Problems with admiral

grdY30

My partner was involved in a collision which wrote her car off. She wasn't at fault. We went through her insurance company admiral but we feel as though we made a mistake as it's currently cost us over £1200 yet she is the injured party here. Anyone else having problems with them. I thought after a crash you were meant be back in the same position as before or better yet she is far worse off. It's a joke.

Quentin

Your rant doesn't give any detail of why your partner is down £1200


If you are unhappy with your insurer then make a complaint about it (their complaints procedure will be set out in the policy docs)


Then if you are unhappy with their reply or they uignore your complaint for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you


(You "thought" wrong in terms of you being better off following a crash - any incident involving a crash involves all parties in hassle/lost time/inconvenience etc. You cannot expect to come out of this in a better situation than you were before the crash (unless you make fraudulent compensation claims etc and get away with them!)

agarnett

Quentin and dacouch, too tired to do your industry a favour and gently enquire of the OP what sort of problem they have gotten into? You can see they're upset. Your preferred answer sounds like "we have to deal with upset customers who don't know how insurance works a lot of the time - it's boring".

If it's boring, you could always retire and let some listening folks have a go

Clearly if an injured party is out of pocket by £1,200 after a simple collision accident when they thought they were well insured, if they are right that they are not at fault, then it isn't a good advertisement for the insurance industry, is it?

I probably wouldn't have called the OP's post a rant - it's only a modest five lines in my browser - it's an unresolved complaint against Admiral - a company that thesedays do a lot of UK motor insurance, and maybe motor insurance elsewhere too - I long ago noted that my payments to them over the years seem to have been processed by Admiral in Italy for some reason - never got to the bottom of that!

You might as well say "Yes insurance sucks, get used to it!" but that wouldn't be what might be expected by representatives of the industry - or would it in 2016?

Shall we have another try in the morning when we are fresh?

Meantime shall I make a start for the better? I've negotiated a write off settlement with Admiral in the not too distant past. It was a fairly predictable experience and we came out of it fairly well - but then like Quentin and dacouch, I know more about how insurance works than most people working for Admiral.

grdY30, as Quentin started out saying, you haven't said where the £1,200 went. It would be helpful if you could break it down.

Was it simply a case of the car being a fairly new acquisition by your friend at the time it met it's untimely end as a write off, and of Admiral pressing her to accept that its market value was significantly less than she had paid for it? Or perhaps she was a younger driver, and there was a substantial deductible excess on the policy? And/or maybe she had to hire a replacement for a while at her own cost until the claim was paid and she was able to buy her own replacement?

Or perhaps the lost £1,200 was the result of a combination of these things and more besides?

It is always possible of course that it was one of those accidents where your friend truly believes she was not at fault, but where without extremely knowledgeable witnesses coming forward it would be hard for an outsider to call? Narrow country lane accidents and roundabout lane accidents are notoriously difficult to call, and for the five decades I have been around insurance, no insurer picks a fight with another insurer unless it thinks it can definitely save money in the process, and that means that they've never fought to clear anyones' name except as a by-product of saving money on claims they have been called to pay out against their insurance policy.

So, again OP, if you could enlighten us further, we all might be able to comment and help you understand if all was handled fairly.

Apart from the general rule of never accepting the first offer that any insurer presents you with after a write off, because the first offer is rarely the fairest offer, I'd say with my experience of Admiral, they do have some fairly good people whom you can reason with in all parts of the business, but they expect a little to and fro with write-off negotations.

grdY30

Thanks for replies. So basically my partner is not at fault as the lady who hit her came out of a car park and hit my misses side on as she was driving down the road. Maybe she thought she had time to get out but clearly she didn't. The 1200 is broken down by. £500 excess £550 premium as they forget to tell you ya have to have it all paid before a claim is paid out. Then the cheeky people decide to take £98 out my bank yesterday even tho the premium was paid over a week ago yet phoning them last night they seem to say that this month's payment wasn't included.. They said the car was worth a measly £1400 but by the they time they taken off £1050 we are apparently receiving a check for £350... really enough to get a new car once she hands back the courtesy car.. doubtful. I feel as though we have been ripped off. If we had chosen to go with the other lady's insurance we would of had none of that to pay. We thought best option was to go with our own insurance. Clearly this was a mistake.

Quentin

The excess is recoverable off the other side. (Assuming they are liable). You get "free" legal cover with Admiral, so get on to them to recover this for you.


When you have a "write off" you always get the settlement less your excess and any outstanding premium owed.


You are correct when saying you should gave claimed off the third party direct, but that is now "spilt milk", and not a lot you can blame Admiral for - you chose to claim off them.


If you have now discovered its market value was much more than you were paid, then do follow this up with a complaint - send them your evidence of the correct market value and take it from their reply

teddysmum

The premium isn't a loss and I've noted people who lost a pet also complaining about having to pay premiums after the death.


Insurance is payable in advance (as it's to cover a future incident), but they 'loan' you the money so you can pay in monthly instalments (rather like HP), so you still owe the full premium.

agarnett

As Quentin says, there are two main items to follow up

1. the excess ought still to be recoverable against the third party's insurance - hopefully your partner recorded sufficient detail of the third party vehicle and driver to be able to hand it over to help Admiral's legal cover/"uninsured loss recovery" people started?
2. the valuation Admiral your partner's insurer put on your partner's vehicle - if it is clearly at variance with values of similar vehicles in similar condition advertised on Autotrader or similar, and especially if you have evidence of it being lower mileage than normal, regularly serviced, perhaps with recent MOT with no recommendations outstanding, and with money clearly having been spent recently on such things as new good quality tyres all round, new exhaust, new clutch ...

But generally, I agree it is very sad that somehow, ordinary folk with fully comprehensive insurance are expected to know for themselves when it is sensible, and when it is not sensible to involve their own insurer after what basically is a simple collision scenario. I would have thought that it is usually the more difficult claims where a clever knowledge-based direct claim against a third party wins a better result but, I emphasise, only if the insured victim has the knowledge and skill to see it through.

It is a fair ask of the industry that motor insurance ought to at least put you back in the same position after a loss than immediately before it i.e. insurance should "indemnify" the customer.

There have been many instances over the past four or five decades where major insurers have promoted personal insurance offerings such as household and motor policies which did in fact put the idea in minds of punters at large that "new for old" is part of the settlement basis - even for cars (although if offered, usually only for very recent models up to a couple of years old).

So whilst those with intimate knowledge of the industry practices can point to examples of where claims aren't settled quite as generously as new for old, we can't exactly criticise a punter exposed to so much insurance marketing noise as we are in the UK for perhaps hoping for an ok result when an insured accident finally happens ... It is of course true that any type of prang involving a third party is usually a pain in the neck to resolve without some kind of lost time and money and usually there are always differences of opinion to resolve which makes even a small collision a stressful experience.

In this case of course, the OP's partner has ended up way behind the curve through no fault of their own by the looks of it.

If Quentin is right about Admiral including a legal / uninsured loss recovery section to the standard Admiral motor policy (I haven't checked but wouldn't be surprised) then it surely wouldn't be wildly optimistic for a punter who had just been told the bad news by Admiral that their write off claim was greatly reduced by a £500 excess to expect Admiral to be pro-active in their next breath by offering the good news that in this case, it might be possible for their legal people to press a claim successfully against the third party, so reassuring the punter there was still a chance they would recover the £500 excess from the third party.

That doesn't seem to have happened here yet?

grdY30, did your partner pass all necessary details to Admiral such that they could have got started and contacted the third party and pressed a claim, or were those details lacking?

One other thought which Quentin may be able to answer (I can't) is whether in a case like this, a claim for the unexpired premium that was lost could also succeed against an at fault third party, (as an uninsured loss - same as the excess)?

I have a feeling it could not, but as I write this, I cannot think why not ...

teddysmum says it isn't a "loss" but I think she might rather mean "it's a loss, Jim, but not as we know it!". Obviously anything which, because of an accident, subtracts from a victim's financial position had an accident not occurred can be logically called a financial loss.

Let's say everything went smoothly from this point - Admiral have paid £350, and we soon learn that Admiral now accept that in this case, they should contact the third party whose details they have been given. The third party insurer then remarkably agrees without fuss that their client was at sole fault for the accident, and even more remarkably agrees to pay the £500 excess across pronto

Meanwhile grdY30's partner manages to find an exact replacement for £1,400 just before the free courtesy car period expires.

That then just leaves the extra £550 premium that grdY30's partner has had to pay to end the last insurance contract on the written off car, get paid out, and to start a new policy on the replacement car straightaway. Plus (possibly) the extra £98 which grdY30 suddenly found had been taken by Admiral on 8th June - it isn't exactly clear if that was premium due up to the date of the accident or whether it too was "unexpired" premium due between the date of the accident and the future expiry date of the annual policy.

Anyway, if this rosey picture now emerged, the only thing standing between grdY30's partner and a fair settlement is indeed just the "unexpired" part of the old policy premium which has now been taken irrevocably and which therefore cannot be used to insure the replacement car for the remainder of the original policy, or for even one day.

Isn't that a "loss" which can be fairly claimed against the third party? If not, then it surely has little to do with fairness or "indemnity", but is more to do with a hang up from the weird accounting traditions that insurers still cling to when it suits them, and then the equally weird ways of the whole industry in how they assess what's a loss and what isn't

rs65

agarnett wrote: »

Anyway, if this rosey picture now emerged, the only thing standing between grdY30's partner and a fair settlement is indeed just the "unexpired" part of the old policy premium which has now been taken irrevocably and which therefore cannot be used to insure the replacement car for the remainder of the original policy, or for even one day.

I'll admit to not having read every word. I skipped to the end.

Most, if not all, insurers will allow the OP to add the replacement car to the policy and therefore they will benefit from that premium and it will not be a loss.

EdGasket

Yes,, I thought the law had changed so that a paid-for policy must always be allowed to continue on a replacement car; otherwise you have paid for a year's insurance and might only get a few weeks out of it.

OP: If it was non-fault and the third-party admitted liability, you should have used their insurance but having used your own insurance you should get back the excess you paid to your own insurer from the third party's insurance.

Note: with the newer Admiral policies Legal Cover is an optional extra. Just hope if you have it it is with someone more competent than that Albany shower.

Quentin

agarnett wrote: »

...., I know more about how insurance works than most people working for Admiral.......

.......for the five decades I have been around insurance, ......

You are critical of the advice given by other posters (as well as question whether it is correct), and tell us your qualifications to pontificate, then post this totally incorrect and scaremongering statement:-

agarnett wrote: »

....the only thing standing between grdY30's partner and a fair settlement is indeed just the "unexpired" part of the old policy premium which has now been taken irrevocably and which therefore cannot be used to insure the replacement car for the remainder of the original policy, or for even one day......

Quentin

EdGasket wrote: »

Note: with the newer Admiral policies Legal Cover is an optional extra. Just hope if you have it it is with someone more competent than that Albany shower.

That Albany are a shower, but don't do the Legal Cover for Admiral