Using third party insurer to deal with non fault claim when third party has admitted liability

l.c.elliott

I was in a car accident yesterday and I posted on here about whether to go with auxillis for the non fault route or to go with my insurer admiral and have to pay excess and then claim it back when liability was admitted. I decided to go with admiral to avoid the hire agreement and admiral passed my details on to a garage but being a Saturday it hasn't been booked in yet.

Well today the other partys insurer (direct line) offered to take on my claim for me as their customer (the guy who drove into me) admitted liability - they told me its much cheaper for them if I go with them and to prove this, they offered me £250 if I went with them for repair and courtesy car hire! They said as my car hadn't been booked in yet with admirals garage that it should be fine for them to take on my claim.

Does it seem too good to be true? So tempted to go with it especially as they said there would be no delay in getting the courtesy car to me (where admiral said there could be a delay) and I wouldnt have to pay my excess upfront. Plus an extra 250 quid cant be sniffed at!

Any advice welcome, TIA

NottinghamKnight

Always worth claiming directly from the other driver's insurer if they are at fault and no messing around with dodgy third party car hire. Speak to Admiral and let them know though. 

l.c.elliott

NottinghamKnight said:

Always worth claiming directly from the other driver's insurer if they are at fault and no messing around with dodgy third party car hire. Speak to Admiral and let them know though. 

So there's no downsides to using the other drivers insurance rather than my own insurer?

Aretnap

l.c.elliott said:

NottinghamKnight said:

Always worth claiming directly from the other driver's insurer if they are at fault and no messing around with dodgy third party car hire. Speak to Admiral and let them know though. 

So there's no downsides to using the other drivers insurance rather than my own insurer?

Only real downside is that if you are not happy with your own insurer (eg the repairs are botched, or your car is a write off and you do not think they have offered you a fair valuation) then you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman, which is free. Whereas you cannot complain to the Ombudsman about someone else's insurer, so if you are not happy with the third party insurer then your only recourse is to court.

In general though you will get good service from the third party insurer. They have an incentive to keep you happy as they don't want you going back to the accident management company who will charge them a fortune your expensive credit hire car - a lot more than the £250 they are offering to keep you onside. And if you do end up in an argument over the valuation you can always go back to your own insurer and go down that route instead. 

dogshome

Motor Insurance is a dirty game

Your own insurers recommended Auxillis, a company known for artificially inflating the costs of the Claim, particularly on the Hire Car costs - The reason for this is that on a no fault claim, your own insurer will get a Kick-back payment from Auxillis.

But why should you worry about that if your car is properly repaired? -  Auxillis contracts have a great deal of fine print and you would not be the first to find yourself in Court over a bill for outrageous Car Hire costs.

Direct Line's offer is because they know that if the claim is handled by Auxillis, the bill will be inflated by a great deal more than £250.

Personally I'd go with Direct Line, just to avoid having anything to do with Auxillis 

dacouch

Someone is going to be getting a message from MSE after Auxillis send a solicitors letter to MSE
I've already got the t shirt for that

marlot

>> So there's no downsides to using the other drivers insurance rather than my own insurer?
There can be, if something goes amiss (eg. a poor quality repair).  As you're not a customer of the third party insurer, you can't escalate a complaint to the financial ombudsman.

Petriix

I strongly recommend going with the third party insurer if they've already accepted liability. You can still negotiate over the settlement. It can be win-win: if you keep the overall cost down then you may be able to end up with a better settlement in your own pocket rather than just the rip off accident management companies.