Reasonable timescale for insurer to respond

greatcrested

16th August. A supermarket delivery van damaged the stonework at the bottom of my drive. The driver and I filled in the company's 'incident report form' he had in the cab, and he told me to ring his manager in the morning, which I did.

Next day the manager advised me I should hear from their insurers within 48 hours, but if not to call him back.

20th August I rang back and a different manager said she 'would chase'. I asked for her email address and sent her an email outling the problem and enclosing photos.

Meanwhile I obtained two quotes for the repair (£4-500).

23rd August I sent the quotes to her email address.

No response as yet either from her, the original manager,or the insurer.

How long is it reasonable to wait before escalating, and when I do, should I contact head office? Send a LBA? Look for a no win no pay solicitor and get a letter sent?

Suggestions please!

Sandtree

Commercial insurance often takes much longer even before you add Covid to the mix because driver tells his manager, manager tells depot manager, depot manager tells fleet manager, fleet manager tells broker and the chain goes on. To you its highly important to them its something that happens fairly frequently given the sheer volume of vehicles they operate. 

You could attempt to fast track the matter as you can get their insurance details from AskMID if you have the vehicle reg but there is a small fee and again because its commercial insurance for a large fleet it may well be that the insurer themselves doesnt deal with claims like this directly so can end up being passed around a lot until you get to someone in the know.

dacouch

For a claim of £500 I think you'll find they pay the bill themselves

greatcrested

That makes sense. So just wait.... another week?

ElizabethRose

There will be so many different parts of the chain that could delay the claim such as transport managers, insurance company etc. Is the wall unsafe and therefore a risk to the public? If so get chasing but if not give them a bit of slack.

Whilst most people aren't bothered insurance companies are struggling and having to move staff between departments due to the current situation so this is causing some delays. 

TELLIT01

I would give them a couple of weeks.  They have acknowledged the claim and it will now need to go both through their internal processes and potentially through the insurer too.  We are coming up to a Bank Holiday weekend too which doesn't help.  If you've heard nothing by the 8th September start chasing again.  At that point I would be contacting their head office with a list of dates and actions or lack thereof.

greatcrested

In fact I've had no acknowldgement to either of my emails.

The only acknowledgement has been verbal when I rang, in both cases being effectively "You'll hear in 48 hours/ due course".

However I'll be patient.

The stone work was blocking 1/4 of the road and I used cones to alert traffic, but have now had assistance moving it to the side of the road.

Thanks all!