Accident management companies like Auxillis - BEWARE!

dialhill

My wife was involved in a minor collision 9 months ago, which caused a very small amount of cosmetic damage to my car. She had stopped in a local narrow road to enable a car coming in the other direction to pass at low speed. The other car scraped the rear right hand corner of my car as it passed. Details were exchanged but the other driver blamed my wife. As we had a dashcam record of the incident I was not concerned. When I reported the claim to my insurer, Admiral, I was invited to use Auxillis, a company who would take over management of the no-fault claim. I wouldn't lose my NCB or have to pay an excess if I did. I signed up, the car was repaired by an Auxillis repairer, a courtesy car was supplied (my Admiral insurance policy had been chosen with the supply of courtesy car included). It did take 13 days for the repair to be completed, but other than that all went well - and at no cost to me as expected with a comprehensive policy.
Then at the end of March I was informed that the other driver's insurer was refusing to pay for my claim and when I had signed up to use Auxillis I had to agreed to assist them in the event of them having to recover costs through court action. Otherwise I will be liable for all the costs! I then find that a solicitor has been appointed, 200 miles away from where I live, to represent me in reclaiming the cost of my claim - ('my claim', not Auxillis) - from the other insurer. They estimate this may take 9-12 months. I may be required to attend court. I had lots of forms and statements to fill in over the next few weeks regarding the accident, my financial situation, my need to have a hire car. Now in July I am told that I am the claimant in the County Court against the other driver and her insurer. She has a completely different description of the accident and says she wasn't at fault and her insurance company want me to prove why I used an expensive management claims company, why I needed a hire car, why the repairs were so expensive and why they took so long to complete.
A further statement may be required from my wife and a further statement may be required from me in support of the value of the claim. A claim that I originally bought an insurance policy to cover and take care of.
According to reviews, if your claim is straightforward a claims management company can work well and save the cost of your policy excess. BUT... it's a gamble. If your claim doesn't go smoothly, through no fault of your own, you'll be wishing you had just let your insurance company handle it, as we always did before these so called Accident Management companies appeared. Whose inflated claims have no doubt increased the cost of insurance for all of us.

daveyjp

With minor damage such as that, if the car can still be driven safely my advice is not to let anyone touch your car until the issue of liability has been settled.

caprikid1

"With minor damage such as that, if the car can still be driven safely my advice is not to let anyone touch your car until the issue of liability has been settled."

So in essence you allowed a minor repair to cost considerably more due to using an accident management company and now you are having to justify it.

To be honest, having dealt with Direct Line in an even more clear cut claim I would not think it would have been any less painful the other way round potentially, dammed if you use an accident management company, dammed if you don't.

Sandtree

daveyjp said:

With minor damage such as that, if the car can still be driven safely my advice is not to let anyone touch your car until the issue of liability has been settled.

The problem is that liability will not be established until there is an actual financial loss to recover... insurers will send basic "we are holding you at fault" letters from the initial registration of the car but aren't going to spend hundreds in claims cost negotiating liability if there is no certainty that the insured is actually going to claim.

dialhill said:

According to reviews, if your claim is straightforward a claims management company can work well and save the cost of your policy excess. BUT... it's a gamble. If your claim doesn't go smoothly, through no fault of your own, you'll be wishing you had just let your insurance company handle it, as we always did before these so called Accident Management companies appeared. Whose inflated claims have no doubt increased the cost of insurance for all of us.

Accident management companies have been around since the 90s so not sure how far back you are thinking. Some insurers that dont promote accident management companies have come up with their own ways of inflating costs like using a repair management subsidiary that adds 10% to the repair bill the insurer pays and then recovers from the other insurer. 

As to "wishing you'd let your insurance company handle it"... that really depends... would you be happy for this to be considered a fault claim? If not then you'd still be going to court if your insurers were willing to fund it else they could unilaterally decide its not cost effective to go to court so its a fault claim and you lose your excess. A courtesy car under your insurance policy would have been a group A vehicle provided by the garage if they had one spare. Would this have been suitable for your needs? Could you have coped ok without a vehicle if one hadn't been available? If the answers to these are yes then you will have more difficulty justifying getting a like for like credit hire car. However, as long as you support the accident management company in their efforts and are consistent with the answers you gave when you first took the hire car then any shortfall in their recovery is their own cost to carry.

mgfvvc

If you claim from your insurance you still have to agree to go to court to support a claim, so no different from Auxilis there.
It is your claim because Auxilis, or the insurance company, don't have a claim. They are acting on your behalf in the claim and by assisting them you are allowing them to recover the costs, which would otherwise be a claim against you on your insurance.

Sandtree

mgfvvc said:

If you claim from your insurance you still have to agree to go to court to support a claim, so no different from Auxilis there.
It is your claim because Auxilis, or the insurance company, don't have a claim. They are acting on your behalf in the claim and by assisting them you are allowing them to recover the costs, which would otherwise be a claim against you on your insurance.

There is a difference as generally if you dont support your insurers they wont ask you to reimburse them their £7k of outlay. Secondly insurers are often less likely to want to litigate and more likely to want a negotiated settlement because of the fact if they lose they have to pay the third party's losses whereas the credit hire company wont be paying the third party's losses

Admiral_Barbarossa

Question. Are you fully Comp?
If no, I am afraid you will have to contest this!

Ectophile

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Question. Are you fully Comp?
If no, I am afraid you will have to contest this!

I'm not entirely sure what the "this" is that should be contested.

Admiral_Barbarossa

Ectophile said:

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Question. Are you fully Comp?
If no, I am afraid you will have to contest this!

I'm not entirely sure what the "this" is that should be contested.

Fully Comp means if I prang my wheels, I ring my insurer and they deal with it. Third party means you are at the whim of your good self, though they can reimburse the other party!

Sandtree

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Ectophile said:

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Question. Are you fully Comp?
If no, I am afraid you will have to contest this!

I'm not entirely sure what the "this" is that should be contested.

Fully Comp means if I prang my wheels, I ring my insurer and they deal with it. Third party means you are at the whim of your good self, though they can reimburse the other party!

If that's "fully comp" then what is Comprehensive but not "fully comp" @Admiral_Barbarossa ?

You ring your insurers, you have to pay your excess and have an open fault claim on your insurance. You get a Group A car from the garage if your car is repairable and if the garage happens to have a free one. If the claim is settled at a later date as non-fault then you have to deal with reversing out the impact on your premiums and attempt to recover your excess from the third party insurers.

Admiral therefore give you the option of route 2, go to their pet accident management company, get the repairs done without having to pay your excess. Get a more appropriate hire car irrespective of if your car is repairable or not. Have no significant impact on your renewal as its a notification only on your record not an open/fault claim. 

There are various pro's and con's of both models but there are some very legitimate reasons why when someone with a MPV for 7 people needs to go down the credit hire route rather than trying to get everyone into a Corsa

Admiral_Barbarossa

Sandtree said:

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Ectophile said:

Admiral_Barbarossa said:

Question. Are you fully Comp?
If no, I am afraid you will have to contest this!

I'm not entirely sure what the "this" is that should be contested.

Fully Comp means if I prang my wheels, I ring my insurer and they deal with it. Third party means you are at the whim of your good self, though they can reimburse the other party!

If that's "fully comp" then what is Comprehensive but not "fully comp" @Admiral_Barbarossa ?

You ring your insurers, you have to pay your excess and have an open fault claim on your insurance. You get a Group A car from the garage if your car is repairable and if the garage happens to have a free one. If the claim is settled at a later date as non-fault then you have to deal with reversing out the impact on your premiums and attempt to recover your excess from the third party insurers.

Admiral therefore give you the option of route 2, go to their pet accident management company, get the repairs done without having to pay your excess. Get a more appropriate hire car irrespective of if your car is repairable or not. Have no significant impact on your renewal as its a notification only on your record not an open/fault claim. 

There are various pro's and con's of both models but there are some very legitimate reasons why when someone with a MPV for 7 people needs to go down the credit hire route rather than trying to get everyone into a Corsa

I pay the excess if it is my fault! At the time of my last prang, the insurer dealt with it. As it was not my fault, I pain nothing! Previous time when I took my car for a swim, I paid the excess! When a car of Germanic extraction happened to hit the car two behind on the motorway, we found he had no insurance, still did not have to pay!

But thanks for the run down of how admiral operate, they are off any considered future quote!