Aftermarket Vehicle Warranty - Failed Claim legal challenge

Cooper__Man

Hi,
Not sure if anyone can offer any suitable suggestions, but here goes.

We have an aftermarket vehicle warranty and have had to make a substantial claim. I will avoid putting the details of the company and the fault as it is not relevant to the question.

The question being, does anyone have any experience of successful appeals and suggestions of who they used for the legal challenge please.
We are looking for a solicitor with experience with challenging a turned down claim.

Many thanks, Dave

Ebe_Scrooge

Cooper__Man said:

 I will avoid putting the details of the ... fault as it is not relevant to the question.

It could be very relevant.  Have you checked the details of the policy very carefully?  Very often these warranties exclude far more than they cover, and almost always exclude anything that could be construed as normal wear and tear.  I'd be checking through it with a fine tooth comb first, to see if they have even broken the terms of the warranty.

caprikid1

Cooper__Man said:

Hi,
Not sure if anyone can offer any suitable suggestions, but here goes.

We have an aftermarket vehicle warranty and have had to make a substantial claim. I will avoid putting the details of the company and the fault as it is not relevant to the question.

The question being, does anyone have any experience of successful appeals and suggestions of who they used for the legal challenge please.
We are looking for a solicitor with experience with challenging a turned down claim.

Many thanks, Dave

I believe there was a thread on Pistonheads of a similar case for a failed BMW M3 /M5 engine, a long and drawn out sage but they did win, racked up a lot of costs along the way so it cost the warranty company a lot.

Worth finding, looks like the thread was pulled but I am sure a few posts around would get you the details


Warranty Direct Claim Refused - M5 Engine Seized | BMW M5 Forum and M6 Forums (m5board.com)

DullGreyGuy

Cooper__Man said:

The question being, does anyone have any experience of successful appeals and suggestions of who they used for the legal challenge please.
We are looking for a solicitor with experience with challenging a turned down claim.

First of all I'd look to see the complaints process in the warranty... some are insurance and some aren't. If it is insurance then you have the right to go to the Financial Ombudsman which would be free for you and doesn't stop you going to court after if you wanted.

How much is the repair bill? Remember if its £10k or less then the claim most likely gets allocated to the small track and therefore legal costs are excluded from being recovered. For those that do use a lawyer in the small track is not uncommon for their lawyer's fees to exceed the award.

If you do end up going down the legal route then I'd suggest also looking to see if you have any legal expenses cover (eg on Home insurance)... these normally require you to use their panel solicitors but at least avoids you potentially paying the lawyers thousands.

Grey_Critic

As most of these warranties are as we keep saying not worth the paper they are written on - and you have not said what is the fault - then any opinion is speculative.

I only had one claim that the warranty company backed down on was an oil leak.

The customer sent a solicitors letter that challenged the phrase **External oil leaks** there was no such thing as the leak would only become obvious when it came from the inside where ther actually was oil. The oil on the outside was eveidence there was a leak

macman

These near-worthless policies have been on sale for many years and probably all use a similar contract template. I'd be very surprised if there are any substantial loopholes in them that a solicitor could exploit.