car insurance claim leaving financial hardship

chanz4

so what did she do when she needed a car for the business? Turn work down?

chanz4

Also why did you need a trailor if you couldn't work?

chanz4

Also why did you need a trailer if you couldn't work, couldn't you of gone enterprise for a small car

rangiemad

Hi Future Girl,

Thank you very much for the clarification of the time scale reasons, I'll try and clarify best I can the other items, which might answer the next 3 posts also.

rangiemad

The hire car was needed to begin with as I had several contracts on the go when the incident happened.

Having tried over 10 Car hire companies, (including Land Rover), None could offer a car without a credit card, (which I did not have when the incident happened), Non would offer a tow bar except SHB 4x4, but their minimum hire was way in excess of what I needed and this would have been a defender which did not have the towing capacity I needed, or air suspension which was needed to hitch up the heavy trailer.

Pre-empting next question, Yes, it is a very big trailer, the largest allowed on UK roads, and not suitable for manual handling albeit empty or when loaded and the sites it was used at were not accessible by Car or Van and delivery wagons couldn't get to the sites without getting stuck.

As for not being able to work, I had no choice but to continue with what had already been started, even though this was only possible with very heavy pain killers, regular visits to Dr's, a physio I know personally until He could do no more and passed me over to the osteopath.

I had to finish 3 of these contracts early, but continued to supply the clients with the same materials started with as they were mostly reclaimed form 1 source.

After 18 months of struggling on to the point where the pain killers (Morphine, amytripteline etc, all at high doses) and not having slept more than 2-3 hours a day due to the pain, I mentally couldn't cope with it any more.

I am also still under the care of specialist pain management clinic on the NHS and still not able to sleep due to the pain. I have been told by the specialist this is a life long injury with management being the main option, but I have to accept that the treatment may leave me paralised from mid spine downwards if there are complications with the lumbar injections.

Unfortunately, due to another medical issue at the time, the Dr's were still investigating this as it was life threatening, before they would do anything about the accident issues until that was ruled out, as it was life threatening.

Hope this clarifies those points.

One more post to come

rangiemad

Hi Chanz4,
I hope my last post answers most of the question, I thought I had posted another response re wife's business, but it seems to have disappeared.

Yes, she lost a lot of work as we did not expect to have the complications of having to take my insurers to the ombudsman, and I was under contract with penalties for not completing, but was able to satisfy that part of the contracts by supplying the clients the same reclaimed materials for their replacement contractors to finish with.

It would have cost me more than double what she lost at the time in not completing my contractual obligations, and she has been trying to regain other work she lost by letting down a couple of Her long term clients, so the decision to go down this route was taken very seriously and has cost her dearly in the long term, but hind sight is a wonderful thing further down the road!

I also hope anyone who is assuming this gold digging operation at the insurance company, they can see it isn't, and I will have to live with the severe consequences for the rest of my life of an incompetent driver, the original post was really asking what I could do about my financial circumstances and if anyone could point me in any direction to reduce the knock on effects, but I do thank everyone on all the other advice also.

hopefully now I have explained things further, you can see it is just a very complex situation due to several contributing factors all happening together. I also have a very deep mistrust of Banks, Solicitors and Insurance companies due to several dealings with them over the past 13 years, hence not trusting my solicitors with such blatant bad service I have received to date.

I would happily challenge anybody out there to Hire a 4x4 with the towing weight of a range rover, with a tow bar, allowed to use off road, without the use of a credit card and not being a limited company. I can't afford to offer a reward for this, but you would have the pleasure of proving me wrong!

I did use to work very closely with enterprise for 8 years when I was in the motor trade, and even with my contacts with Enterprise (and other hire companies) I could get nobody to offer any replacement car solution, probably why Drive Assist went down also.

Kindest regards

takman

I can't beleive that you and your wife who both run seperate businesses don't have a credit card at all!. A credit card is an essential facility for everyone these days. So i hope you have atleast got one now that you know how important they are to have.


But what i don't understand is why didn't you or your wife apply for a credit card when you realised you needed one to hire a vehicle. You usually get them within a couple of weeks so you would have only had to borrow your wifes vehicle for a short amount of time which would have minimised her financial loss.

rangiemad

Thanks Takman,
Due to the circumstances at the time, I couldn't wait that long and as both my wife and myself only accepted Electronic payments or cash, (no Cheques, credit card payments or "promises to pay" and all of our outgoings were paid upfront from customers in both businesses) neither of us had any need for one up until this happened.

We had no reason to consider one when we didn't need one, As it had been 8 years we have done without one and after they refused to pay out on a legitimate PPI claim 13 years ago, we weren't in a position to give them our money in interest etc when we didn't have to . (Barclays did refund £28k when PPI became a big issue for the rejected claim several years later, so hated card companies even more for what it did to us at that time)

My wife has also filed a section 75 against one of her cards she has on a completely separate issue (which is why she got one for a high value purchase for the protection), but they have been delaying this since last october, so you can appreciate why we didn't trust them at all, and can't wait to not have one again which made life so much easier.

Kindest regards

rangiemad

Hi Takman,

Also, at the time, there should have been no issue with having my car repaired under the normal way, where the value of the repair was way under the true value of the vehicle, it was mainly due to my insurers refusing to repair as they automatically wrote it off with their first value, which then meant it couldn't be repaired and months of hassle with the ombudsman etc.

Like I have said before, it was a very complicated situation with many unusual circumstances all hitting at the same time, and not expecting the claim to be nearly 3 years old now, I could not have expected to be in this position. Also, even with a credit card, I would still not have been able to hire a vehicle with tow bar, which was the biggest obstacle in the whole process.

Kindest regards

sheramber

now I am looking at defaulted cards, losing house etc

I you don't have a credit card what are the defaulted cards?