Car insurance excess

chrisd8780

I was involved in a non fault accident last September. A driver drove into while I was in a box junction turning right. He admitted fault.

1st attempt to fix car through auxillis went pear shaped and tool too long. I complained to Hastings who said I could arrange the repair myself. I arranged for the original garage to do the repair in Feb 2017. I picked my car up and everything was ok till a week later when I got a call saying i owed £350 excess. I disagreed saying non fault accident etc.

I phoned Hastings and had a lengthy argument with them they insisted I had to pay and wouldn't get my car back if I didn't, I said I was looking at my car and couldn't understand why I should be penalised for a accident which wasn't my fault.

I've not paid and informed the garage about a letter from hastings saying it was non fault claim and damages have been claimed from the other side. But have since been getting emails from the garage and text messages.

I've asked Hastings for the 3rd party insurance details but they haven't provided them and just say I must pay. The garage says hastings has said i owe the money. What do I do it doesn't seem fair that I have to pay 350 for someone driving into me (n no didn't claim small speed collision) n isn't it garages mistake to not take money on handing car over

AdrianC

chrisd8780 wrote: »

I was involved in a non fault accident last September. A driver drove into while I was in a box junction turning right. He admitted fault.

...I got a call saying i owed £350 excess. I disagreed saying non fault accident etc.

I phoned Hastings and had a lengthy argument with them they insisted I had to pay and wouldn't get my car back if I didn't, I said I was looking at my car and couldn't understand why I should be penalised for a accident which wasn't my fault.

Because excess and fault have nothing to do with "who's to blame", and everything to do with whose insurance pays. If your insurer can't reclaim the costs off the other driver's insurer, and end up footing the bill, then your excess will be charged, and you will need to declare it as at-fault.

Insurers don't care about the rights and wrongs of who was driving how. They care about whether they pay or somebody else pays.

flashg67

Perhaps until Hastings have actually fully settled the claim, and received monies from the TP insurer, you'll have to pay and claim it back.

Do you have legal help line cover on your insurance?

You agreed to pay an excess when you bought the policy. I think that if you want the car back, you'll need to pay it and chase / wait for the claim to be fully sorted.

This happened to me - took 6 months before I got the excess returned!

debtdebt

flashg is right.

When you took out your insurance policy, you agreed to pay an excess of £350. If you didn't want to pay an excess, you should have paid a higher premium for a zero excess policy.

If you were sure this was a no fault claim, you should have gone straight to the third party insurer and asked them to deal with the totality of the claim.

As it stands, your insurers are within their rights to ask you for the excess. This will also be still recorded as an at fault claim until they make a fully recovery of their outlay from the third party insurer.

Your excess is deemed as an uninsured loss. Once you've paid this, you will have to claim this back from the other insurer either by approaching them yourself or utilising your Legal Expenses Insurer.

angrycrow

When you took out your insurance you contractually agreed to pay the agreed excess in the event of a claim, in this case £350. The terms were not I will pay the excess if I am found at fault.

By asking the insurers to repair you agreed to pay the garage £350 on collection of the car after repairs. If you do not pay the garage they will hold onto your car and at some point they will start charging you storage on the car.

Better to pay the excess and write to the third party insurer with a copy of the receipt asking them to reimburse.

chrisd8780

I already have the car back. I've had it back for months. Hastings wrote a letter saying they had recovered all damages from third party insurer and would be settled as a non fault claim.

I didn't intend to claim through Hastings I just informed them of the accident as I had not heard from other party as promised

chrisd8780

Hastings so far not providing the insurers details to claim off despite me requesting them

Ectophile

It sounds like Hastings have got their money back from the third party's insurers. But that won't include the £350 excess.

If you know the other party's registration number, see http://www.askmid.com/

Hastings_Direct_company_representative

Hi all,


Firstly, can I thank all users for the help and advice you have offered the original poster. I am sorry to see this situation has arisen and I hope the matter will be dealt with soon.


If the customer would like to send over their policy details to [EMAIL="socialmedia@hastingsdirect.com"]socialmedia@hastingsdirect.com[/EMAIL] I'll be happy to offer as much help as I possibly can.


~Connor