Admiral/Auxillis - thoughts?

DaveH93

Hi, I had a no fault accident on 5th August, someone rear ended my car at temporary traffic lights, low speed 10/15mph, no real damage other than bumper popping slightly loose in two areas.

I called my insurer (admiral) today to notify them of the incident, but told them I wasn’t looking to claim - as stated above damage is minimal, car is 10 years old and I’m not that precious about small cosmetic issues. They have been trying to convince me on the phone and push me towards using Auxillis, saying I should claim as there’s no charge to me and no excess to pay etc. 

I’ve spent the evening research Auxillis as never heard of them before today, and find it odd that the insurer is trying to force me down this route, I assume they must have KPIs to hit for referrals or money to be made from commission? 

They gave my details to Auxillis to call me tomorrow, so I’ll have the conversation and tell them I'm not interested, but I’m just intrigued to know of others experiences - the adviser on the phone at admiral did refer to hire cars etc. which really wouldn’t be necessary at all, just seems a bit of a money making scheme.

DullGreyGuy

They are the coming together of Albany uninsured loss recovery and Helphire, it feels like they were better known previously but maybe thats just my bias for having formally been in claims. 

Ultimately they will want to have the car repaired and take a credit hire car whilst this is happening. They make most the money off the hire car so typically won't be interested if you dont need the car during the repairs but have a markup on the repair bill and a kickback from the engineer (or its a sister company). 

They are a for profit company, like most, and so it is absolutely about making money for them. With these types of companies there are a variety of models from a straight commission for referrals, through discounted rated when the roles are reversed to free outsourcing of first notification of loss. 

For some they are helpful, the large family who cannot survive with the typical Corsa type courtesy car but cannot afford the open chequebook of paying hire themselves with no certainty of how long hire will be nor how quickly you'll get the money back. 

DaveH93

@DullGreyGuy you seem to be someone in the knowledge   

I wonder if you can advise on a follow up Q, the party who hit me has accepted liability through her notification to her insurance (I hadn’t yet started the claim), they’ve told my insurance they accept liability.

I’ve been contacted by her insurance directly asking me to go through them rather than my own insurance and they’ll offer a goodwill gesture payment if I do - I’m not that savvy on the insurance scene but my view is I have two options at the moment:

a) claim through my insurance, no excess to pay, have repairs completed and they claim money from the third party
b) settle through the third party, have repairs completed and receive goodwill payment

does this sound right?

and in your knowledge, are there any cons to going through her insurance for it? For context, minor damage and I’m not claiming for any injuries.

thanks! 

BarelySentientAI

DaveH93 said:

and in your knowledge, are there any cons to going through her insurance for it? For context, minor damage and I’m not claiming for any injuries.

You can't complain to the Ombudsman if something goes wrong if you're not their customer.

DaveH93

BarelySentientAI said:

DaveH93 said:

and in your knowledge, are there any cons to going through her insurance for it? For context, minor damage and I’m not claiming for any injuries.

You can't complain to the Ombudsman if something goes wrong if you're not their customer.

Thank you - do you think that’s the only drawback? 

In my view, either way my future premium is impacted because I’ll either have a “no fault claim” on my record if I go through my own insurance, or a notification of incident on my record if I go through hers. 

I just wasn’t sure if there’s any legal or impact on my current insurance policy if I have the 3rd party settle without making my own claim through my insurers.

Marvel1

This may help:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6546027/non-fault-accident-using-auxillis

DullGreyGuy

DaveH93 said:

a) claim through my insurance, no excess to pay, have repairs completed and they claim money from the third party
b) settle through the third party, have repairs completed and receive goodwill payment

does this sound right?

and in your knowledge, are there any cons to going through her insurance for it? For context, minor damage and I’m not claiming for any injuries.

As others have already said, the main disadvantage of claiming off their insurance is that you have no rights of complaint/access to the ombudsman... obv you can complain but legally they dont have to treat it in the same way as if it were one of their own customers. 

Similarly if your car is still under warranty then most own insurers guarantee their work won't impact the warranty (ie use genuine parts) or give their own X year warranty; again technically this doesn't automatically apply to you as a non-customer. I can't remember Admiral's position on such things off hand to say if it applies to you or not. 

There can be advantages too though... normally if you need a replacement vehicle they will arrange something appropiate for your needs rather than it being the garage's Corsa if they've got one free nor credit hire. As you say they've offered you a cash benefit too. 

Note that now the TPI have offered services to you before accepting the services of Auxillis then you'd need to make Auxillis aware of that prior to taking on them if that is the third path that you're considering (though you dont list a c above). Credit is supposed to be a fallback and certainly in my days of claims handling if we offered and they subsequently took a CMC route instead after we'd offered it was a basically an automatic dispute on quantum as we'd only pay out what our approved suppliers would have charged us which for hire was bout 33% of the credit hire rate. 

DaveH93

@DullGreyGuy thanks! 

I don’t actually intend to use Auxillis at all and have told Admiral to remove any referral of my details across to them. 

My main concern was around whether using the TPI rather than my own insurance would cause issues with my policy, but from researching a bit, there doesn’t seem to be anything to suggest it will. 

Seems if I claim through TPI then Admiral would put it as notification only on my account rather than a claim. So seems aside from not being able to complain with the ombudsman there aren’t really any differences other than the cash incentive.