Car insurance nightmare: advice needed

Uk1982

Hi all,

We returned to our parked car to find it had been involved in an accident whilst parked. The third party was gone, but their car was abandoned there.  Police later confirmed that the abandoned car was the one involved in the accident that caused the damage. 

We called our insurer who sent us a 'courtesy car' (turns out this was a credit hire car through an accident management company).

The accident management company then started hassling us a few weeks later saying since no decision had been made on liability yet they were either going to have to take back the hire car, or charge us for it. They said the only thing we could do was make the claim on our insurance. They also advised us not to even consider speaking to the third party insurer, lest we invalidate the claim.

We called our insurer and were advised the same. Thus the claim was made on our insurance. We later learned that the third party has now accepted liability. 

We are so confused by all this. We appreciate we probably did the wrong thing by claiming on our insurance, but we were told there were no other avenues to pursue and were so worried that we'd be billed for the hire car (which was by then in the £thousands)

Is there any way we can get this claim removed/reversed from our policy and transferred to the third party? Our insurers are virtually impossible to speak to and every advisor is less helpful than the one before. 

We're just frustrated that this will affect out 25+ years no claims history. 

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Thanks

turnitround

I may be wrong but I think maximum no claims is usually 9 years. Even if the other party have admitted liability it will still show that you have made a claim, albeit a non-fault, on your insurance so your premiums will probably still increase.

bluelad1927

I would start off by writing  to your insurer if you feel that this was not dealt with satisfactorily on the phone.

You need to be asking them if they are going to be pursuing the 3rg part insurer and if not why not if they have admitted liability.

Assuming  you paid an excess which you will want back, you also want to be able to declare a no fault accident rather than a claim. It is your insurers responsibility to make sure that they are achieving what's best for you

Car_54

Since the TP's insurer has accepted liability, it should be recorded as a non-fault claim, and not affect your NCD. You should also be able to recover any excess you've paid.

DullGreyGuy

Car_54 said:

Since the TP's insurer has accepted liability, it should be recorded as a non-fault claim, and not affect your NCD. You should also be able to recover any excess you've paid.

It will be recorded non-fault once the insurer has recovered their outlay in full. Disputes dont only cover liability but quantum as well. 

For example in one case our insured went into the side of a parked third party vehicle at slow speeds. Clearly our clients liability. When the third party insurers presented their file to us to recover their outlay however the invoice for repairs showed both near side and offside repairs to the doors. We agreed and settled the damage to one side but disputed the damage to the other. Their insurer came back saying the car had been pushed into a bollard next to the pavement hence the damage to the opposite side. Luckily our insured was an early adopter of a dash cam and whilst footage wasnt great you could see the TP car barely moved on impact and that the damage was minimal.

In principle the TP insurer would normally have therefore closed that file as fault as they repaired damage to the vehicle that was never able to be recovered. If they did or didn't is another mater and not one we'd be privy to. 

Uk1982 said:

Is there any way we can get this claim removed/reversed from our policy and transferred to the third party? Our insurers are virtually impossible to speak to and every advisor is less helpful than the one before. 

Technically, yes. You can reimburse your insurers everything they have paid out to date and then attempt to claim that from the third party insurer. 

It really depends on how far on you've gotten with the claim and what costs they have incurred already. If it's just £75 for an engineers report then they may be willing to waive that as part of the complaint process. Clearly if the car has already been repaired then you are really beyond the point of no return. 

I'm guessing the accident management company are saying your car is a total loss and you are currently out of hire?

What are you actually needing to speak to your insurers about that is being problematic?