Direct Line dispute - over-valuing my car

DettaWalker

Well its been a while (been very busy ...) and here's what happened: They told us its not our decision whether they decide to the repair the car or not. Getting the repair cost paid in cash - the excess was not an option. They have now completed the repair (us not wanting them to repair the car was nothing they cared about) and they now want the £400 excess fee paid.
I've raised a complaint and I am not happy with the feedback I have received from Direct Line at all. They summarised our complaint wrongly and told us to read the T's and C's rather than listen to what their agents say on the phone. Are they not responsible at all for what information they provide us over the phone?
While we can afford to take the hit of £400, I don't want to let this one go at all due to the way they are treating us as a customer.

What options do we have on making them take responsibility for telling us false information?

Foxy-Stoat_3

Not sure what you can do as you purchased a replacement car before you received written confirmation that your current one was going to be a total loss.

On the plus side you can either sell the repaired Mondeo or the one you have just bought and as long as you didn't pay top money for it, you should get all your money back or maybe a little more if your lucky.

InsideInsurance

60% is a guideline and not a hard and fast rule, it depends on the age of the vehicle and ultimately what the chances of there being additional unseen damage from the initial visual inspection when they start taking off the panels etc.

If you cant afford a £400 excess why on earth did you select it? Surely you'd select a bigger excess to reduce the premiums if you never intend to claim for own damage and get cheaper premiums or reduce it to a level that you can afford to pay.

As DL have pointed out, they have the right to decide the method of how to indemnify you (ie repair or total loss). In this instance they have decided a repair is the most cost effective manor and so proceeded as per your policy terms.

As the car is now presumably repaired it is really far too late to do anything. Before parts were ordered or repairs started you should have stopped the process and talked about a Cash In Lieu settlement but once they had committed spend at the bodyshop this would have been too late

DettaWalker

Hi again,

like I said, we can take the hit of £400. Its about the principle.

Regarding this comment:
Before parts were ordered or repairs started you should have stopped the process and talked about a Cash In Lieu settlement but once they had committed spend at the bodyshop this would have been too late

That is exactly what we did. The moment we were notified that our car has been looked at and they wanted to go ahead with the repair we said we disagree and want them not to start any work. We were told its not our decision and they will continue works regardless of what we say.

Now, regarding the decision:
The repair cost were £1,800 (quoted by DL) and the car's value is at most 1,200. the information they had given us was 60% would be the mark where they would start writing it off. given we're at 150% here you'd think its a no-brainer. We knew the repair cost was going to be near the £2,000 mark. What we didn't know was, as one person posted earlier above, they would inflate the value of the car, inflate the repair cost but the in fact only pay a small amount to the body shop.

The lesson I learned is: refuse repairs by a direct line body shop and go to the local garage next time.
I also learned: Never listen to anything an advisor tells you on the phone. half of the time they are wrong and you can't base decision on that information.

I would have hoped that something can be done against this as they have clearly misled us on the phone.

DettaWalker

Also worth mentioning: we only have one car and require it for business travel. so being without a car wasn't much of an option.

colino

Frankly, now the repair is done, I doubt very much if you will get much out of DL. Important thing is to check the quality of repair and make sure you don't sign the happy sheet until it exhibits a first class refurb. Not unknown now for even the best named places resenting the screw tightening of the insurance companies and producing less than their best work. Send it back until you are happy.

forgotmyname

That's more than i paid for my 2004 car in 2009....

Maybe i should move back to Direct Line? Maybe that's why they wanted to increase me premium so much?
They put a value on the car a lot greater than the sum i paid?

GAZ237

Just as a side note and it don't help you.

But if your car still has damage on the other side from a previous accident, You wont get anything close to £1000 for it, probably nearer to the £500 direction.

Cannot see you getting anywhere with your complaint against DL.

Might be better to accept the situation and move on.

vaio

add up all your additional costs and lodge a complaint along the lines that because their agent mislead you on the 60% write off limit you have incurred unnecessary costs as a result of relying on it. Add that to avoid these extra costs you asked for cash in lieu in good time but your request was ignored.

As Direct Line are now in the car supply business too, I'd suggest that they take one of your cars off your hands, preferably the repaired one as they have already valued that at £2.4k

Starting point would be a transcript of the phone calls, pay the £10 and do a SAR

InsideInsurance

DettaWalker wrote: »

That is exactly what we did. The moment we were notified that our car has been looked at and they wanted to go ahead with the repair we said we disagree and want them not to start any work. We were told its not our decision and they will continue works regardless of what we say.

If it is a repair or total loss is not your decision and this seems to be what you are hung up on.

A CiL settlement is not a total loss settlement and is what should have been discussed rather than arguing over if it should have been total lossed or not.

As repairs have been done this is all rather too late. You may get a token payment from DL if you push hard enough to try and prevent it going to the FOS but it wouldnt really be deserved.

Never heard anyone complain that they've received too big a settlement before.