possible declined insurance claim

Aretnap

Sandtree said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Sandtree said:

Ant555 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

One other thought - the other car may have been stolen but, if the car that hit you had current insurance in place, that may still allow a third-party claim to be made under RTA.  I am not sure on this, but it may be worth checking via MID whether there was any such cover in place.

Thats not something I had ever thought of - if an insured car is stolen and crashed into another car then presumably the insurance pays out for the third party?  Is that different from an uninsured driver ?

It depends if the thief is identified... if they are identified the stolen vehicle insurer has to deal with the third party and has a right of recover against the thief (not that its a realistic opportunity). If the thief remains unidentified then the insurer has no liability to the third party and both are just having bad luck. 

But if the thief is unidentified (and therefore the car is in effect uninsured) isn't that where the MIB steps in and pays any third party claim?

Or have I got that hopelessly wrong?

There is the MIB Untraced Driver Agreement  www.mib.org.uk

I always got the two agreements mixed up even when a claims technician and now having to rely on memory. From memory the Untraced version excluded any losses covered by any other insurance and so if you have comprehensive insurance you'd have to claim your own damages from your own policy but injury and other uninsured losses can potentially look to the MIB

That's true of both the untraced drivers and uninsured drivers agreement these days - you can't claim from the MIB if you could claim from your own policy, or indeed any other policy. 

Not sure where that leaves the OP. On the face of it if he can't claim from his own policy he might potentially have a route through the MIB. But IIRC both MIB agreements have a clause excluding payments to uninsured drivers, so if the OP's policy gets voided from inception presumably that means the MIB route is closed off as well... 

Medis111

So latest update is that underwriters passed all the info to the evaluations team to make a decision. Not sure how insurance companies operate or whatever that means. He did say this decision is final and even if I go down the complaint route to esure it will not be overturned. That seems wrong  to me as on their website it claims that “ When a complaint can’t be resolved quickly or you aren’t happy with the initial resolution our Customer Relations team are here to help you. This is a dedicated team who will carry out an independent review for you and they act with full authority of our Chief Executive.”

this statement suggest that the complaints team can overturn the decision, however the guy on the phone just told me that they wouldn’t, but I still have to go through that stage before raising this to the ombudsman. 

Grumpy_chap

Medis111 said:

this statement suggest that the complaints team can overturn the decision, however the guy on the phone just told me that they wouldn’t, but I still have to go through that stage before raising this to the ombudsman. 

Don't you need to wait for the decision first?

Sandtree

Medis111 said:

So latest update is that underwriters passed all the info to the evaluations team to make a decision. Not sure how insurance companies operate or whatever that means. He did say this decision is final and even if I go down the complaint route to esure it will not be overturned. That seems wrong  to me as on their website it claims that “ When a complaint can’t be resolved quickly or you aren’t happy with the initial resolution our Customer Relations team are here to help you. This is a dedicated team who will carry out an independent review for you and they act with full authority of our Chief Executive.”

this statement suggest that the complaints team can overturn the decision, however the guy on the phone just told me that they wouldn’t, but I still have to go through that stage before raising this to the ombudsman. 

I'd ignore the comment that a decision is final.

The reality is that complaints teams are normally made up of senior claims handlers and senior sales & service people and not underwriters, actuaries etc. There are often two routes open in complaints that are upheld, change your decision and act based on the new decision or maintain the decision but deal with the matter as a gesture of goodwill - the later being used where the decision is deemed correct but there were material failings along the way. 

Its likely that the complaints team cannot themselves overturn a decision made in underwriting however they can certainly refer the case again and potentially add some persuasion to the argument if they are minded to uphold it.

Medis111

Grumpy_chap said:

Medis111 said:

this statement suggest that the complaints team can overturn the decision, however the guy on the phone just told me that they wouldn’t, but I still have to go through that stage before raising this to the ombudsman. 

Don't you need to wait for the decision first?

I do indeed, however I’m preparing myself for the worst outcome. 

I wonder if the situation would be different, and they wouldn’t care about the modifications if the  other car was insured and esure were claiming from that drivers insurance, since the accident wasn’t my fault. 

Medis111

Spoke with the rep today. Told me they are not paying for it and I should receive a call from the case handler tomorrow to tell me why. Nice little Christmas present. 

Reginald74

Medis111 said:

Spoke with the rep today. Told me they are not paying for it and I should receive a call from the case handler tomorrow to tell me why. Nice little Christmas present. 

Thanks for the update.  That is awful for you, but presumably not the end of the journey.  Further complaints escalation and ombudsman. You may get some of it paid.