Car insurance claim help please???

Cullumpster

Hi guys a question I am looking for answers to please.

My hubby went away for a weekend with his friends back in May, parked the car outside his friends house just up the road a bit, came back and the car had been pinched!!!!
Anyway phoned the police etc. And called the insurance company gave all the relevant details with the crime ref number.
We then had a call from the insurance company to say that we were going to have a visit from a loss adjuster, he came round about a month after he had started the claim process.
The man was here about an hour and took loads of info etc he had to then send his details to the company with his car keys. He also went to my hubby friends house and knocked at all of the neighbors in the street to take statements.

We still haven't had any claim money through after calling on a daily basis they first of all said that they hadn't received the documents, which we sent again. After another call they said that they had received it and were waiting for the loss adjusters report.
After still hearing nothing we called again only to be told again that they had not received the documents!!
Hubby advised that the last person that he spoke to had told him that hlthey had, oh yes she said so we have!!
He has now been told that they would like to see copies of his bank statements to prove that he brought the car!!!! He of course was not happy about this and advised it was non of their business where the money came from as they didn't ask to see any of this when they actually insured the car. We have already sent the copy of the receipt to them which they have said they have received.

We still have not heard anything from them and I think they are just stalling to be honest. Is this a usual thing or have we just picked the worst insurance company in the world, it has been 5 months now and we have been paying the insurance installments every month even though we have had to buy another car.

We had the direct debit bounce on us last week as we had no money in our account and we have now had a letter saying that they are cancelling the policy, will the claim still go through?

Sorry about the wording done on my phone

Buzby

Depends on what the T&Cs state concerning failed payments - it could fall either way, your covered until they cancelled OR because the payments failed, the whole policy, from inception, has been cancelled.

They'll not be slow in telling you if this is the case.

InsideInsurance

Presumably the vehicle has never been recovered? The police haven't said anything about it being found or being involved in anything (eg a hit and run)?

It would certainly be unusual for that level of enquiries to be made but there can be any number of reasons for it from random sampling to a fraud scoring system identifying the case requires further investigation (with my ex and her payment protection claims handling anyone with a DD post code had to go through fraud procedures so it may not be anything "personal") or the vehicles been involved in an accident post theft.

First thing to do is to put a formal complaint into the insurer over the amount of time its taken and advise you intend to take the matter to the FOS if they dont sort it out quickly.

Did you buy another vehicle already? If you did, did you buy new cover or switch the remainder of the old policy onto it?

Given there is no vehicle currently on cover you could ask them to suspend the policy to prevent payments being required - they are under no obligation to do it but some insurers will, the only issue will be if they havent yet total lossed the car on their system they may not yet be able to do it.

Cullumpster

Thanks we have phoned them about it and to be honest she was a little slap dash about it she said well it doesn't get cancelled for 7 days so phone on day 7 and see what we say about it!!!

Grr I think they are just stalling to say no to be honest which is fair enough but why take so long and why do they need to know the ins and outs of a ducks harras.!!

Cullumpster

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Presumably the vehicle has never been recovered? The police haven't said anything about it being found or being involved in anything (eg a hit and run)?

It would certainly be unusual for that level of enquiries to be made but there can be any number of reasons for it from random sampling to a fraud scoring system identifying the case requires further investigation (with my ex and her payment protection claims handling anyone with a DD post code had to go through fraud procedures so it may not be anything "personal") or the vehicles been involved in an accident post theft.

First thing to do is to put a formal complaint into the insurer over the amount of time its taken and advise you intend to take the matter to the FOS if they dont sort it out quickly.

Did you buy another vehicle already? If you did, did you buy new cover or switch the remainder of the old policy onto it?

Given there is no vehicle currently on cover you could ask them to suspend the policy to prevent payments being required - they are under no obligation to do it but some insurers will, the only issue will be if they havent yet total lossed the car on their system they may not yet be able to do it.

Hi thanks for the reply, no the vehicle has never been recovered and they have had the report from the police about this. We couldn't cover the new vehicle on the insurance as the one before was classed as a van (even tho it wasn't) so we have had to get a seperate very expensive policy!

Quentin

The cancellation in 7 days is separate from the claim issue.

You ought to try and "save" your policy from being cancelled as this will be a millstone round your neck for evermore.

(Having a cancelled policy on your record has to be disclosed for ever to all insurers you approach for cover, and most won't quote once you have had a policy cancelled meaning you will be forced to go with speciaklist expensive companies.)

As far as the claim goes, you will speed things up by complying with their requests. (As far as the bank statement goes, you can delete everything on it apart from the car transaction.)

forgotmyname

Sounds like they seem to think its suspicious. Checking it really was your husbands car and not his mates.

Quizzing the neighbours to ask how often its parked there. Do they work? Have they asked there also?

Missing a payment probably adds to that suspicion. Stolen because you couldnt afford to fix it, Or a million and one other reasons i presume they
see daily?

How long have you owned it? Whats its value?

dacouch

How long is left on the MOT ?

How long has he owned the car ?

How long has he been with the current Insurer?

Cullumpster

I'm not sure about the mot etc but I'll ask thanks.

The payment has been missed only this month so we have been still paying the normal amount since may when we claimed