Car damage in ramp

DullGreyGuy

lisyloo said:

Aretnap said:

lisyloo said:

DullGreyGuy said:

lisyloo said:
will update, but clearly their insurer has a vested interest when doing their “investigation” as of course do we but we were doing nothing other than driving slowly the way we were meant to go.

Naturally, they represent their client, they are there to defend them and ultimately will make any payment due if they are deemed liable. 

Note also that as a third party claimant you have no Financial Ombudsman rights, if you dont agree with them or are unhappy with them then it's a matter of seeing them in court. 

Yes totally appreciate Their insurer has an obligation to them not us.
their “ruling” is neither independent nor final.
also appreciate they have access to a solicitor if they want.

Their insure doesn't make a "ruling", they either decide to offer you some money on behalf of their client, or they don't.

If you don't like the insurer's offer, or if they didn't make one, then your left with the choice of chalking it down to experience, or taking the charity to court (where they're at liberty to ask their insurance to represent them).

They (the insurer) have said they are doing an investigation so they will come to a decision about liability.
They can do what they want but it would be sensible to give some explanation if they have a good case and they want to persuade us to drop the action so they don’t have to engage a solicitor (more than the cost of the damage).

If we don’t get any explanation then I’d think they have no case/defense and are hedging their bets.
I’m not minded to believe they don’t care about employing expensive solicitors for things like this or maybe I’m wrong and the insurers don’t care and just pass on the costs. On that note I’m surprised the operator doesn’t self-insure below a certain level but perhaps they just don’t care and just pass on the costs as well.
i appreciate they have to defend themselves against fraud and also don’t want to set a precedence for just paying any old small claim but being “profligate” is not good for either insurance buyers or end consumers.

We tend to quote caselaw when dealing with other insurers, solicitors etc, we tend not to when dealing directly with the third party as most wouldn't know where to obtain a copy of the judgement to read it let alone understand the judge's ruling or rational which often will refer to multiple of cases. 

In some insurers all their claims handlers are lawyers, other than the First Notification of Loss team. A former client is currently advertising for a "entry level claims assistant" and they're asking for a LLB 2.1 minimum and preferably more legal experience. Even if their lawyers are only in more technical teams they use external firms for both defence and claimant work so have arrangements with firms given the two typically will broadly offset each other or more when considering actual costs to the law firm. 

Some large clients do all their own claims handling or have selected their own claims handling firms. Others use their insurers. You also often get aggregate deductibles/excesses, which can be very large for any large corporation. So where you pay £300 excess for each claim you make on your Car insurance, one of the large hire car companies pays over $100m excess over every claim each year because they will have thousands of claims each year and there is no point paying risk margin, profit margin and IPT on what you know you are going to be paying out each year. They actually use the insurer for claims handling in that case, probably because of the number of different countries they operate in.

user1977

It's possible for claims to be handled by the insurers even if it isn't the insurers ultimately picking up the tab. 

lisyloo

Update: Zurich insurers have said their client is to blame and they will be settling in full.
The insurers have asked for payments details so I would guess the insurers are paying.

This picture shows the entrance/exit before they put in a ramp.
Note that if you come out the wrong side (which we and others have done) you might face oncoming traffic on a bend. The oncoming drivers view will be worse than that shown in the picture as the camera person is not where an oncoming driver will be.
If you have a collision on the wrong side of the road where there is a no entry sign you might face prosecution and then severe difficulties getting insurance which could affect your job.

I would suggest not going here unless you have high ground clearance like a range rover.
Try knoll beach instead.

Studland , Middle Beach Car Park - geograph.org.uk - 1712570 - Middle Beach, Dorset - Wikipedia

Cheers