non fault accident

hugonellie

Someone drove into the back of my new car on new years eve at 12pm - happy new year to me! The guy admitted liability there and then and even admitted that being on his phone was the cause of the accident.

I rang my insurance (admiral) and told them about it - and they have instructed albany to deal with things, who say that he's admitted liability and is happy for everything to go ahead. but I've just read their 'credit agreement' which seems a lil dodgy - I don't fancy ending up with a large bill to pay.

I think my bmw will need a new rear bumper - each of my passengers and myself all went to a and e with neck / back or shoulder pains. I believe we all still have this - I know I do! his car certainly looked worse as all the headlight casing etc was smashed. It was a company car and I have been told it was definitely insured at the time by the driver.

Should I be signing this credit agreement or is there a better way to do things? I only chose this option as my insurance excess was 600 and they were pretty much saying I would have to pay this immediately which I would also rather not do.

Thanks!

InsideInsurance

The best way of dealing things other than the possible injury claim is normally to go via the third party's insurer and claim directly from them. Credit Hire and Repairs are massively inflated and whilst they have their time and place are one of the reasons for ever increasing premiums.

If its a company car however things may move slower due to the extra layers involved and so you may decide you'd rather go the credit route for the benefit of speed.

Did he give you his insurance details? If not try and get them from him. Once you have them contact the insurer directly and ask to speak to the Third Party or Liability/ Fault team and see if they are willing to deal with you.

hugonellie

Just to add - I dont think the car will take too long to be fixed - maybe two days, unless they need to order an new bumper. Obviously I cant see any damage thats out of sight - if there is any. However I will need a car to get to work. I dont care what kind of car it is, I just need it to attend work. without it it would take a 30 min car trip into a 2 hour public transport nightmare - then obviously 2 hours home too.

hugonellie

I do have all of his details - including the admin guy who does their insurance for the company cars. all that info he provided seems 100% legit according to my insurers. obviously for ease and speed I want it all dealt with asap including the injury claim of my passengers.

If I went to the third party direct - who I am sure would deal with me (he suggested this at the scene) do I just ask for a courtesy car and then tell admiral I am dealing direct?

I am unsure what to do for the best

Albany are already telling me I would owe them £15 for petrol on a car I've not even picked up yet - they just sound horrifically dodgy

hugonellie

update - I have just rang the guy, who was at work and put me on the phone to the guy that deals with their car insurance and leasing etc. he is happy for me to send some photos through and get a quote for the work his end and is happy to give me a courtesy car in the mean time.

Sounds like I have too many options now. I just want the simplest process that will get my car fixed the quickest, to the best standard, and a way to deal with my friends injury claims

Thoughts? I feel really nervous with both ways. What if their guy doesnt fix the car to a decent standard or misses something out to cut corners? and on the other shoe i am scared from reading horror stories of albany landing customers with a debt

InsideInsurance

Dealing with the TP company or the TPI is the simplest for the car. If you only need a basic A2B type car then get a quote from your local garage that provide courtesy cars and then thats simple. If you have a genuine need something a bit more than a basic car then the TPI certainly would be able to arrange a hire car and the TP company probably could too - how much I'd trust the company would depend somewhat on its size.

The injury is separate and to be honest is too early to get to worked up about right now. Give it a few weeks and see how things go on. If you have legal expenses on your Motor policy then Admiral or Albany will appoint a solicitor for them. If you dont then they can find their own no win no fee solicitor to deal with their injury claim for them.

You can claim injury directly but many would advise against acting without professional advice. Its evidently more difficult to assess the value of an injury than the cost of replacing a bumper.

hugonellie

admiral pretty much said I had two options, pay my excess and claim through them, or use albany and not worry about excess or ncd. The whole thing seems completely underhand, they should be helping their customers not palming them off

So I can just ring albany and tell them I am going direct through the third parties insurers? Or do I ring Admiral - or both? I am worried I have agreed to something over the phone already and they will still charge me regardless. Their approved repairers are already ringing trying to arrange a date to have my car fixed.

I spoke to their guy, and hes not even talking about speaking to their insurance yet - hes on about me going to a garage so he can decide whether or not insurance is worth it - ie whether its worth him paying his excess on his insurance. which to me also seems dodgy, as their car is certainly going to need a few grands worth of work. Is business insurance excess generally really high?

I dont see why it needs to be so complicated - why do admiral use a third party company to do their work? surely as its no fault it should be a pretty straight forward case for them, I dont understand where or why albany would be involved at all.

InsideInsurance

hugonellie wrote: »

admiral pretty much said I had two options, pay my excess and claim through them, or use albany and not worry about excess or ncd. The whole thing seems completely underhand, they should be helping their customers not palming them off

So I can just ring albany and tell them I am going direct through the third parties insurers? Or do I ring Admiral - or both? I am worried I have agreed to something over the phone already and they will still charge me regardless. Their approved repairers are already ringing trying to arrange a date to have my car fixed.

I spoke to their guy, and hes not even talking about speaking to their insurance yet - hes on about me going to a garage so he can decide whether or not insurance is worth it - ie whether its worth him paying his excess on his insurance. which to me also seems dodgy, as their car is certainly going to need a few grands worth of work. Is business insurance excess generally really high?

I dont see why it needs to be so complicated - why do admiral use a third party company to do their work? surely as its no fault it should be a pretty straight forward case for them, I dont understand where or why albany would be involved at all.

One hire car company I saw a policy for effectively had a $2m excess but capped at $100m a year and the excess applied across the first and third party sections. Due to legalities it may not actually be an "excess" but for simplicity's sake it may as well be.

For large companies their premiums are based more on history than rating factors. If you have 10,000 cars on the road you are going to have accidents every year so it becomes a question of how many not if and the premiums (or excess) will reflect these attritional type claims and only really be there for the big ones.

I dont know the relationship between Albany and Admiral, but if they dont own them then Admiral get paid a fee for each case. If they do own them then Albany as a credit provider and not an insurer can make a profit on claims where as an insurer cannot so it makes sense from a group perspective for the profit making arm to deal with it.


If you decide to go via the TP/ TPI then let both Admiral and Albany know though the most important would be Admiral assuming you havent agreed any dates for delivery of hire cars or repairs of yours etc, if you have then both are important.

hugonellie

Thanks for your help!

One last question I promise - If I went back to admiral, paid my excess and then chose my own garage for repair, do you think its feasible it could take longer than april (when my renewal is due) for it to be complete?

I'm seriously thinking about paying it, just so I can have a BMW garage look at it.

Would the injury claim be separate to the car for insurance ncd purposes?

Sorry for earlier, I think I was getting myself worked up!

InsideInsurance

Admiral would protest at you wanting to use your own garage and would make a big thing about the authorisation taking longer as they need to send an engineer out to inspect the vehicle and that could take "weeks" -v- using their network garage where the engineers visit every few days or they have live links to the office based engineers and do everything electronically.

The problem is that for it to be "resolved" the car not only needs to be repaired but the invoices all paid and Admiral having gotten their money back from the TP/ their insurers and so there are many moving pieces and potential places for backlogs to exist.

I have seen a simple case done in under a month and I've seen a simple case take over a year, at one point a former employer had 9 months backlog of non-urgent post which both invoices and TPI letters etc counted as. 3-4 months is probably about average for a straight forward case but remember your renewal quote is generate 3-4 weeks before the renewal and so you'd need to be at least a bit lucky.


Injury cases will vary by insurer. Some simply close their file and let the injury go on in the background as their commercial agreements with lawyers are actually that they never pay them anything. Some will keep the case open to track the solicitor but they should adjust their files so that it doesnt any longer impact your policy but of cause all of this is IT system dependent. Again not seen one that cannot do this but in theory it may exist