Disputing a rejected car insurance claim (advice sought)

Dr._Shoe

I don't really understand what the problem is.

If it is a blown turbo why not just get it fixed? If it isn't a blown turbo then complain. Simples.

tberry6686

The problem is when a turbo blows it usually dumps all the oil out of the engine/sump. Running the engine in this condition will wreck it beyond economical repair very quickly

InsideInsurance

Your only option if you wanted to pursue it is to commission your own independent engineer report into the damage to the vehicle but you are speaking about a few hundred quid at least and if you say that you believe the evidence has disappeared it may be good money after bad.

Saying its theoretically possible for the water to have blown the turbo is insufficient, they have to go as far as they think its the most likely cause of the damage

eddddy

... another way of looking at this. If you took this all the way to court, it would be decided on 'the balance of probabilities'.

i.e. is it more likely that the damage was caused by flood water, or is it more likely that the damage wasn't caused by flood water.

I don't know if AXA are currently looking for a higher level of proof than that (or how the FoS would approach the case).

InsideInsurance

eddddy wrote: »

... another way of looking at this. If you took this all the way to court, it would be decided on 'the balance of probabilities'.

i.e. is it more likely that the damage was caused by flood water, or is it more likely that the damage wasn't caused by flood water.

I don't know if AXA are currently looking for a higher level of proof than that (or how the FoS would approach the case).

On one side you have someone saying "I drove into a puddle and this happened" and on the other side you have an independent engineer saying "this has nothing to do with any puddle and is just that the turbo has died"

Its likely the court will side with the engineer given they are the subject matter expert and as an independent he gets no benefit from say it is or isnt accident related. Hence the recommendation to get your own independent engineer report so if it supports the OP then its a split opinion of the experts.

pobjoy

More food for thought. Thanks everyone.

The car's value probably isn't much more than £1000 so I think I'd only commit to getting my own engineer's report done if, on examining the car on its return, there are signs that the AXA-commissioned reports haven't told the whole story.

>>On one side you have someone saying "I drove into a puddle and this happened" and on the other side you have an independent engineer saying "this has nothing to do with any puddle and is just that the turbo has died"

Foolishly, I didn't think to ask the independent engineer how much he knew about the specifics of my case - the fact that I'd hit the water at relatively low speed and driven on after the incident. Talking to the the engineers, there are times when it feels like they have a set of 'flood evidence' tickboxes that they wheel out whatever the details of the claim - there's no room for unusual edge cases like mine.

A small example. When we were discussing my air filter, the independent engineer said he would have expected to see a stain left by "muddy water" on the filter. When I challenged that - are fresh rain water puddles on tarmac necessarily muddy? - he brushed away my point.

Both engineers I've spoken to have pointed out to me how many flood claims they've dealt with in the past ('lots'). If most of those were full-blown water-in-the-foot-well jobs, then perhaps it's possible their evidence expectations are now a tad high (I still struggle to accept that there were no signs *whatsoever* of water ingress in my engine bay)

eddddy

InsideInsurance wrote: »

On one side you have someone saying "I drove into a puddle and this happened" and on the other side you have an independent engineer saying "this has nothing to do with any puddle and is just that the turbo has died"

Its likely the court will side with the engineer given they are the subject matter expert and as an independent he gets no benefit from say it is or isnt accident related. Hence the recommendation to get your own independent engineer report so if it supports the OP then its a split opinion of the experts.

Absolutely.

It would be very foolish to court without an expert witness report, in these circumstances.

What I was emphasising was the level of proof the OP needs to have a good chance of success. i.e. look at the level of proof the insurance co is relying on, and ensure that you can provide a higher level of proof.

(e.g. if the insurance co is relying on a report from a 'generalist' following a brief inspection, then a report from a 'specialist' following a detailed inspection might be more convincing.)

InsideInsurance

pobjoy wrote: »

A small example. When we were discussing my air filter, the independent engineer said he would have expected to see a stain left by "muddy water" on the filter. When I challenged that - are fresh rain water puddles on tarmac necessarily muddy? - he brushed away my point.

Both engineers I've spoken to have pointed out to me how many flood claims they've dealt with in the past ('lots'). If most of those were full-blown water-in-the-foot-well jobs, then perhaps it's possible their evidence expectations are now a tad high (I still struggle to accept that there were no signs *whatsoever* of water ingress in my engine bay)

Having driven under 3 miles from the car wash the other day home through nothing but fresh rain water the car was filthy again. I'm afraid I am with the engineers thinking that any standing water on a road is going to be dirty.

As I dealt with third party claims flood claims didnt come across my desk often back in my claims days, however even with the limited first party claims experience I can remember at least half a dozen cases where people drove into puddles deeper than they thought or tried to ford a stream etc and it killed their cars - BMW X series cars seemed particular prone to it for some reason.

Certainly our engineers therefore would have been experienced of dealing with these types of claims as well as those where the car was parked in somewhere that was flooded and thus had full water damage everywhere