Hastings Direct "broken" policy

PRWPhotographer

Hi All,

I've had an unfortunate few months which has resulted in an issue with Hastings Direct that I'd like to get some input on. I'll try and keep it as brief as I can.

On April 26th this year I was rear ended in a queue of traffic in Bristol. No major damage was done but I reported it to Hastings Direct anyway and the whole issue was dealt with and paid for by the other party's insurance company.

Or at least it would have been if it wasn't for someone driving into me on a rounadabout on July 1st, a week or so before my car was due to go into the bodyshop to have the minor damage from the previous incident repaired.

This accident left the car undriveable and it was recovered to a bodyshop/workshop for assessment, and I assumed, repair. It was a 2019 Hyundai Tucson and it seemed unlikely that the damage caused would cause it to be written off.

However, Hastings Direct thought differently and I was informed that the car would be written off and ownership transferred to Copart, a vehicle salvage company. 

It seemed to me that they had done some calculations involving the cost of the repair, the length of time they would be providing me with a courtesy car for and decided they would be better off cutting their losses.

So, I had to return the courtesy car and would have been left car-less if it wasn't for the fact I had the use of my recently deceased father's 2005 Toyota Corolla. Hastings changed the car on my policy to this one, charged me a fee for the privilege (which was divided up across my remaining monthly payments) leaving my monthly payments about the same to drive a car that was 14 years older and worth about £1000. Annoying and didn't make much sense to me, but there wasn't much I could do so I accepted it.

To be fair to Hastings they paid out what seemed to be reasonable market value for the Hyundai and so, with the finance settled, I set about buying another car, which I have now done (a 2015 Vauxhall Zafira Diesel) worth about £6500. I'm married with two young children so the Toyota was only ever going to be a temporary solution.

I had planned to take possession of the Vauxhall on Friday 16th August and so contacted Hastings that afternoon to have it added to my policy so I could drive it home that evening. However, I was told they were unable to add the car due to a technical issue. I ended up speaking to several of their agents, a couple of whom told me my policy was "broken".

I ended up driving the Vauxhall home on temporary cover from another company as Hastings were unable to resolve it.
 

Yesterday (Monday 19th Aug) I tried to add the Vauxhall again using their online facility, and was again told it couldn't be done and to call them. I did so and ended up on the phone for 2.5 hours, speaking to several different people, and was again informed by more than one of them that my policy was broken. No explanation as to how or why a policy can become broken. Apparently it's just one of those things that can happen.

The solution they suggested was to take out a new policy with them, so some considerable time was spent giving them details they already had so they could generate a new quote as if I was a new customer. That seemed like a reasonable solution, except the quote they came back with was £1300 per annum! Nearly 4 times more than I was previously paying.

This, they told me, was because I had an outstanding claim on my file, in the sense that the other party's insurer hadn't yet admitted liability and paid them back what it had cost them to settle the claim with me. Not my problem, and it seems unfair to penalise me on the assumption that they might not get that money back. Even if I was at fault, surely the whole insurance business model takes into account that they will sometimes have to pay out and not recover that money...?

Not only that, but they want to charge me for the remaining time left on my existing "broken" policy if I want to cancel it and take my business elsewhere.

Given that I don't actually want to cancel the broken policy, I just want to change the car, I don't think it's fair or reasonable to charge me to cancel it. The policy is no good to me if I can't put my car on it so why should I have to pay for it?

This issue is now in the hands of the Hastings Direct complaints department, but I would love to know if anyone else has had similar experiences.

In the meantime, I'm back to driving my Dad's old Toyota as that car is still insured and I can't afford to take out a new policy for the Vauxhall until I know I'm not going to be paying for the existing one.

I appreciate I'm fortunate to have the option of using another car (and I think my Dad would be pleased it's being used!), but it seems to me the whole premise of having insurance is that in the event of an accident you are returned to the same situation you were in before it happened. At the moment, I don't have an option available to me that satisfies that criteria and I feel somewhat let down and taken advantage of by Hastings Direct who seem far more interested in maximising their profits than treating me fairly. No big surprise I suppose, but nonetheless, I'm not willing to just shrug my shoulders and accept that I will be worse off when I've done nothing wrong.

Not that brief in the end, apologies, but interested to hear some other points of view.

BarelySentientAI

Basically, they're right   You're not being penalised, they're not picking on you, that's the way it is. 

Your claim is a "fault" claim (which means money paid out and not recovered) until the money is recovered from another party.

And you can't cancel a policy that you have claimed on, because then you wouldn't have paid the complete premium for the risk.

DullGreyGuy

Insurers chose an unfortunate term of "fault" because if a claim is fault or not fault has absolutely nothing to do with who was to blame for the incident. 

As BSAI above says, in the vast majority of cases it simply comes down to if, at the end of the claim, your insurer has any net outlay. If they do? Its fault. If they dont? Its non-fault. The reason they have a net outlay at the end can be cause you were to blame for the accident, its a hit and run so the third party is unknown to recover the money from, it could be a theft or fire where there normally isn't anyone to recover from. 

As a consequence most open claims are considered fault because you can never be certain that you'll get repaid. Some insurers will register a claim as "non-fault" in certain circumstances, in my claims days it was only in certain circumstances (eg rear ended whilst driving forward or stationary), not in one of a range of high complexity situations (roundabouts, car parks, narrow lanes, motorways), only 1 third party involved, full details of the driver (name, address, telephone number) and insurance details confirmed to match MID. 

With us our letters used to say it was a non-fault claim and so unless fraud was involved it would stay so even if events changed however after I left claims the wording was changed to say we could change it if matters changed. 

So them treating an open roundabout claim as a fault is normal practice. 


On the second point of a "broken policy"... not an insurance term so just a call centre term for them. Would assume it means system isn't allowing them to do something but if thats because there is some form of corruption or you've hit a limit the call centre aren't aware of etc etc would be pure speculation. Saying its a them problem but you need to pay cancellation costs does sound unreasonable and hopefully the complaints team will deal with it appropriately. 

PRWPhotographer

DullGreyGuy said:

Insurers chose an unfortunate term of "fault" because if a claim is fault or not fault has absolutely nothing to do with who was to blame for the incident. 

As BSAI above says, in the vast majority of cases it simply comes down to if, at the end of the claim, your insurer has any net outlay. If they do? Its fault. If they dont? Its non-fault. The reason they have a net outlay at the end can be cause you were to blame for the accident, its a hit and run so the third party is unknown to recover the money from, it could be a theft or fire where there normally isn't anyone to recover from. 

As a consequence most open claims are considered fault because you can never be certain that you'll get repaid. Some insurers will register a claim as "non-fault" in certain circumstances, in my claims days it was only in certain circumstances (eg rear ended whilst driving forward or stationary), not in one of a range of high complexity situations (roundabouts, car parks, narrow lanes, motorways), only 1 third party involved, full details of the driver (name, address, telephone number) and insurance details confirmed to match MID. 

With us our letters used to say it was a non-fault claim and so unless fraud was involved it would stay so even if events changed however after I left claims the wording was changed to say we could change it if matters changed. 

So them treating an open roundabout claim as a fault is normal practice. 


On the second point of a "broken policy"... not an insurance term so just a call centre term for them. Would assume it means system isn't allowing them to do something but if thats because there is some form of corruption or you've hit a limit the call centre aren't aware of etc etc would be pure speculation. Saying its a them problem but you need to pay cancellation costs does sound unreasonable and hopefully the complaints team will deal with it appropriately. 

Thanks for your input. Appreciate you taking the time.