Claiming directly through my insurance?

johnwrights

I had a little mishap with a 2009 Vauxhall Corsa, which got scratched up. According to a car valuation website, it's worth about £1200. My own car is a Benz . Since the insurance excess is high, I decided to fix it myself, opting for a off-market repair. At first, the other party didn't want to involve insurance since it was just a small scratch, so we agreed to handle it between us.

When I told my insurer, Marshmallow, about the incident, they assumed it was my fault before even seeing any photos. Without consulting me, they immediately contacted the other party while they put me on hold, arranged for a replacement vehicle and repair, and things escalated when the other party accused me of a hit and run a week later. Let's leave the blame game aside.

Now, all the repair quotes for the other party range from £300 to £600, far less than the £1200 valuation. But they're still continue to claim for a credit hire car, and it's estimated to cost me £3500 or more.

Here are my questions:

1. Why did Marshmallow skip involving the third-party insurance and admit fault on my behalf? Was there some benefit involved, like a referral commission from the garage to the employee who referred? or will it just affect their underwriters?
2. Was the Marshmallow customer service rep who took my first call not experienced enough to handle the situation?
3. My no claim is protected, but if the third-party driver claims through their insurance, their no claim protection will be affected. Marshmallow allowed the third party to claim directly through my policy without affecting their no claim, which is why they didn't want to use their insurance and went for claim. Did Marshmallow make a mistake by admitting fault? Is it fair for only my policy to be affected without impacting the third party's policy? Is this legally permissible? Can I take any action? The car would have been written off for £1200 if the third-party insurance company had been involved.
4. Also, all my evidence needs to be sent through Marshmallow's initial contact point, who already made up the mind confirming they already reviewed all data before even I shared them. Now, I'm trying to convince Marshmallow to reconsider their decision.

DullGreyGuy

First of all really need to establish if you were to blame for the accident or not, your open statement that you had a "mishap" suggests that you were. 

Second point that is going to be hard to establish is what Marshmallow's role in claims are... do they have delegated claims authority from the underwriter or does the insurer themselves actually manage the claim?

Lets assume your at fault and Marshmallow have DCA

1. As they believe by dealing with the third party directly they can get a lower claims cost than if the TP was to deal with their own insurers

2. Dont understand why you think that?

3. Had they claimed off their own policy and their insurers then reclaimed costs from your policy their NCD would equally have been unimpacted. The only difference is the temporary period whilst the claim is being handled and even then some insurers won't impact for an obvious non-fault claim with full TP details

Its your insurers obligation to act reasonably such as admitting liability when it is clearly your fault.

If Marshmallow sorted the "credit hire car" for them then it would be a direct instruction hire car not credit hire (under a DCA arrangement). 

If the vehicle was a total loss and the person didnt want to retain the salvage they'd be entitled to have a hire car for a modest period of time to sort out alternative arrangements. If it's a minor scratch then the time in hire for a repair could easily be less. 


4. Follow the complaints process in your policy book, it undoubtably will have a different contact point stated.