Admiral Car Insurance and me being ripped off

Antnee

Hi all,

I want to tell you a little story, if you don't mind. At the end I'd appreciate any thoughts, especially advice.

So, three weeks ago I was happily driving home after dropping my son at school. As I crossed a junction (traffic light controls, lights were on green, no speeding) a young girl decided to drive through my car to turn across the lane I was travelling in (I was going in a straight line). In doing so she collided with my front wheel and bent the steering rack. She's destroyed every panel (and wheel) down the driver's side of the car.

Now, here's where the fun starts: We're both Admiral customers (technically I'm with Elephant, but same difference and all that). My first thought was that they would not find in my favour and take the opportunity to take two lots of no-claims/excess. Unsurprisingly, despite admitting fault at the time of the accident, this girl made up a BS story blaming me. Here's the surprising part: Admiral believed me and placed full blame on the girl. Because we're both Admiral customers, they closed my claim and it all went onto hers. They sent me a courtesy car and they collected my car and took it for repair.

Couple of days later and I find that the car is a total loss. They make me an offer of £1800 which was just plain insulting, when there are no cars out there the same model as mine that I could buy for less than £2500 (and equivalents are more like £3500). I told them no and that they'd need to try again. They came back again telling me that they could go to £2000. I told them to go away again. I emailed them links to cars available online that were similar so that they could see the price that I would need to pay to replace my car. They then suggested that I buy the car back and sell it on to make up the difference, as if it's my responsibility to make the money up to an equivalent.

Bit more time passes and they offer me £2287.50 which is apparently an average of the prices from Glasses, CAP and Parkers. The call agent even takes me to Parkers to look at the £2500 car that I mentioned earlier (which had chunks missing from the wheels) and points out that I can replace my car for that much. I point out that according to Parkers that car is worth £3k, not the £2.5k that the seller is asking for. Not interested.

So now it is escalated as a complaint. I get a call and I'm told that I can get a little more (£2425) if I let them have the courtesy car back tomorrow, as if the value of my payout can be offset against the cost to them for providing me with a courtesy car. I tell them no chance.

Later still they offer £2700. Still no. Then they offer me £2900. Still no. I can't replace my car for £2900, so as far as I'm concerned they're not providing me with a means to replace the car that was written off through no fault of my own, so I'm not happy.

All through this they keep saying that they need to make an initial payment to me to show that things are progressing and to allow me to place a deposit on a new car. They offer to send a cheque and I say no, I want a bank transfer. They agree. This was nearly two weeks ago and I've still not had a penny hit my account. Every time they changed the offer they cancelled the transfer and restarted it at the full amount. I've spoken to them again today and they've still not sent me any money. Turns out (they say) that they sent a cheque on Friday. Admittedly I lost my rag at this point. I don't have this cheque and I've repeatedly asked for a CHAPS transfer which they agreed to. Now there's a cheque somewhere in the mail system that I'll then need to get to the bank to cash and then wait for it to clear. Oh, and they think they're taking the courtesy car back on Friday, rendering me car-less. I can't even get to a showroom until the weekend to look at a replacement, and if they expect me to take time off to do it then they're going to have a significant loss of earnings claim.

Anyway, I was recommended to talk to the ombudsman. So I called them up and they told me that they can only help if I am claiming on my own insurance. Apparently they don't help if you're claiming on someone else's. So I'm kinda screwed, by the sounds of it.

One thing's for sure: I will never insure myself with Admiral ever again. I couldn't bring myself to put anyone else through what I've been through in the event that I cause an accident.

As far as I'm concerned, they're robbing frauds and everyone would do well to keep well clear of them. Unbelievably poor service.

So, now, does anyone have any advice?

InsideInsurance

So to summerise:

1) You arent happy with their total loss valuation

2) Your ability to complain to the FOS is blocked as you are a TP claiming directly from the TPI


There are hundreds of threads on here for point 1 and so a quick search will find you the links to the relevant previous advices and links to the advice on the FOS website

On point two, they are correct, only customers have the rights to complain to the FOS, third parties have to go to the courts. Of cause your one option is to contact your insurers, Elephant (yes I know they are part of the same group), and make the claim on your policy for the t/l of your car and then you do have the protection of the FOS. Whilst the file is open your policy may well be impacted so depending when your renewal date is this may or may not be a consideration.

Antnee

Thanks. I'll do some searching. Mostly I wanted to add to the enormous list of complaints about Admiral. Not sure how much one more would make a difference, but I for one will never insure with Admiral, Elephant, Diamond or Bell, and I'll advise all friends accordingly

InsideInsurance

Admiral are a budget insurer, their product coverages are one of the lowest rated and its reflected in their price. For the majority of customers, they will be perfectly adequate as the vast majority of customers do not claim in a policy year.

The question with insurance is always about how much someone is willing to pay for service or ethics etc. Unfortunately the majority of people, particularly for Car, arent willing to pay anything and will simply get the absolute cheapest they can find. There was a paper done on Post Office insurance a few years ago showing how despite positioning themselves as an ethical brand that people would leave them to save under £5 per year premium (and many for under £1)

Even as someone who works in insurance I struggle to justify to myself paying double the premiums to be with someone like Chubb even though I know the service will be leagues apart and the coverage is massively higher than my current high street policy.

Antnee

I understand that completely. Unfortunately though, many of us don't realise until we need to make a claim (this is my first ever) and even if I were paying a fortune for my own insurance, when it's a no-fault won't the claim always go to the third party anyway? If I happen to have been hit by someone on a cheapo policy won't that still screw me over? I only drive ~4k miles a year (only 2.5k last year in fact) so I do begrudge paying a lot for insurance, I must admit

InsideInsurance

PH and TP claims are 1,000% different

PH claims - bound by the terms of their policy, options of FOS or Courts to resolve issues

TP claims - bound, generally, by case law around the law of torts with only the courts to resolve issues

As a non-fault person you have a choice of claiming off your own insurance and thus your own policy terms apply and your insurers then have subjugated rights to recover their outlay from the TP or their insurers. Your uninsured losses must be claimed direct from the TP or their insurers or you can chose not to use your insurance and claim directly (or via a representative) from the TP/ TPI


For example, if your policy doesnt include a courtesy or hire car then fault or none fault you arent entitled to one paid for by your insurers. On the flip side, if the TP has no hire car provision that makes no difference to your rights to claim for appropriate replacement transport as the non-fault party.


Sometimes your insurance provides betterment so its better to claim off your insurance rather than the TPs even though they ultimately will be repaying some or all of it. As a random example, if you had a 5 year old, once top of the range LED TV screen in the boot of the car that was damaged in a non-fault RTA. The TP would be liable for giving you the value as it is today, ie a secondhand screen. You Home insurance however is almost certainly New for Old and so they give you the value of a brand new similar screen.


Of cause the "your insurance" and "their insurance" gets blurred when its the same company. Secondly you will find hangers on to the claims industry that pay healthy commissions and so in the case of you being non-fault, claiming off your policy but no courtesy car cover you'll find your insurers very quick to pass your details (aka sell your details) to a credit hire company - most people mistake this credit hire car for a courtesy car.