How to proceed after car accident?

boxosox

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

I told my insurers who asked for photos and passed it onto Auxillis to arrange repairs.

I also spoke to my Porsche dealer, they said I'd need to go through SytnerDrive (which seems to be their accident recovery company) and the losses would be recovered from the third party.  My concern at the time was if the third party would deny it and I'd be left with the bill

So here's the question:  I've not heard a peep from my insurer/Auxillis - I've called once and they told me they were waiting for a reply from the third party.  But Porsche have called me to say they've been hashing it out with the third party's insurer who have now accepted liability so they can now do the repairs.

Is there any benefit to going through the Posche dealer/not through my insurer?  Or would I be better chasing my insurer and having them sort the repairs?

facade

So have you actually signed up with two ambulance chasers accident management companies at the same time?

Who is providing the expensive credit hire car that you are using now?

If you aren't in a credit hire car it would seem to be best to let Porsche go ahead, and cancel Auxilis.

DullGreyGuy

Going through your insurers, Admiral or one of their other brands presumably, isn't one of the options you're looking at. Both your dealership and your insurers are looking to sell pass your details to their preferred credit hire/repair company in exchange for commission. Both will give you a hire car on credit at a crazy rate and organise repairs with a 10% markup plus engineers fee.

Both will attempt to recover this money from the third party insurer, depending on the amounts involved and/or what agreements the insurer may have  with either company then this could be paid out quickly and painlessly or they may say the £30,000 (less than the £400,000 credit hire ) was excessive and go through a long process of you having to provide bank and credit card statements etc to prove you had to rely on credit hire and couldn't have afforded to just hire a car yourself 

Going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at. If you were to then you'd have to pay your excess and reclaim it and you'd get whatever courtesy car, if any, the repairer has available rather than a like for like hire car. 

Given the accident management companies make their money from the credit hire, its not in their interests to make the claim go quickly... your insurance garage provided courtesy car is something they want back ASAP and so are more likely to act quicker. 

sevenhills

boxosox said:

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

You are meant to swap details, not doing so is an offense, so it could be advisable to inform the police. I assume that you took photos at the scene?

Maybe the car was stolen or cloned?

Car_54

sevenhills said:

boxosox said:

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

You are meant to swap details, not doing so is an offense, so it could be advisable to inform the police. I assume that you took photos at the scene?

Maybe the car was stolen or cloned?

And by 'details', the law means names and addresses of the driver, and the owner if different. Insurance details are only required if an injury is involved.

As the OP has discovered to his/her cost, a 'phone number is not enough.

boxosox

Car_54 said:

sevenhills said:

boxosox said:

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

You are meant to swap details, not doing so is an offense, so it could be advisable to inform the police. I assume that you took photos at the scene?

Maybe the car was stolen or cloned?

And by 'details', the law means names and addresses of the driver, and the owner if different. Insurance details are only required if an injury is involved.

As the OP has discovered to his/her cost, a 'phone number is not enough.

I obtained the name/address of the driver via the MiD as we did have their reg number.

boxosox

sevenhills said:

boxosox said:

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

You are meant to swap details, not doing so is an offense, so it could be advisable to inform the police. I assume that you took photos at the scene?

Maybe the car was stolen or cloned?

Photos were taken and we informed the police.  They've sent us the driver's details but have said there's not enough evidence to take it any further.

boxosox

DullGreyGuy said:

Going through your insurers, Admiral or one of their other brands presumably, isn't one of the options you're looking at. Both your dealership and your insurers are looking to sell pass your details to their preferred credit hire/repair company in exchange for commission. Both will give you a hire car on credit at a crazy rate and organise repairs with a 10% markup plus engineers fee.

Both will attempt to recover this money from the third party insurer, depending on the amounts involved and/or what agreements the insurer may have  with either company then this could be paid out quickly and painlessly or they may say the £30,000 (less than the £400,000 credit hire ) was excessive and go through a long process of you having to provide bank and credit card statements etc to prove you had to rely on credit hire and couldn't have afforded to just hire a car yourself 

Going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at. If you were to then you'd have to pay your excess and reclaim it and you'd get whatever courtesy car, if any, the repairer has available rather than a like for like hire car. 

Given the accident management companies make their money from the credit hire, its not in their interests to make the claim go quickly... your insurance garage provided courtesy car is something they want back ASAP and so are more likely to act quicker. 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at."  I thought that's exactly what I was doing.

I called my insurer, explained the situation and they have said they'll sort the repairs as a no-fault claim.  I'll just need to pay the excess.  They've then passed me onto a bodyshop who called me and asked for photos and, as I understand it, they're waiting for my insurer to ok the costs.

I also went to my Porsche dealer and they said they would do it through SytnerDrive and reclaim the costs from the third party.

Do I have a better choice?

DullGreyGuy

boxosox said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Going through your insurers, Admiral or one of their other brands presumably, isn't one of the options you're looking at. Both your dealership and your insurers are looking to sell pass your details to their preferred credit hire/repair company in exchange for commission. Both will give you a hire car on credit at a crazy rate and organise repairs with a 10% markup plus engineers fee.

Both will attempt to recover this money from the third party insurer, depending on the amounts involved and/or what agreements the insurer may have  with either company then this could be paid out quickly and painlessly or they may say the £30,000 (less than the £400,000 credit hire ) was excessive and go through a long process of you having to provide bank and credit card statements etc to prove you had to rely on credit hire and couldn't have afforded to just hire a car yourself 

Going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at. If you were to then you'd have to pay your excess and reclaim it and you'd get whatever courtesy car, if any, the repairer has available rather than a like for like hire car. 

Given the accident management companies make their money from the credit hire, its not in their interests to make the claim go quickly... your insurance garage provided courtesy car is something they want back ASAP and so are more likely to act quicker. 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at."  I thought that's exactly what I was doing.

I called my insurer, explained the situation and they have said they'll sort the repairs as a no-fault claim.  I'll just need to pay the excess.

I also went to my Porsche dealer and they said they would do it through SytnerDrive and reclaim the costs from the third party.

Do I have a better choice?

Auxillis are not your insurers, they are an accident management company formally known as HelpHire. Admiral pass all their non-fault claims to them by default unless someone argues that they want to claim off their own policy and not use Auxillis. 

Better is always a subjective term... many don't like accident management companies, they're estimated to add £7 to everyone's policy every year, however the reality is most don't have any issues and like having the brand new like for like hire car (esp when their "BMW 8 series" is a knack old car from the early 90s and they get a £100k 3 month old car to drive for a fortnight at someone else's cost) has an appeal for some. 

The one thing I would say about Admiral is that they do not insure any optional extras, even if you've declared them, so if there is a risk of a write off and you've got anything like metallic paint or anything other than the standard model then it may worth considering other options (not that most optional extras retain too much value after a few years)

boxosox

DullGreyGuy said:

boxosox said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Going through your insurers, Admiral or one of their other brands presumably, isn't one of the options you're looking at. Both your dealership and your insurers are looking to sell pass your details to their preferred credit hire/repair company in exchange for commission. Both will give you a hire car on credit at a crazy rate and organise repairs with a 10% markup plus engineers fee.

Both will attempt to recover this money from the third party insurer, depending on the amounts involved and/or what agreements the insurer may have  with either company then this could be paid out quickly and painlessly or they may say the £30,000 (less than the £400,000 credit hire ) was excessive and go through a long process of you having to provide bank and credit card statements etc to prove you had to rely on credit hire and couldn't have afforded to just hire a car yourself 

Going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at. If you were to then you'd have to pay your excess and reclaim it and you'd get whatever courtesy car, if any, the repairer has available rather than a like for like hire car. 

Given the accident management companies make their money from the credit hire, its not in their interests to make the claim go quickly... your insurance garage provided courtesy car is something they want back ASAP and so are more likely to act quicker. 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "going via your own insurers isn't currently one of the paths you are looking at."  I thought that's exactly what I was doing.

I called my insurer, explained the situation and they have said they'll sort the repairs as a no-fault claim.  I'll just need to pay the excess.

I also went to my Porsche dealer and they said they would do it through SytnerDrive and reclaim the costs from the third party.

Do I have a better choice?

Auxillis are not your insurers, they are an accident management company formally known as HelpHire. Admiral pass all their non-fault claims to them by default unless someone argues that they want to claim off their own policy and not use Auxillis. 

Better is always a subjective term... many don't like accident management companies, they're estimated to add £7 to everyone's policy every year, however the reality is most don't have any issues and like having the brand new like for like hire car (esp when their "BMW 8 series" is a knack old car from the early 90s and they get a £100k 3 month old car to drive for a fortnight at someone else's cost) has an appeal for some. 

The one thing I would say about Admiral is that they do not insure any optional extras, even if you've declared them, so if there is a risk of a write off and you've got anything like metallic paint or anything other than the standard model then it may worth considering other options (not that most optional extras retain too much value after a few years)

So I ring my insurer and say I don't want to go through Auxillis - what will happen then?  Sorry if I'm being dense.

Will Admiral then sort out the repair for me directly?

Car_54

boxosox said:

Car_54 said:

sevenhills said:

boxosox said:

Someone reversed into me.  I took their phone number at the scene in order to swap insurance details, but it turned out to be false.  I also realised I didn't have any evidence that actually proved they hit me rather than I hit them, so thought there's a good chance they'll deny it.

You are meant to swap details, not doing so is an offense, so it could be advisable to inform the police. I assume that you took photos at the scene?

Maybe the car was stolen or cloned?

And by 'details', the law means names and addresses of the driver, and the owner if different. Insurance details are only required if an injury is involved.

As the OP has discovered to his/her cost, a 'phone number is not enough.

I obtained the name/address of the driver via the MiD as we did have their reg number.

No, you didn't.

You got the name and address of the policy holder. That may well not be the driver, or even the owner.

BTW I'm not criticising what you did in the heat of the moment, that is water under the bridge. Rather pointing out what you need to do - for your own protection - should it happen again.: