Accident Claim - 1st offer rejected but insurer has sent out a cheque anyway?

Debzyg_2

Hi there.

Not sure if anyone can advise me on this, I'm a tad fed up of chasing up updates from my solicitors!

I was involved in a car accident last year, when someone who'd been tailgating me eventually smashed into the back of my car because apparently they were "too busy playing with the sat nav and didnt see the red brake lights".

Anyhoo, thanks to the royal shove to the back of the car they gave me, I suffered whiplash and some other minor injuries (not to mention a whole heap of stress as it was the first day of my holiday at the time!).

So claim went in, the 3rd party insurer admitted liability, all fine. The first offer they came back with of £1,900, (fairly decent offer I thought), which my solictitors automatically rejected (the claim was valued at £2,600 minimum).

So we've just been waiting for them to come back with a revised offer.

My mother, who was also in the car has received her revised offer and accepted and is waiting for her payment to come out. However, instead of coming back with a revised offer for me, the 3rd party insurer has just randomly sent out a cheque for £1,900, despite this amount already being rejected?

My solicitors are a bit baffled themselves, but have advised that they will advise the 3rd party insurer that the cheque can only be accepted as a part payment and that the claim is still ongoing until they negotiate a suitable settlement.

I have chased my solicitors today and was unable to speak to my case handler, but her colleague advised me that they have sent this cheque for £1,900 out to me and my case handler is due to have a meeting with her manager today to discuss the issue further.

Now I'm guessing that because they've sent me this cheque it means the 3rd party insurer have agreed that this is only classed as a part payment. But i'm a bit dubious about banking this cheque when it arrives just in case the 3rd party take it as a settlement.

Has anyone ever experienced this before? Where the 3rd party insurer has set out a cheque for an already rejected offer? :undecided

forgotmyname

I would just send it back. Or phone and ask is this an interim payment because there is no way your accepting it.

InsideInsurance

You have a solicitor acting for you and so need to take their advise.

Normally there is no issues with banking any monies as interim payment

Debzyg_2

Hi thanks for the replies.

I did try and do a bit of research on the web and did see that part payments can be sent out to cover some of the expenses while the claim is being negotiated.

I'll double check with my solicitor again when I can get hold of her, but just wanted some advice meantime and also people's general thoughts on why the 3rd party insurer may have sent this out. I thought they might be trying to pull a fast one!!

I'm happy to accept the part payment, providing I'm certain that is all it is and that the 3rd PI are aware so cant stitch me up once I cash the cheque.

Thanks again for your replies

Crazy_Jamie

It is common for certain insurers (or, more accurately, insurers who are represented by certain solicitors) to send cheques out after an offer regardless. They usually state in correspondence that if the offer is not accepted the cheque should be seen as an interim payment. It's perfectly normal and above board, and to be fair I am surprised that your solicitor is baffled by it.

debzyg

Hi CJ, appreciate the reply.

My firm of solicitors have kind of front line claims handler people who deal with all the correspondence to the claims, so I don't speak to the solicitor who is negotiating it directly, so it was the claims handler that was baffled as she hadn't had it happen before so checked with the solicitor on what the next steps would be etc.

That's quite reassuring to know this can be the norm. I've never had to do one of these claims before so not sure how it all works entirely!

Just wanted to make sure if I banked the cheque the 3rd party insurer wouldn't see that as some kind of acceptance!

I actually managed to get through to my claims handler later on today and she confirmed they had spoken to the 3rd PI and agreed the cheque was only a part payment and that they had also warned they were out of time for their revised offer so they would be preparing to take them to court if they didn't come back with it ASAP.

So looks like you were right and I will be ok to bank my cheque!

Great advice there, thank you very much for your help!

InsideInsurance

Many of the big solicitor firms in the PI business are very much set up as a factory/ insurer in how they handle things. The vast majority of work is done by fee earners that often have few legal qualifications. That said, doing PI claims day in day out does mean you often have much more knowledge than a general solicitor who may not have looked at an injury case since graduating law school.

Whilst evidently there are solicitors in the firm many cases go through the complete process without ever being viewed by one.

Similarly to the insurance claims centre I worked in, excluding the legal advice line, then there were in the region of 400 claims people working in the building of which around 100 were dealing with the third party aspects but there were only 5 solicitors/ barristers