Insurance claim seemingly on indefinite hold - can I do anything?

MattMattMattUK

This is an ongoing problem with car insurance companies and there seem to be no will to fix it. I have only had to claim twice, once a van pulling out of a drive drove into the side of my car that was parked on in a bay on the opposite side of the road, witnesses, dashcam footage from the taxi that was parked behind me etc. Other party's insurer refused to respond for eleven months, nothing could be done. The other someone drove into the back of me whilst I was waiting at a red light, again, witnesses, dashcam footage (they were on their phone), took nine months for them to admit liability (their initial claim was that I reversed into them, changed their mind when presented with dashcam video of me not moving and them rear ending me whilst on their phone), that dragged on for nearly ten months before the other side finally started responding. From friends and family who have had to submit insurance claims it generally seems that the guilty party will regularly drag things out for 6+ months. 

I really think that there needs to be a short timescale for responses and both the driver and the insurance company should face escalating fines if they refuse to respond or fail to respond adequately (eg. first month both client and insurer are fined £100, second month £200, third month £400, doubling each month they fail to comply) with the money paid to injured party.

DullGreyGuy

MattMattMattUK said:

This is an ongoing problem with car insurance companies and there seem to be no will to fix it. I have only had to claim twice, once a van pulling out of a drive drove into the side of my car that was parked on in a bay on the opposite side of the road, witnesses, dashcam footage from the taxi that was parked behind me etc. Other party's insurer refused to respond for eleven months, nothing could be done. The other someone drove into the back of me whilst I was waiting at a red light, again, witnesses, dashcam footage (they were on their phone), took nine months for them to admit liability (their initial claim was that I reversed into them, changed their mind when presented with dashcam video of me not moving and them rear ending me whilst on their phone), that dragged on for nearly ten months before the other side finally started responding. From friends and family who have had to submit insurance claims it generally seems that the guilty party will regularly drag things out for 6+ months. 

I really think that there needs to be a short timescale for responses and both the driver and the insurance company should face escalating fines if they refuse to respond or fail to respond adequately (eg. first month both client and insurer are fined £100, second month £200, third month £400, doubling each month they fail to comply) with the money paid to injured party.

There are many drivers for the length of time a claim takes to settle... my personal record was within a working day but thats because our insured called from the scene of the accident, the third party had literally just bought the old banger so the garage could fax over the bill of sale and our engineers said it was well below book price so little point in inspecting it so cheque raised and authorised for the invoice price and file closed the same day. 

On the other hand, some seem to be following the advices often given on here and dont tel their insurers about an incident. Half the people dont know who their insurers are and think they are ABC Brokers so when a letter from Aviva turns up they bin it unopened thinking its marketing rather than realising its their insurers asking them about an incident. 

Company vehicles are slow because messages normally have to travel through layers and the drivers has to find time to fill in the forms etc which simply isnt their top priority. 

We also have the likes of the OP who's the author of their own misfortune as they've put the claim on hold awaiting the outcome of liability no realising that putting it on hold means liability is unlikely to be resolved unless the other side is claiming and holding them liable. 

Also everyone buys on price, when cheap is the priority costs have to be cut. Dealing with post from the third party is the lowest tier of importance when you have a claims team with a backlog of work because you've cut heads to make the policy 10p cheaper. 

For injury claims there are incentives for insurers to act quicker as if time limits are breached then they go outside of the portal process and so the legal costs go up if they are found liable. Obviously there is a question as to if its better to accept liability due to no answer from your insured and guarantee having to pay costs or use the extra time accepting the risk of higher fees but also potentially paying nothing at all if your insured finally comes out the woodwork and advises its a case of cloned plates and they can prove their car was out the country at the time. 


For the majority of people it's a none issue, they claim on their insurance, their insurance pays for the car to be repaired and they go on their way. The fact it takes their insurer another 6 months to resolve the behind the scenes matters they are totally oblivious to and generally dont care. We could go months with no enquiries from our insured on the status of the claim etc, we just get a modest spike at renewal time when its still showing as open on their schedule but most then dont look or dont enquire. 


Timelimits need to be commensurate to the Law of Limitations, which is 6 years for negligence.  You can introduce fines like you suggest but please start your own post saying that everyone should have to pay £500/year more for their car insurance to cover your desire for faster claims and see how well that goes down. 

Mosh

Called Admiral and explained that I wanted to go with repairs and the nice lady confirmed what @DullGreyGuy had said - without an actual monetary amount to chase, we could well just sit there for months / years while the other company does nothing. So to get your money back you have to cough up in the first place, which is frustrating but hey.

Unfortunately(!) I wasn't injured and didn't suffer any other losses as I would dearly like to involve the legal protection I'm paying for purely as the other driver was so obnoxious and threatening afterwards. I'm hoping at the very least that his premiums go up significantly. Yes, I'm petty.

DullGreyGuy

Mosh said:

Called Admiral and explained that I wanted to go with repairs and the nice lady confirmed what DullGreyGuy had said - without an actual monetary amount to chase, we could well just sit there for months / years while the other company does nothing. 

As well as the legal consideration as already outlined there are operational considerations...

Inhouse - if the insurer does their own recovery work these are unallocated costs so the time paid to staff, the managers of those staff, telephone calls, postage on letters etc, they are unrecoverable from the third party. Insurers are clearly willing to pay it when they are trying to get their outlay back (average claim in my day was £3,500) but many insureds ghost us if they dont proceed with their repairs straight away. Insurers dont want to spend £100+ trying to setup the recovery only to find there are no recoveries to be made as the PH never claimed any losses

Outsourced - these are rarely done on a T&M basis but instead typically are a deal where they keep a percentage of whatever they manage to recover, so a contingent basis. These tend to be even stricter than in-house teams as no supplier wants to burn costs arguing liability only to find there is £0 outlay so they'll be getting 20% of £0 for their time and effort. 

Mosh

@DullGreyGuy That all makes sense. Thanks again for the insights. It really helps when you know how things work "under the bonnet" as it were! The agent I spoke to did say that they can often waive the payment of the excess to the garage if there is an admission of liability prior to the repairs being completed, but given the attitude of the guy who cut me up on the day of the incident, I can't see that happening. Very much one of those "everything is someone else's fault" people. Despite dashcam footage, and police retrieving CCTV from elsewhere.