Car Insurance Excess - No fault claim

chipfork

I'm looking for some clarity as our policy document is unclear. My partner was involved in a minor road traffic accident. The third party rolled back some distance causing some damage to the front of the car that will need some work. As the third party appeared to be intoxicated we reported the incident to the police with best intentions, but ultimately a waste of time.

My expectation was that we would have to pay our excess for the work to start on the repairs whilst liability was agreed and the excess would be recouped based on the information below from GoCompare who we used to refer us to the policy.

Esure tell us that because we don't have motor legal protection then the onus is on us to reclaim the excess from the third party. Is that correct? If Esure don't wish to recover the excess then surely we would be speaking to the other insurer to recover our excess and shouldn't that be a straight-forward process if liability is agreed?

Paying the excess when it’s not your fault

If the other driver has admitted fault and has already told their insurer, your excess might be waived. But usually you’ll have to pay it – so make sure you can afford it.

When your insurer is certain you’re not at fault, you’ll get it back.

If you’re found not to be at fault, your insurer claims the excess back from the at-fault party’s insurer, along with other costs.

Sandtree

Not sure where you copy pasted the text from but the bottom bit is incomplete as it should be conditional on you have purchased legal expenses cover (its old name was uninsured loss recovery which is a bit more "it does what it says on the tin" to be honest).

Some insurers will recover the excess alone even if you don't have LE cover because its just one additional paragraph in the letter or one more thing to mention on the phone but others will say if you didn't pay for ULR then we won't do ULR.

Yes, recovering the excess will be simple process once indemnity and liability have been confirmed which your insurers will be dealing with any in preparation of recovering their own outlay.

chipfork

This is the GoCompare link  and I can't see any mention of legal expenses cover and the policy document doesn't explain (not that I can find) where responsibility lies in relation to the excess recovery. So it sounds like that's our responsibility and we'll have to claim the excess back through the third party insurer who is also Esure. Hopefully that makes the process easier

My last claim, many years ago, was managed by an accident management company so I didn't have to pay an excess and received an equivalent car to mine. All great but liability was never ever likely to be an issue. I wouldn't have even thought to use them had not my own insurer suggest that I use one of their "partners" and not have to pay an excess and have a "nice" hire car delivered the next day. 

Sandtree

I suspect that your "insurers" were really your brokers unless you were with Admiral... its common for brokers and intermediaries to promote accident management companies because you're lucky if you break even on the sale of a motor policy and have to find other ways to get revenue from your customers.  Insurers do promote credit hire companies but, in my days at least, didn't promote credit repairs to their own customers.

In terms of the policy document I think you are approaching it with slightly the wrong mindset... your insurers will do what they say they will in the document, anything not mentioned means they won't be doing it. So if its mute on excess recover that's because its an uninsured loss and its nothing to do with them unless you bought LE/ULR

chipfork

Yes, you're correct, it was the AA and they were brokers - I forgot who the insurance was actually with. No doubt they got a good referral fee.

Bizarrely there has been a development. We and the third party are with Esure.
We lodged the claim with reference to our policy and were told we'd have to pay the excess, recover that ourselves, their garage would be in touch to collect the car and would provide a courtesy car.
We've just had a call from the third party's insurer, another department at Esure who have said that the third party has admitted liability and that if they manage the claim then the excess is waivered and that they provide a hire car of an equivalent spec to ours rather than a budget courtesy car. It'll be the same garage collecting the car for repair.

The choice is a no brainer but seems slightly bizarre given it's the same company. Unless of course they are just brokers.

Sandtree

chipfork said:

The choice is a no brainer but seems slightly bizarre given it's the same company. Unless of course they are just brokers.

Standard process with blue on blue type incidents, just look on here about the number of complaints where these types of claim are settled 50/50 and people accusing their insurers of doing intentionally to maximise the revenue of two fault claims.  Insurers put up Chinese walls to try and avoid such accusations and so they treat you in the same way as if you had been insured by anyone else.

Back in my claims days there was a big push that if it was a blue on blue claim that you didn't sent letters to the other handler via the post but had the letter returned to you and sent it in internal mail because vast sums were being spent in postage sending letters to someone in another office.

chipfork said:

Yes, you're correct, it was the AA and they were brokers - I forgot who the insurance was actually with. No doubt they got a good referral fee.

Yes they do, but then if memory serves me right AA car insurance was just a rebadge of Budget for many years (isn't now) and so the AA would have just got a fee for lending their brand and Budget would have gotten the referral fee from the credit hire company... obviously commercial arrangements can be more complex and include profit shares etc too.