Unable to extend my estimated mileage while open non-fault claim against me

Delmar

Background:

I was involved in an accident while pulling onto the road from a side road. I was stationary, partially across the junction waiting to turn left, when the car that had just passed in front of me along the main road came to a standstill behind other traffic travelling along the road. As I waited for him to move on (I was still stationary) so I could pull out fully onto the road he began to reverse until he hit my car. We both pulled over. No damage to my car but he’d stoved in the rear nearside corner of his bumper on his under 1 year old car. I don’t think this was deliberate, I just don’t think he saw me and was probably reversing to clear and overtake the bus in front of him. He, however, said I drove into the back of him.

His insurance company Aviva has subsequently put a claim in on my insurance. What he didn’t, I think, appreciate was that I captured everything on my dashcam which clearly shows I was stationary and he reversed into my vehicle.

My insurance company Zenith/Markerstudy have the claim down as non-fault but have yet to formally close the claim againt me because they’ve not heard anything since asking Aviva to withdraw the claim and sending them the footage because the other driver has apparently still not admitted liability. There is another 3 months to run before my insurer can officially close it down if they hear no further.

My problem:

I have approached the maximum estimated mileage of 8,000 I gave the brokers Swinton when I took out the policy. After hours on the telephone to both the broker and Markerstudy (who handle the claim for Zenith from what I can make out) it sounds like there’s an automatic moratorium on allowing amendments to a policy whist there is an open claim against the holder regardless of it being listed as non-fault.

Swinton just tell me the insurer won’t make amendments but can’t tell me why and suggest I take out a policy with another provider at £977, then kindly reduced to £881 when I squealed. Hardly!

I’ve tried explaining the problem to Markerstudy, ie I can’t drive my car until this is resolved which could potentially take 3 months. Finally, they have agreed to chase up Aviva to get the case closed and try to resolve the blanket ban on a mileage update with Swinton. However, the letter they’ve sent to Swinton just asks them to provide me (not them) with an explanation as to why I can’t extend my mileage. As the insurers I was expecting Markerstudy/Zenith to give the brokers the approval to do so. I think all Swinton will say, if they bother to answer, is that computer says no and presumably that answer draws from Zenith/Markerstudy’s system.

It seems unreasonable to me that an amendment cannot be granted, irrespective of an open claim, when a mileage figure provided to the broker or insurer is always going to be provisional by its very nature. Could any helpful soul out there who knows how these things work shed any light on this catch 22 situation or suggest how I might move forward as I’m without the use of a car and feel like I’m going in circles? Many thanks for reading through this long post!

Sandtree

Delmar said:
There is another 3 months to run before my insurer can officially close it down if they hear no further.

Back in my day Aviva were one of the insurers least likely to go against their policyholders wishes, this may have changed in the following years but it did make it one of the more painful counter parties to deal with.

The insurer can broadly close the claim whenever they want, there is no official meaning to a claim being closed as it simply has to be reopened if any further claims are made at a later date. That said they company will have a policy on these matters and the policy should be broadly stuck to else insurers end up not holding enough capital. You could ask them what discretion a manager has to close it early acknowledging it may need to be reopened later in the unlikely event that Aviva resurface.

Delmar

Thank you Sandtree for taking the time to respond and your comments regarding "closing" claims and asking for manager discretion. Although getting through to anyone in the right department at Markerstudy/Zenith is a difficult and longwinded process so I don't hold out much hope of getting hold of a manager any time soon. I've spent hours on the phone to them and most of that time I've been on a hold merry-go-round as each unanswered call gets picked up by one department after another until you strike gold and your call finally gets picked up by the claims dept. (Although you select the options for the claims dept, if it doesn't get answered there then another dept picks up and sends you back into the queue and you can go through several rounds of this - utter madness!)  The last call I made was 2.5 hours long, of which I only spoke a fraction of that time to the right dept.

I feel, under the circumstances, that it's unfair to withhold a request for an extension to the mileage, without which I can't legitimately use my car, just because I have an outstanding non-fault claim against me which lies wholly beyond my control. I estimated 8,000 miles but am thinking I probably need closer to 2,000 to 3,000 miles extra to see me out to the end of the policy. I wouldn't have thought that would be too onerous for the insurer to grant notwithstanding the claim.

I shall persevere and see if I can't get the insurer to apply some discretion as you have suggested. Thanks again for your input.

Sandtree

Its fairly common for insurers to have a public telephone number for their First Notification of Loss (FNOL) department but that all the more specialist teams behind the scenes dont have their number advertised. In my day it was printed on the letters we sent but we spent much more time communicating with the third party insurer/solicitors etc than policyholders. Personally I had no issues taking calls from FNOL but I know a lot of my colleagues didn't like it and were adamant that we weren't a "call centre".

Ultimately the route is a complaint, following the process in your policy book, but it may be quicker to get the claim closed than have a complaint reviewed.

[Deleted User]

It would be so nice to be able to threaten the other driver with being reported to the police for insurance fraud for lying about this, would certainly speed up their mindset in withdrawing their false claim, such is the world that we cannot do such a thing.

Delmar

@Sandtree, to make a complaint, I presume this would be to the broker Swinton as my contract is with them? I'm presuming I need Swinton to talk to Zenith/Markerstudy to resolve? Can I complain to Markerstudy too? It's difficult knowing which part of the chain I need to apply the pressure to as each side seem to say that it's for the other to resolve.

@Farfetch, it's ironic that you mention reporting the driver to the police for a fraudulent claim because unbelievably he reported me to the police for not providing my name and insurance details (true, I didn't see why I should, although apparently I should have), driving into the back of him (false) and being a "hit and run" driver (his words to me even though we were talking on the roadside, all captured on the dashcam). After I sent the police the footage they dropped their "notice of intended prosecution", however I had the impression they were not pursuing the driver making the false claims.

Sandtree

Delmar said:

@Sandtree, to make a complaint, I presume this would be to the broker Swinton as my contract is with them? I'm presuming I need Swinton to talk to Zenith/Markerstudy to resolve? Can I complain to Markerstudy too? It's difficult knowing which part of the chain I need to apply the pressure to as each side seem to say that it's for the other to resolve.

You have a contract with both and are a customer of both, its really up to you who you think is the cause of the problem and then complain to them. Or you can naturally complain to both and see if either side moves.

Deleted_User said:

It would be so nice to be able to threaten the other driver with being reported to the police for insurance fraud for lying about this, would certainly speed up their mindset in withdrawing their false claim, such is the world that we cannot do such a thing.

Generally allegations of fraud involving large financial services companies gets delegated to the financial services company to investigate and they effectively decide if then to pass it over to the police or not. 

One of the big issues of claims handling in my day was that information is always 5th hand etc... ND has an accident so tells the PH who calls our FNOL team who summarise the circumstances into 3 lines of text, I then read that and reword it into a letter to the Third Party Insurer alleging their customer was at fault and they then contact their customer advising what "our" allegations are. 

We've all played Chinese whispers and know how these things can be changed. The TP could have mentioned they were reversing but the FNOL person just failed to pick up on it so it got recorded simply as the OP went into rear of TP and hence this path has been taken. 

Secondly, many people really are very poorly aware of their surroundings when driving. Dashcams weren't a thing in my day in many cars but many buses did have some. Had so many claims from PHs that the bus encroached their lane but then the video has turned up and shown it was the other way around. Either they are all Oscar worthy actors or a fair proportion did genuinely believe it was the bus not them that had. That isn't fraud, that's just poor observations and poor memory recall in what is typically a high stress situation. 

[Deleted User]

Sandtree said:

Delmar said:

@Sandtree, to make a complaint, I presume this would be to the broker Swinton as my contract is with them? I'm presuming I need Swinton to talk to Zenith/Markerstudy to resolve? Can I complain to Markerstudy too? It's difficult knowing which part of the chain I need to apply the pressure to as each side seem to say that it's for the other to resolve.

You have a contract with both and are a customer of both, its really up to you who you think is the cause of the problem and then complain to them. Or you can naturally complain to both and see if either side moves.

Deleted_User said:

It would be so nice to be able to threaten the other driver with being reported to the police for insurance fraud for lying about this, would certainly speed up their mindset in withdrawing their false claim, such is the world that we cannot do such a thing.

Generally allegations of fraud involving large financial services companies gets delegated to the financial services company to investigate and they effectively decide if then to pass it over to the police or not. 

One of the big issues of claims handling in my day was that information is always 5th hand etc... ND has an accident so tells the PH who calls our FNOL team who summarise the circumstances into 3 lines of text, I then read that and reword it into a letter to the Third Party Insurer alleging their customer was at fault and they then contact their customer advising what "our" allegations are. 

We've all played Chinese whispers and know how these things can be changed. The TP could have mentioned they were reversing but the FNOL person just failed to pick up on it so it got recorded simply as the OP went into rear of TP and hence this path has been taken. 

Secondly, many people really are very poorly aware of their surroundings when driving. Dashcams weren't a thing in my day in many cars but many buses did have some. Had so many claims from PHs that the bus encroached their lane but then the video has turned up and shown it was the other way around. Either they are all Oscar worthy actors or a fair proportion did genuinely believe it was the bus not them that had. That isn't fraud, that's just poor observations and poor memory recall in what is typically a high stress situation. 

Oh I fully agree, it's just it would be a beautiful end to a liar who reverses into someone, lies to the insurer about what happened and then is shown by incontrovertible proof to have made it all up rather than admit the truth. I get nervous now if I realise I did something silly like removing the SD card from mine to grab a clip off it and forgot to put it back in, any and all proof is vital

Delmar

Just thought I would put an update to this query in case anyone else might find this useful in the event of themselves being in a similar unfortunate situation.

I spoke to the Financial Ombudsman to ask who they thought I should be making the complaint against and they counselled both the broker and the insurer (separately, of course). Swinton responded 3 weeks after I submitted the complaint with an agreement to extend the mileage as requested and a waiver of the extra premium (£23.23) and admin charge (£35.00). They are also sending a cheque for £50 "in recognition of any inconvenience caused and time spent contacting them". They say the agent should have taken my "circumstances into account and tried to call the underwriter at the time of making the change". Feedback has apparently been passed on to him and I hope he takes note as he wasn't a particularly pleasant person to deal with. So pleased to be able to drive again after 4 weeks. 

All that remains is to hear back from Markerstudy about notionally closing the claim down before my renewal date fast approaches!  Fingers crossed on that one!

Delmar

Update (in case this might be of interest to anyone):
Markerstudy compensated me £150 for "stress and inconvenience regarding the hold times and misinformation given", although they still had not decided on the outcome of the 3rd party claim. I had been promised that they would let me know when/if the claim would be settled but nobody did. I chased them up and finally 1 year and 4 months from the date of the accident they were able to confirm the claim had been "settled on a non-fault basis with NCB allowed". It really shouldn't take so long for such a simple open and shut case.