Car Insurance Claim help - Claim myself & pay excess or use Auxilis?

shahdhah

I had another car hit me last week and there was a bit of damage to the front right of my car. It's not severe damage but the paint work is quite badly scratched and given the car is relatively new I would like to get it repaired especially as it wasn't my fault. (It's a Lexus and I bought it brand new in September 2018).

I notified my insurance company (Admiral) and explained the whole incident. I was stationary waiting for a rubbish truck to move so I could pass and someone tried to squeeze through and scraped my front whilst doing so. Luckily the rubbish truck driver was facing me, therefore saw the whole incident and gave me his details as a witness.

Admiral has offered me 2 options to make a claim; the first being their "non fault claim service" where they pass me on to a company called Auxilis, and the second would be me making a direct claim to Admiral and paying my excess (£850). When Admiral called me to explain the claims process, I did mention that I would prefer to take my car to Lexus, and the Admiral rep was quite confident that Auxilis would use Lexus themselves and so passed me through to discuss it with them. 

The Auxilis option would mean I have nothing to pay and it would all be sorted through them. However when I spoke with them, they said they do not deal with Lexus directly, and gave me details of their nearest "Lexus approved" body shop which is in Leytonstone. As I live in Croydon, this is not very "near" at all. I have been doing some further research and have seen a few negative posts about Auxilis and negative things regarding credit hire companies in general . So one of my questions is, should I be using Auxilis?

I do not have motor legal cover (I never knew what it was for until now as I've never had any accidents). I always thought that if an accident wasn't your fault then the other party would be liable for all your costs. I have learned in the past week that this is obviously incorrect, and going forward will be taking out motor legal cover on my future policies! I don't know if Admiral were trying to put me off claiming through my insurance but they implied that my excess costs wouldn't be recoverable without legal assistance. So my second question is, if I do claim myself through Admiral, can I get my excess back myself? If so, is it difficult to do and how do I do it?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

oscarward

If the other driver admits liability go to his insurance. 

dacouch

As Oscar has said you can contact the other Insurer, they will bend over backwards to keep you away from Auxillis, they should have no problem arranging a replacement car (Massively lower cost to them than Auxillis) and allowing you to chose whichever garage you want.

You can get their contact number etc from www,askmid.com for a small fee, most Insurers have departments set up to deal with third parties such as you as it is easier for them if they control the claim and much cheaper as they avoid Auxillis's costs

shahdhah

Strangely it never occurred to me to contact the other party’s insurance. He hasn’t admitted liability (as I’m sure most people don’t) but as mentioned I do have a witness that saw everything. 

I tried calling Hastings (his insurance) earlier after reading Oscar’s comment (thank you btw) but their lines were ridiculously busy so I gave up. I’ll try again tomorrow. Hopefully they don’t just fob me off. Is there anything specific I should say in addition to explaining the incident and telling them I’ve been offered to use Auxillis through my insurance? Sorry if these are stupid questions, and many thanks again. 

dacouch

Do they have a different number on the mid website I gave you earlier?

shahdhah

I've checked the MID website and it's given me a different number but I'm getting the same message about long wait times due to large call volumes, so it's probably going through to the same team. I'll try again a bit later. 

dacouch

shahdhah said:

I've checked the MID website and it's given me a different number but I'm getting the same message about long wait times due to large call volumes, so it's probably going through to the same team. I'll try again a bit later. 

Try them on social media eg Twitter or Facebook, companies often have very quick responses on social media