions, in order....

My courtesy car on my policy entitled me to 14 days car hire, then it was passed to non-fault team to arrange hire after that (apparently at the cost of TPI.

No cheque has been sent. Just a verbal telephone conversation with the engineer whereby he informed me my car was uneconomical to repair and valued my car over the phone.

Regarding me being in a replacement vehicle if it is cosmetic damage, well who knows! I may be incorrectly using the term 'cosmetic', but what I do know is my car is not roadworthy, e.g there are sharp edges to my rear bumper, my rear D/S light is smashed and exposed.

I assumed, possibly incorrectly, that my insurers would only offer me what I am entitled to. But please correct me if I'm wrong, because I certainly do not want to end up with a hire bill!! And I have stressed this to Churchill on a number of occasions also.

Thanks

rs65

Sounds like they are trying to resolve your complaint quickly, using the phone.

A final response will be in writing but why not try and get it resolved sooner.

learningaboutinsurance

NurseMoneySaver1122 wrote: »

Thank you for your replies.

I contacted Insurers yesterday, and they confirmed they had received it (I sent recorded signed for so I knew that it had been signed for), and apologised for not replying. They said they will pass to the engineer who valued my car, who will be in contact with me. I asked that they reply in writing as I am a night shift worker, but also because I want more than a telephone conversation as evidence of offers made to me. In addition to the Engineer having a tendency to patronise me like a 'clueless woman'.

Low and behold this morning, whilst I'm sleeping after a 13 hour shift, the engineer calls me. I missed his call (in a sleepy daze), but was so angry that my request had been ignored. I called Churchill to complain, who suggested seeing as I'm awake "I may as well contact him now"...clearly no idea about human beings need for sleep!!! She stated that I was mis-informed yesterday, as they are not able to send a response in writing and I have to do this with the engineer over the phone. Really...is this some kind of conspiracy?! What is difficult about writing a response stating we accept or decline your request to reconsider the valuation of your car???

Do I have a right to demand that my letter is responded to in writing?

I think you are being abit unpractical, if you demand a written response to every correspondence it will take much longer.

Scenario: what if they rejected you your valuation of the car, they write back takes a few days to reach you, you then respond back rejecting their re-offer and this goes on a good few weeks, you yourself mentioned in your OP that it took them a good few weeks to even admit they had received your letter and only after you phoned them.

as rs65 states you may want to resolve this quicker as if you have a credit hire car the TPI may say a valuation was offered and you delayed the offer so that you could have it for longer by rejecting the offer so they may want to only pay for the hire car until the valuation offer time and any thing after that you may be liable to pay for.

i would suggest you resolves by having a phone initial agreement with the engineer and then once both of you are happy. you ask for letter of confirmation to sent so that you can sign and send back to them with written proof acceptence

InsideInsurance

Its been a while since I read the rules on complaints but certainly "in my day" if they had failed to resolve the complaint within 2 working days of having received it then they were obliged to formalise their response in writing. That isnt to say they cannot have telephone conversations prior to that to clarify details, discuss why they are or arent accepting things you sent them etc.

NurseMoneySaver1122

Fair points made. I guess I was trying to avoid speaking with this man again. Normally when I'm being patronised I will speak up, just find it very hard in an insurance area I know nothing about (I'm aware how pathetic that sounds!)

But I'm going to take advice ad bite the bullet. Let's see what happens...positive thoughts

Thanks everyone!!

vaio

the FOS is clear on how valuations should be dealt with, salient points are...

starting point is the average of the dealer retail prices of caps/glasses/parkers

that should be done immediatly, the practice of giving punters (and especially 'clueless woman' punters) ridiculous "try it on" low-ball offers which then increase by a factor of 5 when challenged breaches the "treat the customer fairly" rules.