Not sure whether to claim or not claim.

londonTiger

Was involved in an accident, other party admitted liability so now got the go ahead to get the vehicle repaired.

You'd think your insurance premium pays for their administation of these accident. Apparantly not, they expect and want you to rinse the other parties insurers, get a hire card and everything.

I'm with admiral, my options haven't been explained to me at all. I was given the annoying choice of

1) Pay the excess and then once we get to the bottom of this, your excess will be paid back to you if found not at fault.
2) Don't pay a penny now, get referred to our claims specialist company who will deal with your fault..

Shouldn't there be a 3rd option? pay nothing, get referred by nobody and wait for the result of the verdict??

So I went for option 2, naturally.

Then I spoke to Albany assistance, and they spoke to me like I can get a hire care easily, didn't even ask if I wanted it. Just assumed like this was the only way and talked me into agreeing to a hire car. So they processed the claim like I was going to hire a car.

Then I hear back from them.. claim is good. I'm not at fault. So they call me and try and arrange the hire car. Firstly NO WAY I'm ever going to hire a car without full damage waiver, otherwise they're going to fleece me £250 over some kerb marks or something stupid like that.

So I ask for full waiver, £40 for full waiver, plus £15 fuel surcharge. Nope. no way. not paying £55 for a hire care that's more of a liability to me than a benefit. Care is just for social use. I only do 400 miles a month. I can live without the car for 4 or 5 days. So I flatly refuse to take the hire car. Then the guy on the phone from the hire company changes his tone on me. he didn't say it outright, but skirts around the issue of "well why didn't you tell us you didn't want a hire car, we wouldn't have processed this claim this way". Something along the lines. the wording is wrong but that's what he meant.

I got so angry. I pay the insurance company £1300 a year just for the damn legal protection to have insurance and I get treated like this.

I hate the way this business works. I hate the fact that the insurance company is charging the 3rd part insurers over 2 grand to do these minor repairs, I could carry out the repairs and buy used parts for less than £300. This is why road users have to pay so much in insurance because when there's an accident they screw each other ridiculously with costs.

From what I read these hire companies recommended by the insurers (who get a commission for the referral). Charge the third party insurers an arm and a leg for the hire. For a hatchback they'll charge something ridiculous like £125 a day for a hatchback.

forgotmyname

Option 3 they wont tall you about because they probably got a £££ for referring you to that claims company.

You could have gone direct to them and got that yourself.

Or go direct to the 3rd parties company and they may bend over backwards to keep you happy and not have you goto a claims handling company that will charge them a fortune for every letter.

So you can still contact the 3rd party insurer and see what they offer then tell the claims company no thanks.

Partly why everyones premiums have shot up. It needs sorting.

londonTiger

Good idea.

I think I'm overestimating the repair costs actually.

I'm goign to try to keep this as anoynmous as possible, so I'm going to leave the identifying details of the accident behind as much as possible.

There are two panels that have been affects. a metal panel has been dented a little. The plastic panel has been scratched (because it's plastic it has some flex to it so it's remained unaffected).

The metal panel can be bought used from a breakers for £30 + delivery. I would prefer the used option actually rather than a brand new one. A brand new panel isn't going to look right, a used one will have the same UV effects and will age similarly so is my preferred choice.

The paint damage to the plastic panel needs to be expertly patched up as I don't really know how to do this and smooth it out. That will require a body specialist to do which will cost £200 quid or something.

I could buy the part from the breakers but this is a part that gets scraped/collided a lot so used parts will never be 100% perfect. So the current panel has to be restored.


If the third party insurer agrees to pay me £300 rather than paying my insurance company £2000, that would be ideal for both of us. I'd have some spare change left from the £300 for my time. But I don't think they'll work out like that.

Caveat emptor.. The third party isurance company are !!!!!!. They quoted me for my insurance for £7000+ when I was searching for quotes. Admiral insured me for £1300. The third party insurer had the cheek to phone me up and follow up with the quote and I gave them a bollocking for it. Part of me things let me screw them and get them to fork out £2000. The other part of me thinks, this is business, put emotions aside.

dacouch

Albany are arguably the worst claims management company going, but they pay Admiral the most commission.

You do the math

mad_rich

londonTiger wrote: »

The third party isurance company are !!!!!!. They quoted me for my insurance for £7000+ when I was searching for quotes.

That doesn't necessarily make them !!!!!!, just that they didn't want your business at the time. For reasons I can't remember, some companies prefer to offer outrageous premiums rather than just saying no.

For such a small job, I think you could probably do a better job than a claims management company by yourself. But if you think their loss adjuster is going to say "Aw. londonTiger's a nice guy for not costing us a fortune. Lets bung him a few hundred quid for his decency", then I'm afraid you're misguided.

No harm in getting parts from a scrappy, but I suspect the insurer will want three quotes for the work, and a scrappy might be a little shy of giving you a written quote.

Equally, nothing wrong with getting a hire car (with full CDW) if you need one, but you might have to argue a bit with the insurer for reimbursement. The hire company's eyes will light up if you mention it's for insurance, but there's no need to mention that if you don't want to.

Lum

This thread is 7 months old, it just got bumped by someone posting some worthless crap about financial advisors, probably in order to raise their post count before spamming.

Edit: For the sake of clarity, the post I refer to has since been deleted

photome

Lum wrote: »

This thread is 7 months old, it just got bumped by someone posting some worthless crap about financial advisors, probably in order to raise their post count before spamming.

Did you reort the post as spam...I have

mad_rich

Lum wrote: »

This thread is 7 months old, it just got bumped by someone posting some worthless crap about financial advisors, probably in order to raise their post count before spamming.

Drat. Never picked up on that. Sorry all.

londonTiger

Lum wrote: »

This thread is 7 months old, it just got bumped by someone posting some worthless crap about financial advisors, probably in order to raise their post count before spamming.

wtff.. I'm a regular member here.

dacouch

Lum wrote: »

This thread is 7 months old, it just got bumped by someone posting some worthless crap about financial advisors, probably in order to raise their post count before spamming.

Is this a freudian slip...

noah_herman wrote: »

Hi Mike004,

Your Time spam of Paying Pension is too short that is 2-3 years only.
so your returning income is also less.


Thanks

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/60439133#Comment_60439133

mad_rich

Since you're here, londonTiger, how did the claim go?