Non fault car damage due to fire

Kitkat92

Hi, I am seeking advice from as many people as possible to know where I stand.
My car was damaged back in October due to a faulty Vauxhall zafira blowing up due to a fault. My first instinct was to call my insurance (Hastings) who i hoped would sort this for me stress free and how wrong I was.
Hastings suggested that I sort the car privately as there is no way of finding out if the third party accepted fault despite me having her details. They said to try her insurance.
I called her insurance and explained what had happened they also refused to help due to data protection and couldn’t tell me if she’d made a claim. They sent me on to a company called Horizon Vehicle Management who deal with no fault claims.
Horizon arranged for my car to be picked up and sent to a garage. The garage have been waiting authorisation from her insurance to go ahead with repairs. I called the garage every other day for a whole month to chase up information each time getting clarity that this wouldn’t cost me in storage fees they each time reassured me and said no bill would be liable to me.
However, today I recieved a call from insurance to say they would be collecting the vehicle from the garage to carry out repairs but the time the cars been kept there the charge would be for me to pay! Which is a lot of money.
I’m not sure what to do anymore for the best. Not sure who it is that needs to sort this bill. I have been in touch with the lady who advised me that she had contacted her insurance and reported my car as damaged to.
I am heavily pregnant and struggling with stress levels right now.
All advice will be grateful.
Thanks

Kitkat92

The car that blew up wasn’t mine. Mine was parked next to this

AdrianC

Unfortunately, unless you can show that the owner of the other car was negligent in some way, this is going to be coming from you - or your insurer. Four months of storage is not going to be at ALL cheap. How badly damaged is your car, and what was it worth beforehand?



Remember that massive Liverpool car park fire the other year? Same story, different scale. Each car owner ended up claiming off their own insurance, since the owner of the car that started it was not held to be negligent.

chrisw

Hastings should be sorting it for you if you have comprehensive insurance.

It is then up to them to try and recover their costs. If they manage to recover the full amount, your NCD should be reinstated. How much effort they put in to doing so is another matter, but worse case scenario is that you lose some excess and NCD.

oldagetraveller

I wonder if this is the heater resistor fault and the reported spontanious combustion?
If so it's possible the owner was contacted by Vauxhall to have a "fix" carried out at a dealer.
If that is the case and the owner ignored the safety recall then they could be held responsible.
However, it could be a previous owner and the present owner is in the dark re the fault. Therefore cannot be held or proved responsible/negligent.

Kitkat92

Thank you for replying I am seeking as much advice as possible.

Yes I am fully comprehensive and my insurance Hastings seem to be doing very little to help me other than scare monger and cause me more stress.

AdrianC

Kitkat92 wrote: »

Yes I am fully comprehensive and my insurance Hastings seem to be doing very little to help me

Have you actually submitted a claim form to them?

That apart, I'm not sure what else you're expecting them to do.

If you claim from your insurer, and they think there's a chance of the other insurer paying, they'll do that once you claim. If they can't/won't, then it'll be paid, but as an at-fault claim.


If you want to try and claim directly from the other insurer, then forget your insurer and just claim directly from them. If they don't accept liability, then you'll just get that claim rejected.