Car Insurance Claim- I've been Scammed! - need help

salam0506

Hi All,

Currently feeling very stressed at the thought of how much money I might lose out of a potential scam. I'll go through the details of what happened but if more detail is needed please do message as I need any sort advice anyone can provide.

So I had an accident in my private motor vehicle after work on July 2nd - I was pretty much stood still waiting to turn right in the middle of the road/ turning lane when a scooter went into the side of me. In the panic I just googled AXA and called an 0800 number - the phone was answered with just "Claims dept" and he proceeded to ask my details and essentially pretend he was from my insurance company by checking my details etc.

They then passed me over to Kindertons Accident management company and I just assumed that was how AXA worked. I needed a hire care at the time to get around so Kindertons provided that and had been processing the claim. Kindertons picked up my damaged car and undertook an engineers assessment and deemed my vehicle a total loss and sent me an estimate of how much the payout will be etc. Then towards the end of last week they informed me that they were having trouble getting the liability from the 3rd party and that I need to go back to my insurance company and transfer the claim back to them. I then spoke to AXA and they had no record of the claim. I then had to search through my call logs and realised that the number I had called on the day of the accident was a company called "The Accident Support Team". So I explained what happened to my insurance company and they are now saying that they will have to treat it as a whole new claim and that they wont take on the cost for the hire car I have had for the last month and will have to do a whole new engineers assessment etc.

I am seriously worried and stressed out at the thought of having a huge bill for a hire car and other costs from Kindertons. I don't know whether to take the claim off Kindertons straight away and go through the whole process with my insurance company or just leave it with Kindertons and tell them they have to proceed with the claim?

Any advice would be much apprecaited!

Jlo31

Kindertons is a main stream accident management outfit so if you answered everything correctly when dealing with them they may have had an insurance policy in place to cover costs is third party do not agree liability. You need to contact them and ask them and get it in writing if possible.

Hope everything works out OK.

keith1950

You should try to get Kindertons to progress this claim for you because you cannot expect AXA to pick up the cost of the hire car and neither should they.
You accepted responsibility by requesting a hire car whilst your insurer were not involved.
If you want to return the claim to AXA you will have to cover the cost of the hire car.

salam0506

Yeah I appreciate that its not AXA's liability to cover the cost of a hire car that they didn't provide but is it not someone responsibility to inform me that they are not an insurance company and I might be liable for huge costs for a hire car? They tried to tell me that they did not know I hadn't informed my insurance company but surely that cannot be true - they were given the claim by 'The Accident Support Team' who are not an insurance company.

Zorillo

It's your responsibility to make sure the person you report your claim to is your insurance company, and more importantly the person whose hire car you get in isn't going to bill you for doing so.

Jlo31

I've had a read on some online reviews and it looks like even when they have trouble with liability they just close the case, take the car back and tell you to claim on your own insurance so hopefully they won't bill you for the hire car and will bear the cost.

But as previously advised I would ask for this in writing.

Good luck.