Insurance claim

Jojo2234

Two months ago I had issues with my previous car, every time I locked the car the alarm would go off, the only way out was to leave the car unlocked, I had an appointment with a garage to sort it out the following week. However, I visited a friend and left the car outside his house overnight, it was parked on a hill. The following morning I noticed my car is gone, I called police straight away and told them my car was stolen, after couple minutes on the line they said it rolled down the hill and hit a lamp post and has been seized by them and been moved to a recovery service. I visited the recovery service the next day, the car was badly damaged and was only worth £1000, there was no point getting it fixed, they asked me for £250 removal charge and £20 per day for storage charge up to 30days, also I had to get my own recovery service to get it back home that would cost me £150, I decided not to collect it, and walked away,  no one ever contacted me since, it said on the letter it will be  disposed by the police after 30 days, and it has. I bought another car few days after the accident and updated it with my insurance to get it covered. 
The issue is that the police made a claim to my insurance on the day of the accident with the lamp post, there was no damage to the lamp post, not even a scratch , no one injured,no third person damage, I called my insurance company the next day after the accident and they didn't even know about it,  they only  said police filed a claim and asked they asked me what happened, after few minutes of talking to them they hang up, think it was due to bad signal as I had issues taking to them, at the end I never called them again, I thought I don't have a claim until yesterday when I received a email from my insurance company saying "Please can you contact us on the number below at your earliest convenience to enable us to progress your claim. If we do not hear from you within the next 14 days we will close your claim."
Also, I checked my insurance policy and it actually says I had an accident 
" Accident - Unspecified, 17 Nov 2021, at fault" and lost 3 years of my no claim discount. I have 3 instead of 6z they weren't protected. 

I never got any money of my insurance despite having comprehensive insurance , as I simply didn't want to go through insurance to keep my no claim discount and avoid having the accident, which will increase my insurance for three years. 

Anyway, I have to call them tomorrow morning to sort it out, however I'm not sure what's the best way to sort it out, what I read online, insurance companies can not cancel a claim, it will stay as a £0 claim, increasing my insurance for the next three years, therefore,wouldn't it be better if they pay out money for the car? Has anyone got an idea what to say and what not to say 

forgotmyname

The post would have been inspected to ensure it was safe at the very least so there would be a bill and a claim against you.

Your failure to notify them would not have helped. Claims or incidents should be reported even if no claim is being made.
There maybe an option to repay them and erase the claim. But you may still need to declare the incident for upto 5 years.

Sandtree

The police don't claim for lamp posts as they don't own them, councils or the highways agency do. Any claims from the likes of police, NHS, councils etc take months to come forward, or longer, not the same day or next day of the accident. It wasnt uncommon to get council bills for repairing barriers or lampposts to come in a year or more after the claim had been settled.

Its not uncommon for policyholders to try and defraud their insurers by "forgetting" or "not getting round" to telling their insurers about an accident and so the first thing the insurer hears about the incident is a third party approaching them (a vehicle owner, council for street furniture, NHS for emergency medical treatment etc). They have an obligation to register the claim and any open claim counts as fault.

Clearly they are on the back foot as they lack their policyholder's versions of events and so the norm is to reach out to the policyholder but if they do not respond then they have to deal with the matter based on the evidence presented to them.

There is no obligation to make a first party claim if a third party is claiming against you, in most cases it would be sensible to given it wont have any greater impact on your insurance than third party only but your excess is only payable on first party claims. As you have disposed of your vehicle before the insurer could assess its pre-accident condition this is now unlikely to be possible.

You need to speak to your insurers, from somewhere with better reception, to understand what has really happened at their end.

Ectophile

So the car was damaged so badly it was beyond economic repair, but there wasn't even a scratch on the lamp post?

Grumpy_chap

Jojo2234 said:

I noticed my car is gone, I called police straight away and told them my car was stolen, after couple minutes on the line they said it rolled down the hill and hit a lamp post and has been seized by them and been moved to a recovery service.

I visited the recovery service the next day, the car was badly damaged and was only worth £1000, there was no point getting it fixed, they asked me for £250 removal charge and £20 per day for storage charge up to 30days, also I had to get my own recovery service to get it back home that would cost me £150, I decided not to collect it, and walked away,  no one ever contacted me since, it said on the letter it will be  disposed by the police after 30 days, and it has.

The issue is that the police made a claim to my insurance on the day of the accident with the lamp post, there was no damage to the lamp post, not even a scratch , no one injured,no third person damage, I called my insurance company the next day after the accident and they didn't even know about it,  they only  said police filed a claim and asked they asked me what happened, after few minutes of talking to them they hang up, think it was due to bad signal as I had issues taking to them, at the end I never called them again, I thought I don't have a claim until yesterday when I received a email from my insurance company saying "Please can you contact us on the number below at your earliest convenience to enable us to progress your claim. If we do not hear from you within the next 14 days we will close your claim."
Also, I checked my insurance policy and it actually says I had an accident 
" Accident - Unspecified, 17 Nov 2021, at fault" and lost 3 years of my no claim discount. I have 3 instead of 6z they weren't protected. 

I never got any money of my insurance despite having comprehensive insurance , as I simply didn't want to go through insurance to keep my no claim discount and avoid having the accident, which will increase my insurance for three years. 

Anyway, I have to call them tomorrow morning to sort it out, 

For whatever reason, the  handbrake failed on the OP's car meaning the car hit a lamp-post.  In insurance terms, this is the OP's liability.

The Police recovered the damaged vehicle and took it to a storage facility.  It seems entirely reasonable that the Police can recoup the cost of the vehicle recovery and storage so, after whatever they can sell the salvage for, any balance will be pursued from the OP / OP's insurance.

It seems as though the OP may not have minimised this cost as the storage was £20 per day for up to 30 days.  When the OP got told that, did they simply "walk away" as written, or did they formally sign the vehicle over to be scrapped? 
If the OP simply "walked away" then there is a storage charge accruing for the full 30 days.  Means £600.
If the OP formally signed the vehicle over to be scrapped, then the storage charges should have ceased earlier (as the car would have been immediately released for scrap).

The OP failed to fully conclude the call with the insurer because of a poor line.  It may have been better to have called the insurer back when they had better signal or a landline to call from.  That may have made things simpler.

The OP does now need to call the insurer. 
The claim from the Police will need to be paid by someone (likely the OP's insurer).  £250 recovery + £600 storage - £??? scrap value.
The Council may also submit a claim for damage to the lamp post.
Even if the OP covered these expenses, I understand the incident will remain on the insurance record.
The OP may still be able to claim for the loss of their car, which the OP says is valued at £1k.  The insurer may be disappointed that the car has been scrapped so they cannot determine whether it was truly total loss and / or the pre-accident condition of the vehicle to aid their valuation.  Also, any excess will be deducted from the OP's claim.