2.5 years and still waiting

Ginsipper007

Hi

My partner had a motorcycle accident in October 2021.  The car driver immediately accepted responsibility - confirmed by insurance company's solicitor, Carpenters.  Partner received a loan bike straight away and then a reasonable pay out to replace his bike in January 2022.

Luckily, despite it being an impact at speed, my partner's injuries weren't as bad as they could have been because his gear took most of the damage (all had to replaced - helmet, leathers, boots, gloves, etc).  Other expenses included payment for the removal of his bike from the highway (£300) and, because this happened a couple of hundred miles from home, collection of his injured self.  He has receipts for all of these additional expenses. 

Further, although not severely injured, he was pretty shocked, bruised and knocked about, and this had an impact on his life for a while - both physically and mentally.

Thing is, he's received nothing for these additional expenses.  Pictures of damaged gear and receipts were provided over two years ago.  After constant chasing, a settlement figure was suggested in October 2023.  He immediately signed to give authority for acceptance.  More chasing.  Still nothing.

I have two questions:

Firstly, who does he complain to?  Where can I find the contact information for this?  I was an admin operations managers, specifically in law and compliance, and I still can't get past Carpenter's strange systems of telling people what they should do but providing no mechanisms for them to be able to do it.

Secondly, what about interest?

Many thanks for any advice.

DullGreyGuy

Is he claiming for his injuries? If he is then he needs to get a wiggle on as the statute of limitations is 3 years from the date of the incident. If not then the limit is 6 years.

You'd need to follow Carpenter's complaint process, normally one of the parters is nominated to deal with all complaints and you can go to the Legal Ombudsman if you are unhappy with their response or there response takes more than 8 weeks

Ginsipper007

He's claiming for things that should be pretty simple to compensate, e.g. here's the receipt for the £300 it cost to have my bike removed from the highway.  And he's also claiming a small amount for personal injury, less than £4k.

And he's been trying to follow the complaints process (has complained to the solicitor handling his case), now he's passed it over to me, and neither of us can find anywhere in the complaints policy or outline of process any actual mechanism for contacting them.

Yeah, I know about the statute of limitation, which is why this needs sorting ASAP.

Thanks for your response.

DullGreyGuy

Ginsipper007 said:

He's claiming for things that should be pretty simple to compensate, e.g. here's the receipt for the £300 it cost to have my bike removed from the highway.  And he's also claiming a small amount for personal injury, less than £4k.

And he's been trying to follow the complaints process (has complained to the solicitor handling his case), now he's passed it over to me, and neither of us can find anywhere in the complaints policy or outline of process any actual mechanism for contacting them.

Yeah, I know about the statute of limitation, which is why this needs sorting ASAP.

Thanks for your response.

So with an injury claim there is a 3 year limit which you will hit in a couple of months.

When did he make the complaint? If it is over 8 weeks ago you can escalate to the Legal Ombudsman. The complaint policy is https://www.carpentersgroup.co.uk/media/2310/complaint-policy-newest.pdf which also has the contact details of the Ombudsman 

Because you are close to the limitation period it would certainly be sensible to call rather than email them as there is probably a fast track process for such complaints.

Ginsipper007

He complained to the solicitor handling his case each time he had to chase.  It took them months to respond each time, and he really thought in October 2023 when he sent back his authority to accept the proposed settlement that something would happen.  Incidentally, when he complained to the solicitor, each time he asked for the contact details to complain within the company but these were never provided.

Thanks for that link, this is all we have too.  You'll notice that it says to complain to Carpenters, but doesn't provide any contact details or ways of doing this, while also saying that you can't go forwards to the ombudsman unless you complain via Carpenters.

In terms of calling, he's tried that too, I think his longest time on hold was 6 hours.  Similarly, he's tried complaining through their portal, but never hears anything and it doesn't produce an email to confirm the enquiry, so no paper trail.

It really does feel like a closed loop deliberately designed to prevent someone from moving their case forward.

But I think you're right, I'll get him to put this to the ombudsman as it stands - unless anyone appears with a clue as to how to reach someone in Carpenters with the authority to do anything.

Final point, would he be entitled to interest on this compensation?

Many thanks

Ginsipper007

Hi

A quick update, wrote to the solicitor handling the case with a draft complaints letter that we said would go forward to the Ombudsman and SRA.  They responded with a week, apologised profusely and unreservedly (e.g. 'there's no excuse ...'), upped the payout by roughly £2k, sent through another authority to sign as the previous one is now out of date.  Now hopeful that it will land in his bank account in the near future.

Thanks for your words of wisdom.

BW