No Fault Claim - Insurance Renewal

Carlisle1967

Hi all.

In August I had a very minor accident where another vehicle hit me from behind, I got a quote for repair but the other guy had already gone through his insurance so my insurance company AXA took over and told me where to get it repaired etc.

I had my renewal come through and it has tripled in price as it states I was the at fault driver and have also lost all my NCB.

Called AXA about it and they have told me the 3rd party insurance have admitted liability, however as they have yet to reimburse the costs to AXA it is still down as a my fault claim and they cannot change that until they have been paid and said they would chase up the 3rd party's insurance for payment.

I cannot force another company to pay AXA so I am stuck with having to pay a much greater monthly premium until the claim has been settled.

How long could this take? and when its settled will they adjust the rest of the premiums to take in account my NCB and the fact it was a non fault claim from the renewal date or just when the claim is settled?

 

Arunmor

Can you sue the other driver (or his insurer) to cover uninsured losses?

This question has been rattling around in my head for years.

Frozen_up_north

I had a driver run into the rear of my car at a roundabout, a common cause of collisions where drivers are not paying attention. The driver admitted liability, hard not to… she said the kids were playing up in the back seats!

Our insurance with LV did not change noticeably on renewal, but we did have protected NC discount.

Carlisle1967

I assume that my insurance will go up even though its a non fault claim, currently though its down as my fault and I have lost all my NCB as the 3rd party has yet to pay even though they have accepted responsibility.

It was very minor damage and the 2 quotes I got were both around £350 - £400 nothing dented just a few scuffs but AXA took over and told me where I had to take it as they were their approved repair centre and the bill from them was £3,700 with the VAT!!!!

Thats without the additional cost of a replacement vehicle while the repair was taking place.

DullGreyGuy

Carlisle1967 said:

Hi all.

In August I had a very minor accident where another vehicle hit me from behind, I got a quote for repair but the other guy had already gone through his insurance so my insurance company AXA took over and told me where to get it repaired etc.

I had my renewal come through and it has tripled in price as it states I was the at fault driver and have also lost all my NCB.

Called AXA about it and they have told me the 3rd party insurance have admitted liability, however as they have yet to reimburse the costs to AXA it is still down as a my fault claim and they cannot change that until they have been paid and said they would chase up the 3rd party's insurance for payment.

I cannot force another company to pay AXA so I am stuck with having to pay a much greater monthly premium until the claim has been settled.

How long could this take? and when its settled will they adjust the rest of the premiums to take in account my NCB and the fact it was a non fault claim from the renewal date or just when the claim is settled?

 

Have Axa even paid for the repairs yet? 

How long it will take depends on the parties involved. Were it Axa -v- Us then they were part of an agreement with our firm so they could just call us up and we'd pay them what they state their costs were assuming our insured hadn't raised any concerns. When you add in time for a cheque to be authorised, printed, sent, received, banked, cash allocated it would be sub 10 working days unless one of the companies had big backlogs. If they wrote a letter then its basically the same but we generally had about 5 working day backlog of post in my team (others had worse).

If they weren't part of the agreement then they have to send the paperwork for the repairs, for modest repairs a claims technician could approve them, for more substantial repairs it had to got to an engineer who'd review the work done and hours billed in software to validate it was reasonable etc. This could add another 1-2 weeks depending on backlogs. 

Are you directly with Axa or via broker or other intermediary? If you are direct you'd like to think their systems will readjust if you renew with them, certainly ours did. If you arent direct then it's going to take action from the sales agent who may or may not get notified of the settlement. 

Arunmor said:

Can you sue the other driver (or his insurer) to cover uninsured losses?

This question has been rattling around in my head for years.

You can but you have to involve your insurers... it's always going to be OP -v- TP legally, even if the insurers are actually the ones in the court room fighting. Were the OP to issue just for their uninsured losses and dont make Axa aware etc then the TP insurer can rightfully turn round to Axa and tell them they won't repay their outlay as the matter has gone to court thus making this permanently a fault claim. 

Mildly_Miffed

Until such time as it's all settled and paid, with your insurer not having spent an un-repaid penny, you are on the hook. That's just the way insurance works.

And, yes, if your renewal's due in that period... you have to declare it as an open claim, and that gets charged similarly to the at-fault it may yet turn into.

When it is settled in your favour, your new insurer should repay the extra premium, and it goes back to being a not-at-fault claim on your record.

Carlisle1967

Thanks all.

I have let my insurance renew directly with AXA and hope that my monthly premiums will decrease significantly when they get paid.

Was told by AXA that the 3rd party had accepted responsibility back in August and it is now coming up to 4 months since my Van was repaired so hopefully not too much longer.

Carlisle1967

Hello,

So over five months later and I'm still in the same situation.

I have constantly complained to AXA and have been told that the third party, Aviva, have paid everything apart from £650 which was my excess which AXA waived when I collected the van.

I have been told this is the situation for the last 3 months, I have spoken directly to Aviva and they have told me that they have paid everything that AXA have requested.

Not sure why I am even bothering trying to sort it out between two billion pound corporations but am at a loss what to do now, do I have to wait indefinitely for them to sort it out?

Wish I had told the other driver I would pay for the repair and fled the scene.

DullGreyGuy

Carlisle1967 said:

So over five months later and I'm still in the same situation.

I have constantly complained to AXA and have been told that the third party, Aviva, have paid everything apart from £650 which was my excess which AXA waived when I collected the van.

I have been told this is the situation for the last 3 months, I have spoken directly to Aviva and they have told me that they have paid everything that AXA have requested.

Not sure why I am even bothering trying to sort it out between two billion pound corporations but am at a loss what to do now, do I have to wait indefinitely for them to sort it out?

Wish I had told the other driver I would pay for the repair and fled the scene.

Back in my claims day's I dreaded dealing with Aviva, they may have improved in the years that have happened in-between but it used to be a real pain to find the relevant office to deal with and whilst in principle there was a central team that was supposed to be able to do most things or tell you the right office if not experience in practice was they could do little of what I needed and what they told me was the correct office was often not. 

The real problem was that I would be managing circa 350 claims at a time, I simply dont have the time to phone a branch, wait 20 minutes to get through, then spend another 20 minutes waiting to get through to the alternative office they suggested etc. So you become lazy and just fire off a chaser letter, if its the wrong office you hope they redirect it internally but sometimes 4 months later it get returned as them not having been able to identify their insured. 

As a £2bn company the effort to recover £650 will be proportionate to its value combined with the challenges of certain third party insurers. Most companies will have some form of KPIs and controls so once the case has been open X months or the same chase letter and diary on has happened Y times it will trigger a more material file review and hopefully more affirmative action or decisions on what to do about the case rather than just letting it crawl on.