Admiral Car Insurance - awaiting return of excess

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This discussion was created from comments split from: Car insurance.

mbray

I'm with Admiral Car Insurance. We were involved in a minor accident caused by a 3rd party several months ago. In making my claim, Admiral demanded that I pay £400 excess - that I would then get refunded upon settlement by the 3rd party.

Admiral then made me re-enter the entire claim again to their Legal firm (Admiral Law) - who supposedly will get my £400 refunded to me.

After some pushing by me, the car was repaired about 1 month ago. Since then, the company that provided the hire car during the repairs, emailed me to confirm that their monies had successfully been recovered from the 3rd party.

So where is my £400 refund??? After a lot of hanging on phones, I have now been advised by Admiral Law that the process could take at least 3 months - but more likely 6 - 12 months!! 

Remember, that the hire car company has already received their money via Admiral, so why won't they refund my £400?

Surely, someone is having a laugh? Presumably, someone in finance has figured out that they can invest such funds and earn interest before paying out! 

This should be made illegal. If they can pay the hire car company, why won't Admiral pay me?

Are they the only ones deploying this shoddy practice, or has it spread across the industry?