Recovering car insurance excess and other costs

bcr_2020

I was involved in a non-fault accident a few months ago.  Whilst I was given the write off value of my car my insurer deducted my excess plus salvage costs and I also have courtesy car costs that they would not fund due to a technicality to recover.  In all these costs amount to £800 which is not insignificant.  My insurer has been less than helpful and is not responding to my queries about this.

Can anyone advise what I should do?

MovingForwards

Send a letter before action to the third party insurance company, set out details of your losses, provide supporting evidence eg proof of excess deduction, copy hire receipt etc and request settlement.

MovingForwards

Was it a courtesy car or credit hire vehicle? It will say in the paperwork you received at the time of it being handed over to you.

bcr_2020

Thanks for your reply.  In response to your question, I cant find the paperwork right now but it was from enterprise rent a car ie I was a private renter from them with no involvement of my insurance company. 

MovingForwards

That's fine, as credit hire is an added complication.

Find your paperwork, send the letter and if nothing comes of it*, come back and update this post and we can talk you through the next bit.

* Give 14 days in the letter for them to respond, allowing for posting; personally I would say 14 days but wait 4 weeks due to the current climate.

Also, check their website to make sure they are receiving letters as some have said don't write, if that's the case then email it to them (always retain a copy of what you send),
if letter obtain a certificate of posting from the post office as this proves you sent the letter,
don't send it recorded delivery.

[Deleted User]

Isn't a letter before action a bit premature?

If it was non-fault then the OP should get their excess back once the claim is closed. All the other costs should be passed on to the 3rd party insurance too. Seems like the first step is to call the OP's insurance and ask when their excess will be returned and why they aren't passing on the other costs.

I almost wonder if the OP's insurance is actually working on the basis of it being 50/50, i.e. they consider it an at-fault claim.

RAC18

Excess Excess Payments:
The above is not a typo: we have a 13 month old reasonably luxury car which was subject to malicious damage whilst parked on the road. We are purchasing it on PCP and, as such, wanted to maintain our full warranty. Given that, we agreed with the insurers the vehicle could be recovered by the manufacturers' approved repair shop. When the insurance engineer completed their work we were told we would have to pay a further excess of £850.00 over our chosen excess as their 'non-warranty' but BS repair shop could do it cheaper - albeit it would be at the loss of our manufacturers warranty! We have agreed to pay the difference as we wish to maintain the warranty! The policy schedule wording does lay some of this out but even when we tried to negotiate they wouldn't move! So, be warned, some insurers will not repair your vehicle to its' condition despite what they suggest! Anyone else had this issue?

chrisw

Yes, it's fairly standard. They will have deals with particular body shops.

It also usually applies to windscreen replacement claims, eg £50 excess if you use their approved company or they'll only pay out up to £100 if you use someone else.

[Deleted User]

RAC18 said:

Excess Excess Payments:
The above is not a typo: we have a 13 month old reasonably luxury car which was subject to malicious damage whilst parked on the road. We are purchasing it on PCP and, as such, wanted to maintain our full warranty. Given that, we agreed with the insurers the vehicle could be recovered by the manufacturers' approved repair shop. When the insurance engineer completed their work we were told we would have to pay a further excess of £850.00 over our chosen excess as their 'non-warranty' but BS repair shop could do it cheaper - albeit it would be at the loss of our manufacturers warranty! We have agreed to pay the difference as we wish to maintain the warranty! The policy schedule wording does lay some of this out but even when we tried to negotiate they wouldn't move! So, be warned, some insurers will not repair your vehicle to its' condition despite what they suggest! Anyone else had this issue?

Using a non-dealer repair shop does not invalidate your warranty. Legally it can't as long as the work is done to a good standard using the right parts.