Car Insurance - Without Drive Assist!

racerman

Thanks, just to clarify. My insurers wrote me a letter saying the other party claimed responsibility, payed up, and that was the end of it from the insurers point of view. That was almost a year ago. Drive Assist cannot get the money for the cost of the car from the other insures after several months trying, for what ever reason, and are now claiming they may have to come after me. They say it is currently with their soliciters.

andygb

racerman wrote: »

Thanks, just to clarify. My insurers wrote me a letter saying the other party claimed responsibility, payed up, and that was the end of it from the insurers point of view. That was almost a year ago. Drive Assist cannot get the money for the cost of the car from the other insures after several months trying, for what ever reason, and are now claiming they may have to come after me. They say it is currently with their soliciters.

Hi Racerman, how did Drive Assist get involved in the first place then? If it was through your insurance company, then they should be dealing with the matter now. I fail to see how the "robbing barstewards" can be coming after you for the money after all this time.

karena

andygb wrote: »

Hi Racerman, how did Drive Assist get involved in the first place then? If it was through your insurance company, then they should be dealing with the matter now. I fail to see how the "robbing barstewards" can be coming after you for the money after all this time.

This is all too familiar. My insurance company put DA on to us, not advising that they were a credit hire company who would be able to charge us for the hire of the loan car in the case whereby they were unsuccessful in recovering the charges from the third party insurer. Insurance companies make around £150 per referral and once you are in the clutches of the dreaded DA you are OWN YOUR OWN. The insurance company do not want to know and they will not help you. We had a non fault accident and the third party admitted liability. The saga with DA continues, the accident happened in July and last month had a call from them requesting a statement about the usage of the vehicle as they were unable to claim the full amount from the third party and were looking at taking them to court. Of course they never mentioned that should they be unsuccessful then I would be liable for the £350+ outstanding, I brought the suject up and of course they confirmed that I would be liable...

racerman

That is pretty much what happened to me. What really annoys is that they gave me a top of the range car which I did not ask for, they also tried to get me to take it as long as I could, obviously trying to up their revenues. At no point did my insurance company say I would ever be liable. So what is our legal recourse if they try and ask us for the money?

karena wrote: »

This is all too familiar. My insurance company put DA on to us, not advising that they were a credit hire company who would be able to charge us for the hire of the loan car in the case whereby they were unsuccessful in recovering the charges from the third party insurer. Insurance companies make around £150 per referral and once you are in the clutches of the dreaded DA you are OWN YOUR OWN. The insurance company do not want to know and they will not help you. We had a non fault accident and the third party admitted liability. The saga with DA continues, the accident happened in July and last month had a call from them requesting a statement about the usage of the vehicle as they were unable to claim the full amount from the third party and were looking at taking them to court. Of course they never mentioned that should they be unsuccessful then I would be liable for the £350+ outstanding, I brought the suject up and of course they confirmed that I would be liable...

Seashivers

I cannot believe all these posts about Drive Assist have not prompted them to sort themselves out - get this and mine hasn't even got to the stage of being accused of damaging their car or recovering the cost of hire from me...

I took out a fully comp insurance policy with the Post Office in March last year and reported an accident which was no fault of mine, on 20th November 2009. Within 2 weeks the car was deemed uneconomical to repair and assessed by independent engineers (est. repair cost c £5,000). I was initially told c £4,500 replacement value. The Post Office passed the claim to Minster Law & Drive Assist as it was supposed to be ‘straightforward’ & I was given a car through Drive Assist on 20th November, signing an agreement making me responsible for the hire although I have been repeatedly reassured that this cost will be met by the other party’s insurer – Zurich.
The key question I got asked was would it be ok for Drive Assist to claim back the money from the 3rd party. This I readily agreed to – why wouldn’t I? – I had no idea of the ramifications and why should I, I don’t work for the Post Office, Drive Assist or Minster Law, in the Insurance industry and certainly no-one informed me that this would remove my claim from the protection of the Financial Ombudsman (spoke to them yesterday!)and that the Post Office would completely abdicate any responsibility for managing my claim.
Feb 2010 – I complained about delay, was advised that as it was almost ready, there would be no point in removing the claim and proceeding through the usual underwriter, Aviva.
13th April – got a letter from Drive Assist informing me that Zurich had passed the claim on to a 3rd party (Keogh’s) who had yet to assign a claims handler and this despite knowing the length of time (NOW 5 Months!) I had been ‘in hire’.
21st April I sent an email to The Managing Director of Drive Assist and copied the letter to The Customer Relations dept at the Post Office, demanding response and resolution.
26th April I received 2 letters from Drive Assist which beggar belief. Apparently Zurich are disputing the valuation (that has been available since Dec09) That it has taken 5 months to start disputing anything is literally unbelievable and expecting me to pay money back is unheard of. Then to cap it all, they have spitefully taken the car today because I won't agree to accept money that they will claw back, leaving me without a vehicle, in a rural area which I have explained has no public transport for miles, I have 2 jobs and 3 children in 2 schools 10 miles apart. |The Post Office - well they say they've got my letter and will get back to me sometime in the next four weeks!!!!!! What would you do?

dacouch

Zurich do not like paying Credit Hire Charges without disputing them so be prepared for Zurich to dispute the length and cost of the CH. The chances are DA will send you a letter agreeing to give a statement and go to court if necessary.

Seashivers

thanks dacouch - I think I will try and get some independant legal advice.
However, I spoke to the Ombudsman again just to double-check their assertion they couldn't get involved with Drive Assist as they are a 3rd party, and the person I spoke to said they COULD help, so will be sending off all the documentation to them today. Their process and form is quite straightforward and if you go to their website (that I can't actually quote in full here as I'm a new user of this site) financial-ombudsman & click on menu item 'How to make a complaint', at the bottom there is a word or PDF form you can download

stevemarsh1976

A bit of info from this weeks Insurance Times

"Drive Assist has reimbursed insurers following an investigation sparked by whistleblower allegations of overcharging."

It goes on to say the amount paid back is undisclosed and then a quote from Drive Assists CEO claiming it was down to a "misunderstanding" which led to some insurers suffering financial loss

dacouch

stevemarsh1976 wrote: »

A bit of info from this weeks Insurance Times

"Drive Assist has reimbursed insurers following an investigation sparked by whistleblower allegations of overcharging."

It goes on to say the amount paid back is undisclosed and then a quote from Drive Assists CEO claiming it was down to a "misunderstanding" which led to some insurers suffering financial loss

Have a read of StevieUK aka the Drive Assist CEO posts on this thread about how squeaky clean DA are...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.php?u=409397

confudler

Our car got hit whilst parked and fortunately a witness saw it happen. But, having skimped on legal cover, our insurance company were not going to help us claim against the driver. However, the repair center put us on to Drive Assist.

DA sorted out a courtesy car and offered to claim all costs (including the repair costs) for us. They did play down the idea that we could be liable for the hire cost.

It was a few days later, when I did my homework, that I realized the massive cost I was exposed to. What if, for example, the guilty party had invalidated his insurance or made up an independent alibi...

But then I got a welcome letter (4 days after receiving the car) that mentioned cost protection insurance - a £10 flat rate insurance that covers me in case the cost can't be recovered. This seems like a pretty small cost for the liability it removed and I'm a little surprised it was not offered earlier (given that they are quite keen to sell extra insurance).

Clearly, their business model is to subsidize the claims dept through hiring out the most expensive car they can possibly get away with (i.e. like for like). I was a little worried, before taking the cost protection insurance, that there wasn't much incentive for them to pursue the claim but much less so now.

I'm a little anxious about 'damage' costs and will carefully photograph the car from every angle before handing back (it was brand new on delivery).

But all-in-all, for £10 I have a like-for-like hire car with no liability for the hire charge and, thus, a claims department with a strong motivation to recover these costs (and while they are about it, the repair costs).

So far, the experience has been up and down. I will keep you posted as to whether Drive Assist come through for me in the end...