Car crashed into my porch !!

whatshappening03

Hello clever people,

A car has crashed into our porch. They have been fine about it and given their insurance details etc.

I notified my home insurance who seem to be treating it as a normal claim rather than a no fault claim as they are stating that I need to pay my excess and haven't asked for the insurers details. They have also offered 2500 to rebuild the whole porch which clearly won't cover it spam in the process of getting quotes. Given that the porch houses the electricity supply to the house I am also thinking that it won't be luveable in for afew days.

Am now wondering if it qould be better to claim directly from the drivers insurance. Any thoughts?

Sandtree

Home insurance departments don't have the same skills, tools etc to deal with third parties in the same way that motor insurers do. In fact at my last claims job the Home team would deal with the claim as normal and then pass the file to someone in the Motor claim's team to get an opinion on recoveries and to take it over if there are a chances.

If you ever claim on your insurance your excess is payable, some insurers will waive it as a gesture of goodwill in certain circumstances but again that is more Motor where third parties are involved in over half of claims.

You can certainly speak to the third party insurers, depending who they are they may be fully set up to deal with property claims or not. Again if they don't write Home the volumes of claims are too small to warrant have people who can say if a property estimate is reasonable or not etc (but some will go down the 3 quotes and go for the cheapest)

FaceHead

Try to keep your home insurer out of it. You'll be going after the driver or their insurer, so your home insurer really needn't be involved. It seems like you've already tipped them off, which will result on a premium hike, unfortunately. 

Anyway, get quotes, contact the driver's insurer and get them to pay. 

In theory your home insurer should pay and then do all the admin of recovering the money from the other insurer, but in reality they are useless and will hike your premium for the privilege. They'd only come in useful if the driver turned out to be uninsured. 

TELLIT01

The claim needs to be through the car driver's insurance, not your home insurer.  If you get problems with that insurer, and have legal cover on your home insurance you may then need to involve them.

GDB2222

Definitely a mistake to involve your home insurance.

 You need to get at least two quotes for repair and rebuilding. Then, get on with the job, and claim the cost from the driver. You don’t have to involve the driver in the minutiae. 

GDB2222

Ask the builders how long you will be without electricity. If you have to move to a hotel, do so, and claim the cost. You can’t claim for the Ritz, unfortunately.

traineepensioner

whatshappening03 said:

Hello clever people,

A car has crashed into our porch. They have been fine about it and given their insurance details etc.

I notified my home insurance who seem to be treating it as a normal claim rather than a no fault claim as they are stating that I need to pay my excess and haven't asked for the insurers details. They have also offered 2500 to rebuild the whole porch which clearly won't cover it spam in the process of getting quotes. Given that the porch houses the electricity supply to the house I am also thinking that it won't be luveable in for afew days.

Am now wondering if it qould be better to claim directly from the drivers insurance. Any thoughts?

 We had a similar situation a couple of years ago but the damage was considerably higher, around £40,000. The police had the drivers details and he was being charged with a motoring offence, thankfully he was insured.

My insurance company arranged for structural assessment and for the damage to be repaired. The cost of this and all my expenses (I was on holiday at the time!) were reclaimed from the drivers insurance, including my insurance excess. (which I had to pay until the insurer had recovered their costs). Unfortunately my premiums have gone up slightly due to the claim, even though I wasn't at fault and all the money was recovered.
With this in mind, If I had legal cover, I would be tempted to claim directly from the car owners insurance. You may still be required to inform your insurance company but at least you won't have a claim against you.

aoleks

traineepensioner said:

whatshappening03 said:

Hello clever people,

A car has crashed into our porch. They have been fine about it and given their insurance details etc.

I notified my home insurance who seem to be treating it as a normal claim rather than a no fault claim as they are stating that I need to pay my excess and haven't asked for the insurers details. They have also offered 2500 to rebuild the whole porch which clearly won't cover it spam in the process of getting quotes. Given that the porch houses the electricity supply to the house I am also thinking that it won't be luveable in for afew days.

Am now wondering if it qould be better to claim directly from the drivers insurance. Any thoughts?

 We had a similar situation a couple of years ago but the damage was considerably higher, around £40,000. The police had the drivers details and he was being charged with a motoring offence, thankfully he was insured.

My insurance company arranged for structural assessment and for the damage to be repaired. The cost of this and all my expenses (I was on holiday at the time!) were reclaimed from the drivers insurance, including my insurance excess. (which I had to pay until the insurer had recovered their costs). Unfortunately my premiums have gone up slightly due to the claim, even though I wasn't at fault and all the money was recovered.
With this in mind, If I had legal cover, I would be tempted to claim directly from the car owners insurance. You may still be required to inform your insurance company but at least you won't have a claim against you.

I'm not sure they would need to inform their insurer. If the storm blows away a few tiles and I choose to replace them myself, I don't need to inform my insurance. In fact, it could be something serious, like a flood or some structural issue and I still don't have to tell them straight away if I pay for it out of pocket. I might have to declare it when I renew if it's really serious, but a brick fence at the front of the house wouldn't be asked about, no one cares.

Sandtree

aoleks said:

traineepensioner said:

whatshappening03 said:

Hello clever people,

A car has crashed into our porch. They have been fine about it and given their insurance details etc.

I notified my home insurance who seem to be treating it as a normal claim rather than a no fault claim as they are stating that I need to pay my excess and haven't asked for the insurers details. They have also offered 2500 to rebuild the whole porch which clearly won't cover it spam in the process of getting quotes. Given that the porch houses the electricity supply to the house I am also thinking that it won't be luveable in for afew days.

Am now wondering if it qould be better to claim directly from the drivers insurance. Any thoughts?

 We had a similar situation a couple of years ago but the damage was considerably higher, around £40,000. The police had the drivers details and he was being charged with a motoring offence, thankfully he was insured.

My insurance company arranged for structural assessment and for the damage to be repaired. The cost of this and all my expenses (I was on holiday at the time!) were reclaimed from the drivers insurance, including my insurance excess. (which I had to pay until the insurer had recovered their costs). Unfortunately my premiums have gone up slightly due to the claim, even though I wasn't at fault and all the money was recovered.
With this in mind, If I had legal cover, I would be tempted to claim directly from the car owners insurance. You may still be required to inform your insurance company but at least you won't have a claim against you.

I'm not sure they would need to inform their insurer. If the storm blows away a few tiles and I choose to replace them myself, I don't need to inform my insurance. In fact, it could be something serious, like a flood or some structural issue and I still don't have to tell them straight away if I pay for it out of pocket. I might have to declare it when I renew if it's really serious, but a brick fence at the front of the house wouldn't be asked about, no one cares.

Almost all insurers, and certainly all aggregators (eg confused.com), ask about claims or incidents. Personally I don't like this for Home but its the way the market has gone and so certainly anything that could be claimable is supposed to be declared and given this will be going through the motor insurers books its likely it would end up in CUE and so a moderate risk not to declare it.