Car Insurance Claim - Insurance company being difficult

Katoraider

Hi all,

I was wondering if anybody could please advise or if anyone has been in a similar situation.

My car (which is a fairly new car) was stolen of my driveway in broad day light between 1.35pm - 1.50pm last month. At the time the car was locked and i was in possesion of the key. I did leave my phone in my car accidentally also.  Unfortunately there was no CCTV as my ring camera was not working. I reported the theft to the police as soon as i realized the car was not on the drive and was pacing up and down the road in hope i could find it.

My car had a factory tracker and at 5pm the tracker my wife's phone showed my car was parked 20 mins away at a specific address but was last updated at 3.40pm. I went to the location straight away and informed the police. When i arrived the car was not there, the police arrived straight after. I spent the evening looking around the area by myself in hope that the car would be abandoned somewhere near.

The next morning i reported the crime to my insurance company admiral and gave all my details and the crime reference number. I advised that i have no CCTV footage and just answered the questions they had. They asked me to send a v5 document and the keys. I advised that i would have to order a new v5 from
DVLA as the original was in the car and that I only had 1 key. Initially the car was purchased with 2 keys but i explained that the spare key had been faulty and when taking it to the manufacture they advised that they did not fix spare keys as part of the service. As such the key was useless. I explained i no longer had the key and they advised that i send the 1 key and the v5.

During this time, i got a new phone, and was able to log into 'find my iphone' and track the phone which was in the car at the time of the theft. I  located at am address nearby. I continued to track this to a local phone shop and eventually obtained CCTV of the person that was in possession of stolen phone i sent this to the police.

I continued to chase admiral there was no update for 2 weeks. I called everyday at the same time kept following up with the police. Admiral kept reassuring me that they are still trying to validate the claim with the police.

After the third week, they contacted me advising that they have concerns over my claim and that they are referring it to a company called Brownsword for a full investigation. The email they sent implied that i had committed fraud. Brownsword are yet to make any contact with me after a week. When i contact admiral they keep telling me i have to wait for Brownsword to make contact.

The whole situation is really stressful, i am left paying for a car i dont have and feel like i am being accused when my car was stolen.

Does anybody have any advice? Has anybody been through anything similar?

TELLIT01

The non availability of the 2nd key is probably raising concerns. It would be very easy to claim a key had been lost/disposed of when it's actually been given to a 3rd party.  I'm not suggesting that is what happened, but it would make life very easy for car thieves if they could have an accomplice purchase a vehicle, keep it a few months and then hand the spare key over.  Would you really expect the insurer to say "Oh that's OK, it happens all time"?

Insurers are by nature suspicious of anything out of the ordinary and will investigate if they think it necessary. 

Phoenix72

Loads of red flags as far as the insurance company is concerned tbh.....missing key, V5 in the car, phone in the car.

And it just so happens your ring doorbell was out of action.

The fact the mobile phone shop supplied you with CCTV footage sounds dubious as well.

Katoraider

@Phoenix79_2 - thanks for your response. Why would a phone left in the car be a red flag?  In terms of the CCTV its clear footage and shows the person with my phone attempting to sell it to a phone shop and the shop rejecting it because they could see it was stolen 

Katoraider

@TELLIT01 - thanks for your response. I understand how the spare key could be an issue. But i honestly reported it faulty to the manufacture and even had them send me an email confirming this. 

cw8825

Katoraider said:

Hi all,

I was wondering if anybody could please advise or if anyone has been in a similar situation.

My car (which is a fairly new car) was stolen of my driveway in broad day light between 1.35pm - 1.50pm last month. At the time the car was locked and i was in possesion of the key. I did leave my phone in my car accidentally also.  Unfortunately there was no CCTV as my ring camera was not working. I reported the theft to the police as soon as i realized the car was not on the drive and was pacing up and down the road in hope i could find it.

My car had a factory tracker and at 5pm the tracker my wife's phone showed my car was parked 20 mins away at a specific address but was last updated at 3.40pm. I went to the location straight away and informed the police. When i arrived the car was not there, the police arrived straight after. I spent the evening looking around the area by myself in hope that the car would be abandoned somewhere near.

The next morning i reported the crime to my insurance company admiral and gave all my details and the crime reference number. I advised that i have no CCTV footage and just answered the questions they had. They asked me to send a v5 document and the keys. I advised that i would have to order a new v5 from
DVLA as the original was in the car and that I only had 1 key. Initially the car was purchased with 2 keys but i explained that the spare key had been faulty and when taking it to the manufacture they advised that they did not fix spare keys as part of the service. As such the key was useless. I explained i no longer had the key and they advised that i send the 1 key and the v5.

During this time, i got a new phone, and was able to log into 'find my iphone' and track the phone which was in the car at the time of the theft. I  located at am address nearby. I continued to track this to a local phone shop and eventually obtained CCTV of the person that was in possession of stolen phone i sent this to the police.

I continued to chase admiral there was no update for 2 weeks. I called everyday at the same time kept following up with the police. Admiral kept reassuring me that they are still trying to validate the claim with the police.

After the third week, they contacted me advising that they have concerns over my claim and that they are referring it to a company called Brownsword for a full investigation. The email they sent implied that i had committed fraud. Brownsword are yet to make any contact with me after a week. When i contact admiral they keep telling me i have to wait for Brownsword to make contact.

The whole situation is really stressful, i am left paying for a car i dont have and feel like i am being accused when my car was stolen.

Does anybody have any advice? Has anybody been through anything similar?

from the insurance company POV
-The theft was not reported to them when you knew it was stolen
-only 1 key but a fairly new car
-i assume fairly new car so new policy
-v5 in the car
-the broken ring doorbell

The amount of time its taking is not a big concern, these claims can take time

They are not suggesting your fraudulent but want to make sure all bases are covered before having to pay out a load of cash, they are a business at the end of the day. All they currently have is what you have said when answering the claim form questions over the phone.

best advice is to proceed with brownsword, providing the information they require as soon as possible to help the claim go smoothly,

DullGreyGuy

Why didnt you track the phone sooner? As you mention it's an iPhone it can be tracked by any computer anywhere by https://www.icloud.com/find and doesn't require 2FA, just your AppleID and password. 

As others have said, there are a number of things that will probably trigger further investigation, it isn't accusing you of anything just that they want to dig deeper. Unfortunately police can be a pain to deal with, claims staff are normally office hours, the assigned officer could be working any shift and we are in August where people take holidays etc. 

Many investigated claims are paid out as despite its on the surface an unusual situation it turns out to be just that rather than anything more suspicious but it does add time. 

Katoraider

@DullGreyGuy -  thanks for your response, appreciated. In this case my icloud was asking me for 2FA  - i think its because i had to reset the password (i dont often use it) so I had to wait until I got a new sim card . 

XRS200

Any more reports from the tracker?

Do you have the V5 now?

TELLIT01

Katoraider said:

@TELLIT01 - thanks for your response. I understand how the spare key could be an issue. But i honestly reported it faulty to the manufacture and even had them send me an email confirming this. 

That's great, if you still have the email it will remove one cause for potential concern.  I must stress the fact that I'm not suggesting you have done anything wrong.  Simply looking at it from the insurer viewpoint.

Hoenir

Katoraider said:

My car had a factory tracker and at 5pm the tracker my wife's phone showed my car was parked 20 mins away at a specific address but was last updated at 3.40pm.

What type of factory fitted tracker device was fitted?

Why didn't you attempt to locate the vehicle between 1.50 and 5.00 using the tracker device ? 

Why didn't the police attempt to track the vehicle using the signal emitted from the tracker? 

(Asked rhetorically as will be of interest/concern to the insurer )