Claiming against two seperate accidents

ajnicho

Hi future girl. Thanks for this. That is what my argument is. They didn't do anything of the sort and just left it.

After Hertz got in touch acting "on behalf of my insurance" as they said, (but really acting on behalf of the broker) I thought the insurers were taking it forward when in fact they were sitting on their behinds doing nothing.

Obviously assuming Zenith were looking in to it, and obviously as Hertz who we believed were pursuing it on their behalf, We had no need to contact zenith.

If zenith had done their job properly from the start and investigated liability. We wouldn't be in this position.

FutureGirl

I think the issue here is that you don't understand who does what and what the process is.

Firstly whoever is at fault, your excess is due because you're claiming on your own policy. You, yourself, then need to claim that back from the third party insurer as an uninsured loss, it isn't the insurers responsibility to do that, unless you have legal cover on your policy - which is going to be something separate from your vehicle damage claim.

Zenith wouldn't have been involved from the beginning. Swinton sent your claim to Hertz Accident Support (who are an accident management company / hire company), most likely Swinton would have received some £ for that, INSTEAD of sending it to Zenith (though they would have notified Zenith about the incident). Hertz would have dealt with providing you with a hire vehicle, and done a credit repair (which is more expensive than a normal garage repair). However because your vehicle was deemed a total loss (most likely because the cost of repairs outweighed the value of the vehicle), you didn't require a hire vehicle as no repairs were going to be carried out, this is why the claim was THEN sent to Zenith for them to commence dealing with this.

Zenith have then looked at the photos and the engineer report from Hertz, and priced it up using their garages, and seen that they could, in fact, repair the vehicle at a cost that was lower than the value of your vehicle.

Zenith would not have had to investigate liability, as you advised in your OP that the other insurer have already admitted liability, when Hertz were dealing - which was before Zenith were involved in the claim.

When claiming you EITHER go through your insurer, or are sent to an accident management company - and only ONE will deal at a time.

This is why people advise against using Swinton!

EDIT - If the vehicle was repaired under incident 1, when incident 2 occurred you would have still lost the NCD and paid the excess on the second claim, as it's a fault claim.

Quentin

FutureGirl wrote: »

.......This is why people advise against using Swinton!...

This is[ just one of the reasons why people advise against using Swinton

ajnicho

That is inaccurate to be honest.

We were notified from Zenith by text message two days after the first accident that a claim manager had been allocated to her claim. The claim handler from Zenith called my wife to request the excess. The initial claim was against a fully insured third party who was to blame but at that time had not accepted liability. Zenith admitted to making enquiries as to the liability but didn't pursue it for whatever reason (they have yet to explain).

The first incident was deemed a write-off by the garage and Hertz, they were the only people to fully inspect the vehicle.

Zenith have made their assumption that the vehicle could have been repaired purely on a couple of photographs that we had taken. They didn't request any documentation from Hertz or the garage who done the initial assessment. It has been down to me and my wife to gather this information for the insurance company. We have had to obtain all the photographs and the assessment from the original garage to send to Zenith because they were making their assumption on a couple of photographs and a report done after the second incident, by a garage that could only make assumptions.

ajnicho

It's all well and good saying this is why you shouldn't use Swinton. For the average Joe Bloggs who pays their insurance in good faith, we shouldn't have been subjected to such a confusing and soul destroying ordeal.

Quentin

The problem arose when you wouldn't agree to pay your excess! (An uninsured item which you agreed to pay on any claim when you took out the policy)

You may be mistaken about the sequence of events. If you told zenith you weren't prepared to pay out your excess it is highly unlikely they would then instruct an AMC on your behalf!

Quentin

ajnicho wrote: »

It's all well and good saying this is why you shouldn't use Swinton. For the average Joe Bloggs who pays their insurance in good faith, we shouldn't have been subjected to such a confusing and soul destroying ordeal.

Whatever way you look at the issue doesn't really affect the outcome.

You chose to claim off your own policy originally

Had you agreed to pay your excess your claim would have been dealt with.

You would then still have had the second fault claim!! Meaning excess to pay and loss of Ncd.

ajnicho

Zenith agreed to delay the payment of the excess until they made enquiries and the third party admitted liability - this is something they should have pursued but didn't.

We didn't 'not agree' to pay the excess. My wife asked if we could not pay the excess because it was the other drivers fault. They agreed to this.

If they told us they would put a stop to the whole claim until we paid the excess do you really think we or anyone else would have done that? No!

Quentin

This looks to be part of your misunderstanding.

Zenith wouldn't pursue the third party as they had nothing to pursue them for. You had stopped the claim.

Subsequently the AMC got involved - they must have been instructed by someone , and will tell you if you ask them, though subsequent events make it all irrelevant.

ajnicho

Zenith pursued the third party for liability. They have admitted this.