"Esure vs me" court date

bowlhead99

maddogb wrote: »

Sorry peeps had a visitor arrive for weekend so been to busy will provide a full
post match breakdown soon but I was denied the ability to claim punitive damages, and as Esure had already settled the main claim that hearing was dispensed with.

So the culmination of the ~400 posts across at least three threads here since February (maybe more?), is:

- your being told that as Esure had settled the market value claim to the satisfaction of the FOS, and you have no further damages beyond the loss of that car that you drove into a flood, there was no reason for you to be in a small claims court claiming something, and the hearing could be dispensed with so the court could get on with their day.

You had hoped to magic more money out of nowhere by quoting Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999:

"7.—(1) A seller or supplier shall ensure that any written term of a contract is expressed in plain, intelligible language." and suggesting that the term 'market value' was not plain language and therefore you could not have been expected to understand your insurance contract so the term would not be binding on you, correct?

However, the court decided you had not suffered a loss as a result of them paying out their interpretation of market value, and as Esure had already settled the claim, your further claim should be dropped.

Do I have that right? It seems consistent with what everyone on here told you would happen.

I think I managed to scare them

They are a company valued by the stock market at £800m.

They were unsuccessfully taken to court by a customer who wanted their settled insurance claim to be increased and some sort of punitive damages to be awarded.

The customer had previously gone to an adjudicator at the FOS and been told the payout was satisfactory.

The customer had published his court claim strategy in advance on an internet forum and been told it was likely a loser by others with experience of the car industry, insurance industry, and legal proceedings.

The court said the settled insurance claim should stand and that no punitive damages should be awarded.

I doubt an £800m company feels scared by that outcome. :rotfl:

but not much more unfortunately, will give more details soon.

Not much more than scaring them? So, only scaring them and a bit more? If they didn't pay you any more money on your claim, what's the bit that you achieved?

We look forward to the details of what the judgements were and what it cost and whether, on balance, you would devote another 8 months to this process again if it happened again with your next insurer.

dacouch

Let's just wait for the OP to update the thread.

I think he has a good chance of increasing the original offer as he mentioned in an earlier post that the Insurers evidence pack just consisted of photocopies of the valuations from the trade guides. If that's all they relied on as evidence rather than refering to the relevant case laws eg on the value of the loss being at the time of the loss rather than a later date and refering to the independent arbitrators (Ombudsman) valuation system.

There is a good chance the judge may have sided with him, as other posters have mentioned, it will depend on the judge on the day and how he views the evidence submitted, his knowledge of the relvant case laws (He may not be aware of them) etc.

Just because he did not receive his punitive damages, it does not mean he did not achieve his goal of an increased offer

force_ten

dacouch wrote: »

Just because he did not receive his punitive damages, it does not mean he did not achieve his goal of an increased offer

and as Esure had already settled the main claim that hearing was dispensed with.

what part of that did you not understand ?

maddogb

force_ten wrote: »

what part of that did you not understand ?

I still have guests so will just post to stop you and bowlhead there, dacouch was right so he understood perfectly, probably because he has read the full thread.
The amount originally offered by esure and upheld by the Fos purely in respect of the vehicle valuation was £3000
under. the terms of the above UTCC Now consumer regs 2015 I claimed £4600 this is what has been paid with the cheque for the remainder dated 17.10.16 in my possession.

Quentin

maddogb wrote: »

....... I claimed £4600 this is what has been paid with the cheque for the remainder dated 17.10.16 in my possession.

May as well pay it in now, as should you decide to appeal over not getting your punitive damages having accepted the cheque won't jeopardise any appeal.

maddogb

bowlhead99 wrote: »

So the culmination of the ~400 posts across at least three threads here since February (maybe more?), is:

- your being told that as Esure had settled the market value claim to the satisfaction of the FOS, and you have no further damages beyond the loss of that car that you drove into a flood, there was no reason for you to be in a small claims court claiming something, and the hearing could be dispensed with so the court could get on with their day.

You had hoped to magic more money out of nowhere by quoting Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999:

"7.—(1) A seller or supplier shall ensure that any written term of a contract is expressed in plain, intelligible language." and suggesting that the term 'market value' was not plain language and therefore you could not have been expected to understand your insurance contract so the term would not be binding on you, correct?

However, the court decided you had not suffered a loss as a result of them paying out their interpretation of market value, and as Esure had already settled the claim, your further claim should be dropped.

Do I have that right? It seems consistent with what everyone on here told you would happen.

They are a company valued by the stock market at £800m.

They were unsuccessfully taken to court by a customer who wanted their settled insurance claim to be increased and some sort of punitive damages to be awarded.

The customer had previously gone to an adjudicator at the FOS and been told the payout was satisfactory.

The customer had published his court claim strategy in advance on an internet forum and been told it was likely a loser by others with experience of the car industry, insurance industry, and legal proceedings.

The court said the settled insurance claim should stand and that no punitive damages should be awarded.

I doubt an £800m company feels scared by that outcome. :rotfl:
Not much more than scaring them? So, only scaring them and a bit more? If they didn't pay you any more money on your claim, what's the bit that you achieved?

We look forward to the details of what the judgements were and what it cost and whether, on balance, you would devote another 8 months to this process again if it happened again with your next insurer.

I have a little time so will respond to this for the moment.


1. Point here seems to be that I was wrong in my posting and continuing the discussion on here when many said I was wrong?
It appears to be they who were in fact wrong, as I am nearly £2k better off from not following their advice.


2.The reading and interpretation of the UTCC needs to be done with 7.1 and 7.2 together, my interpretation still stands as in all the time allowed, Esure with agreement from myself to drop the case if they demonstrated compliance, still failed to show any defence to this, basically conceding the point with their settlement.


3. the reason I feel I gave them a scare is quite complex and given your failure to follow the case so far, combined with your obvious prejudice, I feel may be in excess of your understanding.

Stevie_Palimo

maddogb if you say that you have won here and so should use this forum as it was designed then listing any and all points that have made your claim accepted be it through the Court or an out of Court settlement should be made here for another person to use as reference points should they have the same issue.

Having a dig at one user and saying that this is to complex for them is nonsense.

arcon5

Rather than replying to presumptuous posts can't you just summarise the case and net result for us eagerly waiting???

We've been following this for months and now being drip fed the result

maddogb

Stevie_Palimo wrote: »

maddogb if you say that you have won here and so should use this forum as it was designed then listing any and all points that have made your claim accepted be it through the Court or an out of Court settlement should be made here for another person to use as reference points should they have the same issue.

Having a dig at one user and saying that this is to complex for them is nonsense.

arcon5 wrote: »

Rather than replying to presumptuous posts can't you just summarise the case and net result for us eagerly waiting???

We've been following this for months and now being drip fed the result

no malice or mischief intended, just real life taking priority.


There really is no mystery, it is all in previous threads apart from the punitive damages claim which is the part I was referring to when I said it was complex.


The argument was simple, the written term in the contract or policy "market value" is open to interpretation, in this the law* as stated is that the interpretation which favours the consumer is the one that must be used, (please be aware this is not restricted to the 3 guide values they use)
Esure failed to show this to be the case and settled before a hearing.
Posts in thread are sometimes confusing the claim in the courts with the insurance claim, in this as stated the amount eventually paid by Esure entirely in respect of the car was £4600 partially paid back in march to £3000 and the rest settled halfway thru last month, meaning they kept about %40 of the claim for nearly a year and suffered no consequences for this, fair?
I know I can appeal against the decision to refuse the amended claim but as I have received full value probably won't feel it worth the risk to go against some very expensive barristers and be exposed to costs. the real losers here are the charities I had attempted to get the punitive damages awarded to in my offers to Esure.

*(which on newer policies is the consumer regs 2015, same term of law as utcc1999)


As far as the punitive damages I think it was entirely my fault it failed, confronted with a few curve balls and a touch of nerves I adopted the coherence of a love sick schoolboy completely losing any ability to argue concisely and constructively.
All comments from the judge and barrister indicated my arguments still had potential to succeed but I found myself unable to present them.
They did send a barrister, which was one of the curve balls throwing me, and whilst he convinced the judge my claim for punitive action was unreasonable (or tbh I did that for him lol) so I did get stuck with his fee but most of this was offset by me being awarded with the hearing fee they refused to pay.
So I will have to pay £130 out of my settlement, well worth the lessons.

andrewn_2

so if you won do they get a ccj against them.