We are an innocent third party in a motor accident

FlameCloud

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

How interesting that OP complains that insurance company does not correspond with him whilst he has been asked on here about 10 times what the make and model of car he is claiming on! Hardly a state secret is it?

My guess a Ford FIESTA

Perhaps they deserve each other.

It could be a situation where there 10 examples of their car on autotrader, 9 for £700 and one for £1600. Frustrating for people trying to help!

Rimkh2

Apologies for this but are you guys motor traders? You are all very interested in the car itself. The car is not the issue.
Clarity, dialogue, explanation from the insurers is. They have sent a cheque to us for a sum of money that may or may not be correct without notification or explanation. Followed that by withdrawing the hire car without discussing this with us and left us without transport. We have sent estimates for repair, links to prices of replacement vehicles, letters and emails asking for reasons behind their actions. They do not respond in any way. If their insured driver had caused injury, death, damage to buildings is this how they would carry on? Just because the only damage claimed by us as a third party is to a car should not give them licence to act in a dismissive and offhand manner.

Prothet_of_Doom

For me it's very simple. You print out the adverts off autotrader, ebay, and piston heads, (only those in your favour mind, older, lower spec higher milage at a higher price) plus the valuation off parkers, for a RETAIL sale, and you put it in a pack to them, with the cheque, and tell them that either they pay £1600 for the car, plus £100 to transfer the plate, plus £25 per day for loss of use of car whilst they continue to insult you....Call it £2500 and counting.......within 28 days, or you will insistigate court action.

Send a copy to your neghbour, but explain that you know it's not his fault his insurance company are taking the !!!!


After 28 days, start court action. I think you actually have to sue the 3rd Party, so again explain to you neghbour that all he has to do is turn up, having made sure he gives a copy of court papers to his insurance company, and.......well on the day.... You have the evidence of the values, you will win.......

By the way what car is it ?

Don't !!!! around trying to get them to see sense or phoning them. Go official. Note the £25 a day and counting might actually be the turning point.

Rimkh2

...and famecloud you let down our team with pompous postings like that. I asked a question originally and laid out the scenario. The make and model of the car were not relevant to the answer. It beats me that so many correspondents have trouble understanding the written word and are looking to advise on the market. I can glean the value of a vehicle as well as the next man.

Rimkh2

...I apologise for that previous post famecloud, new to this. That should have been jonesmufcforever who I felt was being a little pompous and insulting.

Prothet_of_Doom

Having written off 3 astra's I've been through this 3 times with my own insurance company.

Car 1. Cost me £2200. 12 months later they offer me £875. I demand £1750, and get £1650
Car 2 Cost £1750, 3 years later they offer me £600, I demand £1500 and Get £1450
Car 3 Cost me £900, 3 years later they offer me £1200. I bite thier hand off, and do not haggle.

3 different companies.

vaio

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

For me it's very simple. You print out the adverts off autotrader, ebay, and piston heads, (only those in your favour mind, older, lower spec higher milage at a higher price) plus the valuation off parkers, for a RETAIL sale, and you put it in a pack to them, with the cheque, and tell them that either they pay £1600 for the car, plus £100 to transfer the plate, plus £25 per day for loss of use of car whilst they continue to insult you....Call it £2500 and counting.......within 28 days, or you will insistigate court action.

Send a copy to your neghbour, but explain that you know it's not his fault his insurance company are taking the !!!!


After 28 days, start court action. I think you actually have to sue the 3rd Party, so again explain to you neghbour that all he has to do is turn up, having made sure he gives a copy of court papers to his insurance company, and.......well on the day.... You have the evidence of the values, you will win.......

[STRIKE]By the way what car is it ? [/STRIKE]

Don't !!!! around trying to get them to see sense or phoning them. Go official. Note the £25 a day and counting might actually be the turning point.

x 2 but I'd give them 14 days rather than 28 and actually hire a car for a few days and include copy invoices.

I'd also stop banging on about how uncommunicative the insurer is being, if half the punters give up and accept a low ball offer then it's money in the bank for them so it could well be a standard business model.

All they are legally obliged to do is pay your reasonable costs (as decided by a judge if you can't agree it) to be returned to the position you would have been in had the accident not happened. Anything else is just froth

CKhalvashi

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

How interesting that OP complains that insurance company does not correspond with him whilst he has been asked on here about 10 times what the make and model of car he is claiming on! Hardly a state secret is it?

My guess a Ford FIESTA

Perhaps they deserve each other.

However, if it's a Fiesta Zetec S, or a Ghia with the leathers etc, £1600 may be reasonable for this.

If it's a basic one (1.25 LX, for example), £600 may be more reasonable.

Aretnap

The bottom line is that you're not their customer. They have no obligation to engage you in an ongoing discussion, they're only obligation is their legal one to compensate you for your losses caused by their client. They seem to think they've done that. In turn you have an obligation to mitigate those losses, for example by buying a new car as soon as they send you a fair offer for it, rather than continuing to run up hire car bills while you argue the toss. That will be why they've taken the hire car back.

If you don't think their offer's a fair one and they're not going to negotiate further, your options are now:

(1) Take the offer, put it down to experience and kick the cat*

(2) Issue a county court claim for the money you think you're owed. The insurer might fold and make a better offer when they get the claim. Or they might take it to court and the judge might agree with your valuation. Or he might agree with theirs, in which case you'll be left with a lot of wasted time, and a bill for costs (admittedly the costs won't be too bad in the small claims court). Without knowing more about the car it's impossible for anyone to tell you which outcome is most likely.

(c) Put the claim through your own insurers, if you're fully comp. There's no guarantee that they'll give you a better valuation than the TP's insurer, but at least that way if you don't like it you can go to the Financial Ombudsman which is free (to you). Be warned that if your insurers do over-value your vehicle and can't recover the full payout from the TP's insurer it may end up being recorded as a fault claim against you and affecting your no claims bonus.

Grumbling on a web forum about how uncommunicative they are is all very well, but it won;t solve anything at all.

vaio

Aretnap wrote: »

........Put the claim through your own insurers, if you're fully comp. There's no guarantee that they'll give you a better valuation than the TP's insurer, but at least that way if you don't like it you can go to the Financial Ombudsman which is free (to you). Be warned that if your insurers do over-value your vehicle and can't recover the full payout from the TP's insurer it may end up being recorded as a fault claim against you and affecting your no claims bonus.......

I'd like to see them get that past the FOS