Avoid Hastings car insurance !!

Spread2022

On the 12th October 21
My car was damaged by a car in the next parking bay catching fire .
Today the 16 Dec 21
Ive just been told that the fire to the other persons car was not due to faulty work or criminal act . So its classed as an act of god and i will now loose my excess fees and it will go against future insurance premiums so its classed as my fault !!!!!!
I've been lied to over this and treated disgustingly from the very start .
So please everyone beware that this company will rely on the small print and claims its the industry standards to avoid honouring there end . They say oh we are fixing your car !!! Yes of course but at my cost in terms of excess and future insurance costs .. i ask whats the point of Paying full comp insurance when this rubbish lot wont protect you or me as there customer . How on earth can a car fire if not arson not be a mechanical fault on the other car . There were no lightning bolts that night !!!!
So please save yourselves check small print ask questions and don't use Hastings Direct

Car_54

"Fault" in insurance claims does not mean that you were to blame. It simply means that the insurer cannot recover its costs from another party, in your case because no-one was negligent..
That is not Hastings policy, it's normal practice in the insurance industry.

onashoestring

As it wasn’t a collision and the other driver is not at fault ( didn’t do anything to cause the fire ) in this situation is just unfortunate for all concerned - each party has claim against their own insurance policy. 

A similar thread here: 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5667512/non-fault-car-insurance-claim-fire-damage

Ebe_Scrooge

Spread2022 said:

 i will now loose my excess fees and it will go against future insurance premiums so its classed as my fault !!!!!!

As Car_54 says, they're not saying you're actually to blame for the incident.  Similar to what they always say about "No Claims Bonus" ... it's a "no claim" bonus, not "no blame".  Your situation is unfortunate and extremely irritating, without a doubt.  But Hastings have not done things any differently to what any other insurer would have done - that's just the way insurance works, standard industry practice.

Spread2022 said:

 i ask whats the point of Paying full comp insurance when this rubbish lot wont protect you or me as there customer .

They've paid for the damage to your car because you've got fully-comp.  If you'd only had third-party insurance, you'd be getting even more agitated than you are already, as they wouldn't have paid you a penny.

DB1904

Spread2022 said:

On the 12th October 21
My car was damaged by a car in the next parking bay catching fire .
Today the 16 Dec 21
Ive just been told that the fire to the other persons car was not due to faulty work or criminal act . So its classed as an act of god and i will now loose my excess fees and it will go against future insurance premiums so its classed as my fault !!!!!!
I've been lied to over this and treated disgustingly from the very start .
So please everyone beware that this company will rely on the small print and claims its the industry standards to avoid honouring there end . They say oh we are fixing your car !!! Yes of course but at my cost in terms of excess and future insurance costs .. i ask whats the point of Paying full comp insurance when this rubbish lot wont protect you or me as there customer . How on earth can a car fire if not arson not be a mechanical fault on the other car . There were no lightning bolts that night !!!!
So please save yourselves check small print ask questions and don't use Hastings Direct

If you only had third party insurance what would you have done?

I don't think Hastings are unique and would be the same with most policies. 

MEM62

Spread2022 said:

i ask whats the point of Paying full comp insurance when this rubbish lot wont protect you or me as there customer . 

It has protected you as, presumably, they have covered the cost of the damage to your car.  

The issue here is not with Hastings, it is with your understanding of the way that policies work.  

Aretnap

Your excess is not a punishment for being to blame for an accident. It's just the part of any claim that is not covered by your policy. Your fault, someone else's fault, nobody's fault in particular - it makes no difference, your excess is payable regardless.

If the incident is someone else's fault, and you can prove it, what you CAN do is claim your excess back from the at fault person - or their insurer if they have one. But that requires you to prove negligence on their part - in other words you have to say say what they did (or didn't do) that a reasonably careful driver would have done differently and that would have avoided the accident. With most accidents this is fairly easy - a careful driver would have driven at a more appropriate speed, or paid more attention to the road ahead, or waited for a bigger gap before pulling out of the junction instead. However in the case of a fire, what do you think the other driver should have done to avoid it? The mere fact that it was an electrical/mechanical fault isn't proof of negligence - it would have to have been a fault that an ordinary driver would have been expected to spot and do something about.

So your policy has done its job - it's paid for the damage to your car. The fact that you have to pay your excess etc is a shame but it's not a fault of Hastings, it's just the way these things work. If you had no insurance, or were insured third party only you'd be in a much worse position - you'd have no way of claiming for the damage from anyone and you'd be left with the full repair bill yourself. Just as if your car was damaged by wild animals, or a falling tree, or vandalised or stolen by a person unknown - none of those things would be your fault, but they'd still go down as a claim on your policy, affect your NCB, and leave you with nobody to claim back your excess from.

Jenni_D

Did the other car spontaneously combust? Was it struck by lightning?

If it wasn't set alight by another person (arson), and it wasn't one of the above, how else could it catch fire except due to a fault?

I think the insurance companies have a nice little scam going here.

facade

Jenni_D said:

Did the other car spontaneously combust? Was it struck by lightning?

If it wasn't set alight by another person (arson), and it wasn't one of the above, how else could it catch fire except due to a fault?

I think the insurance companies have a nice little scam going here.

It has to be either negligence of the driver, or (e.g. Vauxhall, Porsche) the fault of the manufacturer.

If say, the driver had a fuel leak that they knew about, and did nothing about it then they are negligent. If they stored cans of fuel or patio gas in the boot, they'd noticed a burning smell for weeks or the car hadn't been serviced or MOT'd for 10 years so the fuel system hadn't been inspected and was in very poor leaky condition then again, you could claim the driver was unreasonably negligent.

I'm not sure about if the car was one of the ones known to burst into flames, and the subject of a (grudging) manufacturers recall to fix it that hadn't been done- it would be negligent to ignore the recall, but would it be negligent to park next to another vehicle whilst waiting to get it done?

If the car just "set on fire" and there is no obvious (cheap to spot) cause then it is going to be an unfortunate occurrence and the owner is not liable.

mgfvvc

Jenni_D said:

Did the other car spontaneously combust? Was it struck by lightning?

If it wasn't set alight by another person (arson), and it wasn't one of the above, how else could it catch fire except due to a fault?

It seems likely to have been a fault, absent any other information.

Jenni_D said:
I think the insurance companies have a nice little scam going here.

Any money the insurance companies pay out comes from premiums paid by their customers. If they pay out more, they have to charge higher premiums and everyone complains about that. You can take out excess insurance if you don't want to pay any excess.

Nobbie1967

It could be the fault of anyone of a host of people who have worked on the car over it’s lifetime and maybe left a cable unsecured that has rubbed and shorted. You could pay for a full investigation to identify the likely source of the fire, but you’d likely still be no closer to knowing who was at fault and liable for the loss.