Car insurance pay out

midge1971

Before Christmas I returned to my car and somebody had smashed the rear door of it in with a trailer we never found out who did it although it was witnessed.
I couldn't afford to get it fixed myself so contacted the insurance,
on the phone they told me they'd send me the information through and to take photos and they would sort it out,  I was also offered a hire car as per my insurance, luckily I didn't take the hire car!
I was contacted by company who said they were coming to collect my car but when I looked into it they were a scrapyard!
 contacted the insurance and after much back and fourth they admitted that they were just going to scrap my car because it wasn't worth keeping however there were only offering me six hundred pounds for it, I can't afford to replace my car for that and over the last three years although it's probably not worth it on an older car ( it's a 2008) I've had to spend a lot of money on it to keep it on the road (I'm an unpaid carer for my mum who has dementia)
Having spoken to a local garage who said they could repair it easily, just the door,  I decided to tell the insurance company I would keep the car and they offered a payout, at the time I also raised a complaint because they hadn't contacted me about writing my car off and because I felt it was undervalued.
I spoke to a person in their repairs department who said he would look at the photos of the car and reevaluate it for me because originally it was done by AI
fast forward a couple of weeks I received two checks on the same day I assumed one was for the initial payout and the other was because it had been reassessed , i cashed the money, had the car repaired and moved on with my life.
 today however I've had an email saying that they've overpaid me by 900 pounds and I need to pay it back,  I don't have that sort of money! 
I don't live beyond my means I'm on Universal Credit with my son but once all the bills are paid we're left with 109 pounds a month to live on. Please help what do I do?

paul_c123

If they sent you two valid cheques, its their error and the overpayment can be considered a "gift". By all means, if you can pay it back, you could do, but there's no legal obligation to do so.

Mildly_Miffed

As far as the original claim goes - read the Ts & Cs of the policy. You agreed to delegate the decision as to how to resolve the claim (write off or repair) to them. No great surprise that, for a 16-17yo car, the decision was to write off. And, yes, of course, you can repair cheaper with used parts that don't require painting.

As for the financial question, let me be sure I understand...

They sent you two cheques. You didn't query it, just cashed them both and spent them both. It turns out that one of them was in error, and was for £900.

Was the other one the same amount?

Given they'd previously suggested £600 was the value of the car, did you not think £1,800 extraordinarily generous?

If this is the case, then - yes - you owe the money. They can launch a court claim against you, and you will lose.
If you do not pay, then you will have a CCJ against you, while they can and almost certainly will send in recovery agents with the costs adding to your debt.
Talk to them now about working out how to pay in stages.

cw8825

paul_c123 said:

If they sent you two valid cheques, its their error and the overpayment can be considered a "gift". By all means, if you can pay it back, you could do, but there's no legal obligation to do so.

this is incorrect

OP needs to contact them and discuss the over payment and the options for repaying.

Ultimately the insurer is a business and is not going to be giving extra money for nothing, and by the sounds of it, tripling the offer for the car.
OP cant have believed that both cheques were intentional
£600 up to £900 sounds in the right ballpark
£600 to £1500 i would be questioning.

What is the time frame of getting the cheques to now/insurer realising the mistake?

jimjames

midge1971 said:

 today however I've had an email saying that they've overpaid me by 900 pounds and I need to pay it back,  I don't have that sort of money! 

I don't understand? You do have the money because the insurance company sent it to you and it was substantially more than they'd said they would pay so presumably wasn't needed to pay for the repair. Did you spend it elsewhere or could you use it from your account to repay them?

cw8825

jimjames said:

Imidge1971 said:

 today however I've had an email saying that they've overpaid me by 900 pounds and I need to pay it back,  I don't have that sort of money! 

I don't understand? You do have the money because the insurance company sent it to you and it was substantially more than they'd said they would pay so presumably wasn't needed to pay for the repair. Did you spend it elsewhere or could you use it from your account to repay them?

I assume spent elsewhere. 

The car repairs can’t have cust that much

midge1971

Mildly_Miffed said:

As far as the original claim goes - read the Ts & Cs of the policy. You agreed to delegate the decision as to how to resolve the claim (write off or repair) to them. No great surprise that, for a 16-17yo car, the decision was to write off. And, yes, of course, you can repair cheaper with used parts that don't require painting.

As for the financial question, let me be sure I understand...

They sent you two cheques. You didn't query it, just cashed them both and spent them both. It turns out that one of them was in error, and was for £900.

Was the other one the same amount?

Given they'd previously suggested £600 was the value of the car, did you not think £1,800 extraordinarily generous?

If this is the case, then - yes - you owe the money. They can launch a court claim against you, and you will lose.
If you do not pay, then you will have a CCJ against you, while they can and almost certainly will send in recovery agents with the costs adding to your debt.
Talk to them now about working out how to pay in stages.

To clarify, I never got an email With any information about the offer at all, it was only when I rang them about them Writing off my car They told me an estimate over the phone. I didn't write it down i was very upset about the fact that they were writing my car off without even bothering to tell me about it.
I spoke to a couple of different people and each time I spoke to somebody the amounts changed first they said it was 600 and something pounds then they said it would only be 300 pounds because of the deductible then they said there would be a charge on the top of that because of me keeping the car I'm not entirely sure having never made a claim before.
I was then called by somebody from their complaints department who said that he would take up the information about the complaint and have the car looked at again and reassessed I didn't hear anything else.
Both cheques arrived in two separate envelopes on the same day, I opened them looked at them and both were identical letters but with differing amounts one was for just under £700 one was for £900.
I honestly assumed that they had decided the car was worth more than the original claim but had sent one check out and then added the other amount on to it.
I put the cheques into my account and they cleared straight away, I took the car to the garage and had the repairs done, the repairs cost just under £1500 pounds.
New door, New rear quarter panel, new wheel arch and liner plus a small amount of work on the door frame plus electrics and repaint to match. 

cw8825

what car is this?

Also should be questioning the garage for what they have done

Mildly_Miffed

midge1971 said:

I took the car to the garage and had the repairs done, the repairs cost just under £1500 pounds.

Which is precisely why the insurer said they were going to write it off, because the repairs were more than the value.

They only owe you the value. If you chose to pay more than that, they do not owe you the difference.

The £700 was for the value.
The £900 was an error.
You owe them the £900.
It shouldn't be hard to persuade them to accept £700 instead. But to persuade them to accept nothing...?

Nobbie1967

I think you have a reasonable case not to repay the overpayment. I went through this when my employer overpaid me and I researched if there were any way I could avoid repaying, but there wasn’t in my case.

In this case you had every reason to expect a payment from the insurance company. You have no understanding of how they do business, so receiving two cheques is not in itself a red flag. This passes the first hurdle against repayment which is receiving the money in good faith.

The second issue is whether you have adjusted your expenditure to reflect the incorrect payment. As you have immediately spent it on repairs, then you have, so it is unlikely that recovery will be successful.

I’d write back explaining this and asking them to write the amount off as it is down to their error and you have spent the money on repairs.