CAR INSURANCE 'NO FAULT' CLAIM

warehouseman

Someone reversed into me in a car park just before Christmas. I was stationary. Exchanged details. Given the extent of the damage I notified my insurer straight away as they have a clause in their policy which says any incident irrespective of fault must be reported to them straight away otherwise the policy is potentially invalidated.

After Xmas on 3rd January I asked my insurer to pursue a ''no fault'' claim against the other party as the damage was about £3k. I got a local repairer with a good name to provide the estimate on the 3rd January, rather than the nominated repairer that the insurer suggested (which has a  bit of a poor service reputation). They said no problem. Six weeks later absolutely nothing has happened. My insurer states there is a backlog of claims waiting to be assessed by their engineers and that I am in a queue. No one in their claims office can chase matters as they say its now out of their control.

Has anyone experienced a situation like this? On top of that, whatever time I ring for an update I have to plan carefully as it normally takes 45 - 60 mins for their claims section to answer the phone. As I have initiated the claim via my insurance company, does anyone know if I can stop that process and deal direct with the other party's insurer or for that matter get an intermediary to take over? I am amazed nothing has happened in six weeks as it's such a straightforward case. I'm beginning to suspect they are deliberately delaying things because I didn't want to use their nominated repairer, which presumably gives them a cheaper rate to do the work. I would appreciate any views

wongataa

You can always cancel the claim with your insurer.  Whether you pursue the other insurer or not after doing this is up to you.

lisyloo

I would claim off the other insurer and cancel your claim.
Mostly likely this is staff absences/staff shortages as everywhere.
Third party insurers are normally falling over themselves to help because they want to control costs - which means (for example) offering you a courtesy or reasonably priced hire car rather than having you get a very expensive credit hire one.
My nephew did this on my advice and the result was very quick.

You will of course have to declare this as an accident (NOT a claim on your insurance).
There is a difference so pay attention to the questions.
If you made a claim it would probably count against you.
If you have an accident but don't claim then it may not.
It's difficult to say as insurers change their policies all the time, but it's definitely worth noting the difference.

DullGreyGuy

warehouseman said:

Has anyone experienced a situation like this? On top of that, whatever time I ring for an update I have to plan carefully as it normally takes 45 - 60 mins for their claims section to answer the phone. As I have initiated the claim via my insurance company, does anyone know if I can stop that process and deal direct with the other party's insurer or for that matter get an intermediary to take over? I am amazed nothing has happened in six weeks as it's such a straightforward case. I'm beginning to suspect they are deliberately delaying things because I didn't want to use their nominated repairer, which presumably gives them a cheaper rate to do the work. I would appreciate any views

Clearly you have now identified one of the key advantages of using your insurers preferred network of repairers as many have delegated authority, regular site visits by the engineers and/or digital system setups that make approval quick and efficient. 

As long as your insurers havent incurred any costs, which it doesnt sound like they have, then there is no issue with withdrawing the claim and then claim from the third party insurer (directly or via credit hire if you prefer). 6 weeks is certainly an unusually long time however you may not find the third party insurers are much quicker... perhaps speak to them before you remove yourself from the queue with your insurers.

lisyloo said:

You will of course have to declare this as an accident (NOT a claim on your insurance).

For many insurers there is no difference... the only way to register an incident on an inforce policy is by registering a claim. In this case however the OP clearly has made a claim and it would be recorded as such on CUE though marked as withdrawn rather than FYI Only. 

warehouseman

Many thanks for the feedback. 

In hindsight it looks as though I should have agreed to their nominated car repairer to get things done more quickly, (given their 'delegated authority'). However I had been put off by some negative reviews of their service. I suppose I could still take that route but it could confuse things with what is going on already between my present repairer and their engineer queue. 

Now I'm in the system I'll wait a bit longer. I complained to the CEO yesterday and got a reply today to say they were escalating the issue to see if things can be quickened up. If they continue to mess me around, I may look at the direct 3rd party approach but will take 'dullgreyguys' suggestion on this (check with them first as to time scale).

Because of the type of cover I have (fully comprehensive + ) my insurance company have said my ''no fault claim'' means my excess is waived and my NCD etc is unaffected. What galls me though is that through no fault of my own, my insurance premium could (probably will) be affected on renewal, even though the incident was entirely out of my control. Incredibly, I'm given to understand that, in a perverse way, it affects my premium simply because it was my decision to enter a car park where the car is more likely to be damaged!

In a way I wish I had originally approached the third party insurer direct (rather than informing my insurer) to see what I could negotiate with them. What put me off doing this was the clause in my policy saying I must inform my insurer of 'any incident' otherwise if they subsequently found out, my policy could (probably would!) be void in the event of another incident. I felt trapped into taking the route I did. I will learn from this. 

DullGreyGuy

warehouseman said:

I'm given to understand that, in a perverse way, it affects my premium simply because it was my decision to enter a car park where the car is more likely to be damaged!

Special risks insurance, such as covering satellites as they are put into space, is priced by rocket scientists looking over all the data of the launch rocket, following all the announcements about design changes, looking at weather patterns at the launch sites etc and applying expert judgement to come up with a price.

Mass market consumer insurance doesnt need any of that... with millions of customers over many years you can just do relatively basic statistical analysis. No need to get into the psychology of the sort of person that buys a silver car -v- a white car, you can just check the data and see if there is a statistically relevant difference in claims experience.

The impact of non-fault claims can be an increase in premiums, it does vary by insurer. If you want to try and apply logic to it then there are a few options... you can be an erratic or nervous driver, sure its the person behind you's fault for going into the back of you but if you keep breaking late or keep chickening out of pulling out people will keep going into the back of you... similarly if you park your car all the time in that dodgy train carpark then you will have knocks. On the later I went from being claim free for 10 years to having 3 bumps in a year when I started parking in the train carpark.

Whilst this case you've gotten the other parties details, not everyone is as honest and so whilst it may not be your blame that someone hits your parked and unattended vehicle if they drive off and there is no CCTV thats coming from your insurers pocket. Even if they are honest and you claim from your insurance they cannot recover the cost of their claims staff, the office they sit in, the IT equipment they use etc. Back in my consumer insurance days our claims team were twice as many people as our sales & service and better paid.

warehouseman said:

In a way I wish I had originally approached the third party insurer direct (rather than informing my insurer) to see what I could negotiate with them. What put me off doing this was the clause in my policy saying I must inform my insurer of 'any incident' otherwise if they subsequently found out, my policy could (probably would!) be void in the event of another incident. I felt trapped into taking the route I did. I will learn from this. 

All insurance requires you to inform them of incidents irrespective of if you intend to claim or not. Absolutely you could have the policy void for non-disclosure if you dont and its fairly high risk not to if you are going to claim from the TP insurer (your more likely to get away with it if the TP pays you personally).

Just because you inform though doesnt mean you have to claim... in some cases it can be beneficial as you get protection from the FOS and in some cases policies offer greater than indemnity protection (eg new for old on home insurance or new car replacement if your car is under 12 months old and written off)

warehouseman

DullGreyGuy said:

Just because you inform though doesnt mean you have to claim... 

Yes I was aware of that. Thanks for expalining anyway. When the incident occurred on Xmas Eve, I was unaware of the true extent of the damage, so on the same day I simply let my insurer know 'for info purposes' only. However, once I'd been to a few repairers for their estimations (all of which were approx £3k) I realised I had to proceed with a claim of some sort, as the offender wasnt in a position to fund the repair. I decided to tell my insurer to make the claim, which I think most people would do


Asa side-note, one repairer advised me not to tell my insurer (which I thought was a bit naughty and bad advice) and said they dealt with an intermediary company who would take the claim forward direct with the third party's insurer. I have heard of these companies before and insurers dislike dealing with them as they can claim expensive amounts. However I believe the third party insurer in such circumstances would be straight on the phione to the victim (eg.... me)  to offer a deal direct so as to avoid dealing with these sort of companies. Once again though, I suppose they would want to use their nominated repairer, like mine did at the outset

DullGreyGuy

warehouseman said:
Asa side-note, one repairer advised me not to tell my insurer (which I thought was a bit naughty and bad advice) and said they dealt with an intermediary company who would take the claim forward direct with the third party's insurer. I have heard of these companies before and insurers dislike dealing with them as they can claim expensive amounts. However I believe the third party insurer in such circumstances would be straight on the phione to the victim (eg.... me)  to offer a deal direct so as to avoid dealing with these sort of companies. Once again though, I suppose they would want to use their nominated repairer, like mine did at the outset

These accident management companies pay well for referrals and you will see lots of controversial activities as a result. A good while back there was one firm sending free appointment cards for GPs etc to use but on the reverse was a hotline to call to make a medical malpractice claim. The garages behaviour is therefore not unsurprising.

Many of these companies have been around for a long time and the industry has broadly realised they cannot stamp them out (and they are a good revenue stream) and so many are signed up to the ABI GTA... where both insurer and accident management company are members then the rules of engagement, fees etc are all fixed and neither can cut the other out if a) the insurer has already offered to deal or b) a hire car has already been arranged by the AXM. It's hisa race for both to make contact first.

Third party insurers will still sell the virtues of using their network repairers but are more relaxed about accepting other options. Their key is avoiding credit hire as whilst credit repairs will typically be inflated by 10% the hire is often more like 400%

warehouseman

Thank you DullGreyGuy for all the useful comments.

The delay in my case, as you know, is waiting for my insurers 'engineers' to contact my repairer and agree the estimate and allow the work to go ahead. Do you know if these engineers/assessors are independent and therefore act in the best interests of both parties? (my insurer & the third party insurer). If they consider the estimate to be reasonable, do they then have to convince the third party insurer it is reasonable too? I was just interested to know the procedural side of things and how they eventually recover the cost from the third party's insurer, particularly if it's higher than expected.

DullGreyGuy

Most are internal and so work for your insurers... some are external but ultimately they are paid only by your insurers and unlike some other professions there is no code of conduct for engineers to be independent or to work for the court etc. 

If you went with an accident management company then they'd pay circa £100 for an engineers opinion... some are sister companies and some independents who pay to get the referrals 

An insurer is never 100% that they will get their money back and so in theory they should try to negotiate the garage down etc in case they get left holding the bill. Back in my day there was the "Reduction In Paperwork Exchange" Agreement where insurers that were party to the agreement would simply take the word of the other insurer of what the cost was but they all had the right to audit the others. 

Those outside the RIPE Agreement we just send estimate and invoice... I can count on one hand probably how many times the third party insurer disputed our settlement amounts.

warehouseman

Update:  10 weeks has now gone by since I put my 'no fault' claim in with Direct Line. Continued delay still appears to be due to the fact that I nominated my own repairer. Every week DL say I'm in a queue for an assessor engineer to look at the car. My complaint to the Managing Director merely resulted in a phone call the next day apologising. We are now one month on and still no progress. All I know is that DL have now 'outsourced' my claim to specialist assessors called ''Hoopers'' who are dealing with hundreds of DL cases. It is almost as if they are deliberately delaying things so I'm forced to go to one of their nominated repairers. The bizarre thing is, this is merely the question of a 'new back door and blending in' costing around £3k in total. The existing damage could easily be looked at remotely and a price agreed in a couple of minutes, as I know when getting estimates at the start, they were very similar.
Moral of the story : While you're within your rights to nominate your own repairer, the insurance company will make it difficult for you.  Direct LIne have provided the most appalling service (non-existent) I have ever experienced from any company I've ever dealt with. From ringing up to finding out what's going on.....all atrocious. Even when you're given a quicker 'customer relations' number which deals with all the complaints, you still cannot get any news apart from the usual ....'you're in a qeueue to be assessed'.