Please help :-(

poppasmurf_bewdley

melsee wrote: »

This is what I don't understand. I was fully comp and had courtesy car as part of that, therefore I do not need to pay anything. What is insurance for ?

This is why you need to know what you signed. Have you still got a copy of this 'vehicle condition' document?

melsee

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

This is why you need to know what you signed. Have you still got a copy of this 'vehicle condition' document?

No it was 5 years ago and as far as we were aware it was all settled.
We thought Albany was still part of our insurance, we were never told differently, never given any options to stay with Diamond or this other rip off place ( obviously would have stayed with what we paid for )
Never told anything about being liable for any costs.
All we though was it was all part of our insurance and it was the courtesy car we already paid our insurance company for.
I cant understand this, We paid nearly £1000 outright fully comp insurance, why are they not doing their job. We may aswell have not had insurance. We shouldnt be paying for this, we already did when we paid for insurance !

melsee

I don't think we even had a copy of the form !

poppasmurf_bewdley

This is a problem of not knowing what is happening.

If the situation has arisen that your insurance and the other driver's insurance agreed that you (your other half) were at fault, then your insurance would have paid the bill for damage to both cars. They would not have paid for your car hire - they would have supplied you with a car themselves under the terms of your policy.

For all you know, this Albany company may have had no connection with your insurance company at all. Are you positive that Albany was sent by your insurance company? Or were they given your details by the breakdown company or the police?

If you haven't signed anything, how could they have sent you a bill to settle?

melsee

I have no idea, and we are in a different property now as well. We definatly phoned Diamond to report and the next thing we know Albany are phoning us. We thought that the car we got from Albany was the car the insurance supplied us. We didnt hire a car as we knew we had one on the policy ... the one from Albany in our eyes. And it was Albany who were dealing with the claim also. But what we were not aware of was that they were not part of our insurance company, and they were not the policy courtesy car people

poppasmurf_bewdley

This is why I put a stop to the claims management company dealing with my son's claim.

I just could not see what we would have got out of the deal, It looked and smelt wrong. All I could see was the horrendous charge for vehicle hire, and a smarmy company that we had no connection with promising to deal with everything. I just had visions of my son getting a giant bill at the end of everything, just like you have received.

In the first instance, you need to speak to Diamond first thing in the morning.

melsee

what I am saying is , until now and receiving a debt . we thought Albany was part of Diamond and they supplied us the courtesy car. We were not told any different, and were never told about hiring cars or liable for fees, or anything. As far as I was aware I signed the vehicle check form and that was it. I had no reason to think any different , as I have never been in a position like this before, so had no reason to think, this wasnt anything seperate from my insurance.
Who would if you are not told they are a seperate company, and their cars were nothing to do with ur policy courtesy car

melsee

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

This is why I put a stop to the claims management company dealing with my son's claim.

I just could not see what we would have got out of the deal, It looked and smelt wrong. All I could see was the horrendous charge for vehicle hire, and a smarmy company that we had no connection with promising to deal with everything. I just had visions of my son getting a giant bill at the end of everything, just like you have received.

In the first instance, you need to speak to Diamond first thing in the morning.

Yeah, see from now on and knowing things like this happen, that is exactly what I will be looking out for.
But 5 years ago, as we were not informed who these people were, we had no reason to be suspicious. We also didn't see any hire costs or anything, also not making us suspicious.
I think we have been massively Conned and we knew nothing about it :-(

melsee

The other thing, is most people are given the option. We never did, we just got referred to Albany, again so making us think they were part of Diamond, so all was fine !

flaire

melsee wrote: »

But if we pay fully comp insurance and paid outright for Courtesy car surely our insurance should have paid it ?

The claim was against the other driver's insurance not your own. Diamond wouldn't provide a courtesy car in this case as there is a 3rd party who should pay for it (the other driver's insurance company). An insurance company won't provide a courtesy car if they can get someone else to pay for it. However, the other driver's insurance company may have refused to pay the 'credit car hire' section of the claim because (a) it was too high, (b) you are credit-worthy, (c) you're not on benefits, (d) the hire car was excessive to your needs.

About three years ago, in the heavy snow, my husband pranged another car. He was at fault - and our insurance company paid out...or so we thought.

Skip six months and we received a letter from a solititor notifying us that we were being sued over 'credit car hire' resulting from our accident. It was for £3,500. Our insurance company had refused to pay out. The poor woman we'd hit was left with this bill from a credit car hire firm and was threatened with legal action if she didn't pay it. Cue solititor.

We handed the letter over to our insurance company and I haven't heard anything about it since. I don't know if they paid out in the end - or whether the credit car hire firm dropped the case.