Refusal to Pay by Another Car Insurance

agbero

Can anyone please offer me some advice. A couple of months ago an elderly person drove through the fence at the back of my house and into my garden at just after 9am. She offered her insurance details and, since the large hole in my fence was a security risk to my house, I arranged for a joiner to come and 1) estimate to repair the fence, and 2) repair it.
Since only my wife was at home at the time of the incident and had to be in the house at the time of the estimate and fence repair she missed pre-arranged consultancy appointments on both days. Along with the actual cost of the fence repair I included my wife's lost fee income in my claim to the insurance company.
The next thing we heard was receiving a letter from a 'Forensic Accountant' requesting various details relating to my wife's business and, although we thought these were rather excessive in terms of detail, my wife provided it to them. The Forensic accountant has now refused to pay and asked us to withdraw the claim OR provide even more specific, and I believe unnecessary detail on my wife's business - I believe simply to discourage.
I'm very frustrated that, through no fault of our own, we are having to wrestle with the drivers insurance company for our losses - can anyone please give me some advice on what I should do.
All helpful suggestions are gratefully appreciated.

Quentin

They do ask for lots of info to prove self employed losses.

So much that unless the sum involved is worth it, the time involved may make it pointless.

But they are able to request these details.

OnanTheBarbarian

I would guess the accountancy firm is called Toppings?

They are experts at making a nuisance of themselves, along the lines of what Quentin has said - the effort and hassle can be disproportionate to the sum being claimed, so many people give up.

If your wife is self-employed, she can only essentially claim the net amount of lost income/ lost profit, not lost gross income, so that is why they often want to see tax returns & profit & loss accounts. Another factor is whether the appointments she was meant to meet on those days have essentially been done on another date. This would give rise to the suggestion that if she is not fully booked with work every day and therefore merely re-shuffled the appointment to another day a week or so later, they could argue that over the course of a month, she has not lost any income, she just rearranged the meeting for another time and was subsequently paid.

If you have the evidence to demonstrate the loss, then carry on, if not Toppings/. whoever the accountants are will just wear you down.

InsideInsurance

You may be surprised but whenever a taxi driver has a none fault accident they claim for loss of earnings, which is fair enough, but they all work 7 days a week, 18 hours a day, earn over £100,000 a year net but only started working 9 months ago so no tax returns but of cause can send their Accountant produced accounts to confirm it all.

The self employed, like myself, are well known for trying it on with loss of earning claims because its so much more complex than someone on PAYE earning £20k for a 9-5 job. Therefore the amount of information required is massively more to establish (a) what net earnings really are and (b) is any work was actually lost and (c) if it was actually necessary for work to be lost

If you want to claim you either need to comply or take your chances by going to court.

agbero

Thanks for your responses - all are very helpful and appreciated.
(Spot on....Toppings!).
Thanks

[Deleted User]

Send them a letter stating that you are claiming interest, encourage them to get on with it. Supply them with the details they ask for but point out that further information may be invoiced for if it costs you time and money to prepare.