Firs time dealing with car insurer

intex310

Morning All,

Unfortunately, I've been involved in an accident. Defendant drove out the side road onto the main and hit my rear passenger side. Informed my insurer and straight wanted to go ahead with auxilis. As I have never been involved in these circumstances since I started driving for past 20 years, I am bit confused how to proceed. If I go through admiral (my insurer) there's an excess of £600, which I believe, could be recoverable and I guess my NCD would still be protected. Now the catch is Auxillis. They want to take a car hire agreement which I will be liable if the defendant's insurer would not pay. Confident with 'my no' fault position. 

Apologise, if this question has been repeated on this board again. 

Should I continue directly with my insurer or the third party as they have advised? or Contact directly to the defendant's? Also have a personal injury claim to make for which, I guess, to use no win, no fee companies? Please advise how to proceed.

Best.

DullGreyGuy

intex310 said:

Now the catch is Auxillis. They want to take a car hire agreement which I will be liable if the defendant's insurer would not pay. Confident with 'my no' fault position. 

That isnt normally how it works, you typically only become liable in the case of fraud (yours) or if you fail to support them in their recovery of their costs - some people get fed up and dont want to go to court etc. The principle of credit hire is that the charges are higher because the company takes on this risk.

intex310 said:

Should I continue directly with my insurer or the third party as they have advised? or Contact directly to the defendant's? Also have a personal injury claim to make for which, I guess, to use no win, no fee companies? Please advise how to proceed.

Ultimately you have three choices potentially:

1) Claim off your own insurance, excess is recoverable and NCD wont be impacted if they recover their outlay

2) Claim via the accident management company, can be a drawn out process depending on who the third party insurers are and how big the hire bill gets

3) Claim off the third party insurers, only open if there is no dispute on liability and often lowest hassle but be aware that there is no Ombudsman cover if things do go wrong

As to the injury, do you have legal expenses cover on your car insurance? If you do they should appoint someone under its coverage. Else there is conditional funding arrangements but they can take up to 20% of your compensation and again there are potential costs if you decide to discontinue the action. 

intex310

Thanks for the reply. 

I don't have legal expenses cover in my existing insurance. Should I confirm with my insurer to proceed directly as my vehicle is just about 8 months old and need to have warranty maintained from the dealer?

intex310

Can i take my vehicle to original dealer's garage rather than any other approved from the insurer? They are not giving me straight forward answer. When I asked them about this their response was something like well if you want to take it to any other unauthorized garages the process could be different. I am bit confused. 

DullGreyGuy

intex310 said:

Can i take my vehicle to original dealer's garage rather than any other approved from the insurer? They are not giving me straight forward answer. When I asked them about this their response was something like well if you want to take it to any other unauthorized garages the process could be different. I am bit confused. 

Havent read an Admiral policy in a good few years but certainly when I was with them and had a claim you were able to select your own repairer without any supplementary excess (as some insurers charge) but they do the normal sales job of saying how much smoother it will be if you go to their garage.

In practice, their garage may have a certain level of pre-authorisation to do work, have kit to submit photos etc electronically for approval with a desk engineer and/or have a field engineer visiting at least a couple of times a week. If you are using your own garage it'll often require a special appointment with the field engineer and so can take time to schedule in. 

Be aware that many dealerships dont do bodywork and so you taking it to them just gets it shipped off to the local coachworks who may even be the same company as your insurer recommended but the dealership just gets a margin out of it. I remember one irate customer who refused to allow our garage to collect his car and insisted the dealership dealt with it as it was a prestige mark. Had him on the phone again a fortnight later when the identical chap turned up to collect his car but now just wearing a fleece with the car brand on it. That was nought to do with us and so told him to take it up with the garage he'd instructed (was a TP rather than policyholder so can be a little more direct)

intex310

Ok, now out of 3 options, I am still confused to choose between my own vs directly with third party. TPI sent me an email today offering £250 in cash and to choose an authorized repairer. PI can also be made through them but I am with an impression they wouldn't be best to my interest. 

Re repair, they've assured it would have warranty of 5 years. My car is only 8 months old. Should I continue directly with TPI in respect to repair and get someone else to represent for PI?

DullGreyGuy

There are always two views on if its better to claim directly or not....

1) The insurer will know you dont have a clue, they will offer you far too little and abuse your ignorance. A professional will ensure you get the best settlement possible

2) The insurer will save the £1,000+ of solicitors fees so will offer you more to keep you happy and keep you out the arms of solicitors. Most PI cases are settled on a fixed fee basis so if you get £2,000 or £2,200 they get almost the same money (or the same money if no success fee)and so they wont argue your case as nothing in it for them.

You dont mention what injury you sustained? The typical whiplash/soft tissue injury is now a fixed tariff so in most cases there is little debate but a solicitor can still take 20% on a conditional funding agreement.

intex310

It seems to be sort of soft tissue injury. Am having a back pain instigated by sudden turn during the impact and so my daughter has sustained the same. 

Surprisingly, the repairer says the earliest available booking slot is in about a month's time if I go through my insurer but it would be earlier if I use Auxillis. I have a feeling they are all in it to make money together.   

DullGreyGuy

https://www.sillslegal.co.uk/news/2021/07/the-whiplash-tariff-and-the-rta-small-claims-protocol has the table on how much soft tissue injuries are worth if under 2 years, the difference between the two columns is if there are "psychological damages" on top of the physical... an extra £50 on a typical claim 

They are... credit repairs typically charge c£75 for engineering fees and 10% on the repairs plus dont negotiate as hard even before the uplift. These are shared with all parties involved.

Unfortunately recent litigation has been interesting in terms of the senior judge's thought process but ultimately said that the claimant legally claims for the damage to their vehicle and the loss of value that causes and the cost of repair is just used as a reasonable proxy for that and that there is no legal requirement to fully mitigate losses given its a proxy. It wasn't appealed to the Supreme Court but I know when doing total loss calculations pre-existing damage wasn't values at 100% of the repair cost because 1) people underestimate repair costs and 2) the older the vehicle the more people accept some damage and so doesn't fully gel with the judge's opinion.