Car Insurance - question about insured excess

rs20033

Hi, Our car insurance excess is £850.00. We have insured the excess (this costs extra on our premium and means that if we have an accident and have to pay excess, we will get the excess amount paid back to you regardless of fault). We had an accident in August last year. Repairs at the insurer's recommended garage were £800, or we could have got the repairs done "on the cheap" (without going through the insurance company) for £250 (presumably using parts from scrapyard, not new). As the excess is insured, we decided to get it repaired through the insurance company using their preferred repairer. Car got repaired. We received an excess bill for £850 from the garage on collection, which we paid. At no point did the insurance company or garage query that the excess was more than the repair bill. For some reason we didn't really think about it either.

Anyway, 10 months later and the insurance company are dragging their heels. They haven't said they can't pay us or that we did anything wrong in claiming for a repair less than the excess amount, but they keep delaying. First they were waiting for the third party documents, then a query over something else with the third party, then they said we didn't claim through insurance (sent copy of excess bill to prove we did), then more documents needed (estimate, repair invoice, photos...) and I think they are still chasing the third party insurers for something. We also had to fill in a second accident form (they one where you draw your diagram and state road conditions etc). That was in March I think, so 7 months on from the accident some details were a bit hazy!

Anyway, I was just wondering if any of you experts here could confirm if we were actually allowed to claim on our insurance and pay an excess for more than the repair is worth? I didn't really think about it before but it is an unusual situation, so maybe it isn't allowed? If it isn't allowed, I'm guessing we just have to go to the garage to refund the £50 difference. Bit annoying as we could have got it repaired ourselves for a fraction of the cost, but would be great to know now so we don't spend another 10 months chasing this only to find we can't have it back anyway...

Thank you for your help. Hope that all makes sense!

Quentin

Check the policy wording regarding the policy excess insurance you have taken out


Often they don't cover just part of the excess (ie to make a successful claim you often must have paid the excess in full)


But if this claim was as a result of a third party's negligence and you are in no way to blame you can claim back your excess directly from the third party if your excess insurance doesn't cover the £800

rs20033

Thanks. Just to clarify, we paid the full £850 excess.

My husband was indicating right and turning into a driveway in a village when someone who was behind him overtook him. I don't think fault has been agreed on (they were trying for 70/30 in our favour) so it will probably end up being 50:50.

Quentin

Yes you paid the full excess, however you say the repair cost only £800! Thus no need to have paid the £850 in full!


Does your excess insurance only pay out when you pay the excess in full?

rs20033

I will have to check the documents, I'm not sure. We just paid the bill that the repair garage gave us, which was £850 excess, so presumed that was What we were meant to pay to claim it back. Since we were going to get it back anyway, we didn't think anything of it at the time.

I am sure if we can't get the excess back, then the garage will refund the difference, but I was wondering if maybe we weren't supposed to pay an excess more than the repair amount and maybe that is why it's taking so long to resolve (we previously insured our excess on a different vehicle ages ago with the AA in a 50:50 claim and received it back within a few months of paying it. The repair was about £2500 on that one (but no disputes with fault as it was a head on collision). This one, neither party has admitted liability and the insurance company is a smaller one).

Quentin

It looks like the garage made a "mistake".


If their bill was £800, then that is all you should have paid.


So get on to them to reimburse you. (The excess insurance won't pay out £850 to you if the bill was only £800!)

rs20033

Should we get anything back from the insurance company as the excess was insured (i.e. Should the excess have been lowered to match the repair bil) , or are we only due the £50 from the garage? Thanks

Quentin

Have you checked your policy (as you mention in #5)


As previously posted, you need to check if you just have cover when you make a claim where you pay out your excess in full, or does it pay you any amount of the excess even if less than the £850


If you are covered for the part excess, then when getting the overpayment reimbursed get the garage to give you a corrected receipt that matches the invoice and pursue the claim