problem with Direct Line insurance - legal advice needed please

Dimey

Hi Lulululu. I saw that Magpie was online when you posted your draft letter but he's not here this morning. Did he PM you re the letter?

If not and if you agree with me, I suggest you adapt or add a line to make it clear what you want Direct line to do and by when. eg to take the threat of court action away from you before the deadline date and confirm to you in writing that they've done that. Then to resolve the claim(s) between the two parties with no delay.

Hopefully Magpie will be online shortly to give better wording.

lulululululu

Hi Dimey
No I've had no PM.
yes i should be clearer in what I'm asking.

I wish your services to deal with this problem as a complaint.

1. I am asking Direct Line to take the threat of court action away from me before the deadline date and confirm to me in writing that it has been done.
2. I am asking that Direct Line resolve the claim between the two parties with no delays.

InsideInsurance

lulululululu wrote: »

I'm such a useless thing at this. I realise that I never received a letter from the other driver's insurers but from his insurers' solicitors.
It says: "Notification of claim. We act on behalf of our client and their insurer Direct choice Insurance. This accident was caused when you hit our clients vehicle in the rear. It is clear that this accident was caused by the negligence of yourself and we have written to your insurer today to request their formal admission for liability."

Is this normal procedure?

Yes this is normal.

You need to remember that although your insurers will deal with everything for you legally it is you that the claim is being made against, your insurers are simply your representatives.

It is therefore standard practice that an initial letter of claim from a TPSol is sent to the defendant themselves, if they know the insurer they will send a duplicate letter direct to the insurer too, if they dont then they rarely bother doing much digging on this initially.

You need to forward the letter unanswered to your insurer with a covering letter with the claims reference number etc. If you want to have a belts and braces approach you can call them and give the details over the phone and the insurer will either diary on to ensure the letter turns up or just capture the solicitors details and reference there and then and send the stock reply whilst you are on the phone.

InsideInsurance

Dimey wrote: »

If not and if you agree with me, I suggest you adapt or add a line to make it clear what you want Direct line to do and by when. eg to take the threat of court action away from you before the deadline date and confirm to you in writing that they've done that. Then to resolve the claim(s) between the two parties with no delay.

The above is correct in that you need to be much more explicit on what you want them to actually do to resolve your complaint.

To be honest I would reword your letter in light of the second conversation with them.

Personally it would be more along the lines of:

Customer relations
0th month 2013

To whom it may concern

Official Complaint
Policy number: 12345678
Claim Reference: 12345678/01


As you will note from my records I made a claim against my policy with the above reference number in relation to an incident on the 0th month 2013. Following my initial conversation a letter was received confirming the claim had been registered.

I recently received a threatening letter from the third party’s representatives which stated that as they had not been able to resolve the matter with yourselves and therefore would be looking to take court action against me personally unless I settled this matter directly with them.

Obviously being very concerned by this I called the claims department using the telephone number on the letter. The advisor that I spoke to advised me that not only was there no record of any claim on your systems but the Motor Insurers Database stated that I was not even insured by Direct Line at the time of the incident. Naturally I challenged this and it resulted in him terminating the call.

I subsequently checked the MID database myself which did confirm that I was insured by yourselves at the time. After a lot of worrying I subsequently called back again and a different colleague of yours advised that I was indeed insured by you and the claim was registered however it was on an older system which they didn’t have access to and I would need to call back during office hours to speak to a different team who can view the older system.

The first advisor I spoke to clearly fabricated a story of my vehicle not being insured to cover up for their lack of knowledge/ training and unnecessarily caused me considerable worry. Surely this is not acceptable practice?

To resolve this matter I require that you:
1)
2)
If I do not receive a suitable resolution to my complaint I will be taking the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Kind regards

Lulululululululu

lulululululu

So step 1:
I rang the "old system" claims team and with everything clear in my head and written down in front of me (thank you the letter) I explained the problem.
The agent was understanding and explained that Direct Line is disputing the claim - the other party is trying to get more money than they should. Direct Line know Claimfast and has been in touch with them. The agent said they usually send this type of letter to put pressure on the end client (me) to get in touch with Direct Line.
I mentioned my readiness to put a complaint in and asked to get in writing an account of our conversation where she assured me that she'll send them a letter to remind them to deal with Direct Line and not through me and she agreed to send me a letter explaining the situation and the actions taken.

lulululululu

(The people on this forum are amazing.)
Thank you for rewording the letter InsideInsurance. This would be much stronger than my version.
The agent on the phone is sending me the letter today, I am going to wait to receive it before taking further action. at least 2 days before calling in again.
The pressure is slowly going away...

InsideInsurance

Whilst one or two forum members will add a lot of melodrama to these sorts of things it is all normal practice.

Where DL did significantly drop the ball however is the initial conversation with you when you received the Claimfast letter and a complaint does need to be raised against that agent as there is clearly a training issue there.

lulululululu

Yes Im learning that it's normal practice. A lot of it is my fault for not making an effort to understand these things I admit.
On another hand, being a theatre person I'm much better at melodrama myself