Car Insurance - Is this normal?

UKPCNumpty

Minor cosmetic car accident resulted in a car insurance claim with Churchill.
They claimed their repairers were the better option, effectively told me that was my only option, even though I told them I wanted it to go to BMW.
Their assessor suggested the car was a possibly a Cat N. It clearly wasn’t. Their engineer then rang and suggested it was a Cat S and made a low offer.
Complaints made, no resolution met, told insurance company I would fix the car myself, and wanted my car back. Insurance company sent my car to a scrap yard. 

Got car back though it looks like it has been joy ridden, bald tyres, power to electric drive had been uncoupled, cream cloth interior was black from hand prints everywhere, GPS unit uncoupled, cars mileage was reading different from the dash to the online server suggesting it has been clocked, RDS issue, and more.
been waiting since August 12th for an answer, no claims handler available apparently.
Had car assessed by BMW to confirm the above and show car only has cosmetic damage and not a Cat S or a Cat N.
Then insurance company just paid me money directly into my bank, without asking me, I had not accepted an an offer, nor inferred I was, Is this even legal?
Is any of this normal?

daveyjp

How old is the car?

DullGreyGuy

Does your BMW garage have a bodyshop? Most the time you drop your car off to a prestige mark garage and the local coachworks company just pick it up from them. They just add 50% to the bill and laugh when you think they've done the repairs themselves. 

Yes it's legal, insurers are entitled to settle claims as they see fit and are encouraged to make an interim payment on a total loss if the valuation is disputed. 

No idea about the rest of the claims, having dealt with thousands of claims only once heard of anything in any way similar and they ended up at Her Majesties pleasure for fraud. 

UKPCNumpty

daveyjp said:

How old is the car?

2016 66 plate

daveyjp

7 years old, not anciemt, but not brand new.

 Insurance will see it, price up new parts for everything which is remotely damaged, add on the cost of a hire car for a couple of weeks, add on their management costs and that £1,000 repair becomes many thousands.

Unfortunately it is normal which is why they once priced a £250 job at £2500 and I now prefer to get quotes myself to get a sensible figure rather than let the insurance comlany anywhere near the vehicle.

Time for a written complaint, rather than calling.

UKPCNumpty

DullGreyGuy said:

Does your BMW garage have a bodyshop? Most the time you drop your car off to a prestige mark garage and the local coachworks company just pick it up from them. They just add 50% to the bill and laugh when you think they've done the repairs themselves. 

Yes it's legal, insurers are entitled to settle claims as they see fit and are encouraged to make an interim payment on a total loss if the valuation is disputed. 

No idea about the rest of the claims, having dealt with thousands of claims only once heard of anything in any way similar and they ended up at Her Majesties pleasure for fraud. 

The person claiming or the insurance company ended up for fraud?

I am certainly not defrauding anyone other than myself as I have/had an expectation my car would be repaired initially by myself, at my own cost and without the insurance company’s help, but thought the insurance company should know, and might deal with it more efficiently than me.

I was wrong, I had too high hopes and unrealistic expectations based on the printed booklet they provided me of a hassle free and peace of mind claims process.

All I hoped for was to get my car fixed myself but wanted to tell the insurance there was an incident in which the other party did not stop so I could not get their details in person. Thankfully my dash cam got their number plate. From what the insurance said the other person has not submitted a claim.

I wanted BMW to do the repair but insurance company said it would be better if they do it. I disagreed but they said I would not get a courtesy car for the duration if I did not go with their company.

They lied. They removed the courtesy car option as soon as I disagreed with their assessment and offer. From what the cars app was telling me, the multiple pictures I took at the time, and after using my Sony A7r 3, coupled with the condition of when I finally got it back, and the statements from the scrap yard and engineers, they clearly have damaged my car further.
The insurance company apologised for stealing my car and taking it to the scrap yard and asked if that resolved my complaint.
I said no.

I have written to them with my list of complaints and then they pull the - we won’t ask for your permission or acceptance, we will just settle your claim how we like - stunt.

I rang them up, after getting no answer via email, to request their bank details so I could return the money. I spent ages on the phone waiting for the person to read my file and list of complaints.
The attitude before the person read the file, to after, was comical, initially the person was nice and pleasant, afterward they were curt.
They tried to explain my car was a write off so that was that. They could care less I disagreed and never accepted their assessment nor accepted the payment, and never received an offer of payment for me to decline.
As if I was going to keep a car that they incorrectly labelled a Cat S, and had extra electronic damage, and other issues caused by the insurance company. 

I would only accept a full loss minus the excess, and they could keep the car, if BMW had concurred with the insurance company. But BMW said it was not a Cat S nor a Cat N. Oddly their first assessor never said it was a Cat S either, only the ‘Engineer’ who never saw the car in person said it was. On the phone, which was recorded,  he could not even tell me what part of the car had structural damage. He told me my car had a gearbox. It’s electric it doesn’t have a gearbox!
hence me disagreeing with the ‘Engineers’ assessment.

During the call I just asked for their bank details to return their money as I do not accept their terms nor conditions of settlement. I told them from the beginning that the damage was minor enough for me to pay for the repair myself and that I wanted to cancel the claim, only if the complaints handler resolve my complaints. Thankfully after 37 minutes on the phone they received their payment back, and have a receipt in confirmation.

I have requested the BMW to do a full scan of the car this time, file a report and then reset whatever the electronic issues are as I was directed by BMW connected drive and the technician on BMWs telephone line, and the body shop people I spoke to on the phone.  

If the issues remain then I have no faith in the car ever being repaired by myself, but at least my complaints will be founded again.

But until the complaints person finally calls and hopefully resolves the complaints I will not be accepting anything from the insurance company.

Though they have given me little options at this point.
I have a small amount of faith the electronic damage can be repaired. The mileage discrepancy is another thing entirely.
Annoyingly the outcome will most likely be the same I am just mentally preparing myself for the worst outcome which is to accept payment from the insurance company.

Fingers crossed I am wrong and the car is fixable and Churchill can keep their money.
Though it will be a tall order for them to remove the Cat S designation and list my claim on claims underwriting exchange correctly and with the correct value of loss which I would expect to be nothing.

We will see.

UKPCNumpty

daveyjp said:

7 years old, not anciemt, but not brand new.

 Insurance will see it, price up new parts for everything which is remotely damaged, add on the cost of a hire car for a couple of weeks, add on their management costs and that £1,000 repair becomes many thousands.

Unfortunately it is normal which is why they once priced a £250 job at £2500 and I now prefer to get quotes myself to get a sensible figure rather than let the insurance comlany anywhere near the vehicle.

Time for a written complaint, rather than calling.

I’ve leant a hard lesson.

I tend to do everything in writing as much as possible, but when the other person doesn’t respond in kind, I have to call them up and record the conversation, their system supposedly record me so there shouldn’t be an issue with me doing like for like. 

My mum had an accident in a Sainsbury’s car park, some bloke broadsided her car and then left the car park. Thankfully my mum had the presence of mind to get his numberplate.
Insurance company tried to tell my mum that it was her fault and that they were blaming her for the incident.
Thankfully, my mum is stuck to her guns and went to Sainsbury’s to ask them to keep a recording of the day before is video evidence, she then called the police to notify them of the issue. The police tried to tell her this was a civil matter, my mum who worked for the police had a few words to say to the officer she spoke to, the Police then contacted Sainsbury’s got the CCTV footage and presented this to the insurance company.

Mum got her car fixed and so not lose her excess or protected no claims bonus.

My mum’s advice to me was to never claim on the insurance as they’re just a pain in the !!!!!!, I wish I’d taken her advice.

DullGreyGuy

UKPCNumpty said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Does your BMW garage have a bodyshop? Most the time you drop your car off to a prestige mark garage and the local coachworks company just pick it up from them. They just add 50% to the bill and laugh when you think they've done the repairs themselves. 

Yes it's legal, insurers are entitled to settle claims as they see fit and are encouraged to make an interim payment on a total loss if the valuation is disputed. 

No idea about the rest of the claims, having dealt with thousands of claims only once heard of anything in any way similar and they ended up at Her Majesties pleasure for fraud. 

The person claiming or the insurance company ended up for fraud?

A company cannot go to prison 

If you reimburse them their costs then the claim file will be closed as non-fault and effectively it will be a withdrawn claim. There are plenty of people that have minor fault accidents, want their insurers to deal with the third party on their behalf and then repay the claim as to limit its impact on NCD etc. It wont be an issue for them to deal with the withdrawal. Just remember it is still a claim that has to be declared, just a net 0 value on it. 

UKPCNumpty

Thank you for the advice.

The complaints handler has contacted me via email today. They have made a list of 80% of my issues and got a couple wrong. Not surprised there was a lot of issues.

in the interim they have re-offered the courtesy car. Which is something.

BMW have my car for the proper scan. 

As for me paying their costs, I won’t be doing that as the issues they cause is not my fault and the length of time they spent not dealing with the complaints is also not my fault.

From an FOS perspective I feel there would be a good case in my favour at the moment.

No problem with a claim being listed as I made one. Just do not want their costs, if I don’t follow through with the claim being listed on Cue as that’s not on.

Just wait to see the outcome of the scan, and I’ll need to correct the list for the complaints handler and see how that goes.