Claiming on car insurance after a ambulance hit parked car (not in an emergency)

heatherw_01

Can anyone give some advice please?

An ambulance hit our parked car while it was on our private drive and caused damage.

It was not in an emergency as no lights, sirens as well as taking 10 minutes to try to park whilst hitting our car over and over again on our driveway.

They were driving/parking erratically/inexperienced and caused damage to our car.

The whole thing is on CCTV, including the parking/driving as well as the driver checking out his ambulance to see if it was damaged from hitting our car, but he didn't leave a card, check our car or say anything and he did see our car clearly many times.

We’re obviously going to make a claim, but I’m unsure which route is best:

1. Claim directly through the ambulance service/their insurer as a third party claim?
2. Go through our own insurer and let them recover the costs from the third party?

Our insurer said it’s usually easier to go through them because they handle everything and recover the costs themselves, but I know it would still go down as a non-fault claim on our record.

Being disabled, easier is better, but it there much difference between the two?

It is much easier via your own insurer?

Has anyone dealt with something similar?

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6669447/claiming-on-car-insurance-after-a-ambulance-hit-parked-car-not-in-an-emergency

Maybe one of the rare cases where an ambulance chaser might be an idea? Joking

No way to tell which is going to be easier, to be honest. There is always an element of the luck of the draw.

Your insurers are obviously set up for dealing with you and will have network repairers etc. If things do go wrong you have the right to take the mater to the Financial Ombudsman if your insurers dont resolve your complaint satisfactorily.

Downsides of your own insurers is that your cover is limited by the terms of your policy, so for example if you didnt select the courtesy car option then they dont have to give you a courtesy car. Similarly you may have to pay your excess but can then claim it back.

If your renewal date is close then it may result in it being a fault claim at renewal and subsequently changed to non-fault when the claim closes.

The Ambulance may or may not be setup to deal with you as a direct claimant and therefore it could be a smooth process or require you to do more of the leg work. You won't have any right to complain to the FOS if things go wrong. On the flip side they will be more relaxed about where you take the car and there are no policy limits to consider.

Dealing directly with a corporate can however be slow… its not like where you call your insurer directly but instead normally a long chain of the driver speaking to the supervisor who speaks to the depot manager who speaks to the fleet manager who speaks to the insurance broker etc. Messages often go up and down the same chain and naturally some of these only work office hours and some of these are dealing with on top of their day job.

You can also mix and match so if you want your insurers to do the repair but they can't give you a courtesy car you can ask the ambulance service if they can arrange just that aspect.

Irrespective of who you deal with its still something that needs to be declared and if you claimed off your insurance or theirs is unlikely to make any material difference, its not even a question I've ever seen asked

heatherw_01

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I appreciate that!

Never thought I would be trying to claim from a ambulance lol

That is what I thought to be honest.

I already think they will be slow if I do it via the ambulance just from how slow they are getting back to me after I contacted them as they wouldn't put me through to that department directly, they said they would have to call back. Still not called me back.
That is probably a preview into how it would be if I went via them.

I think I will stick with via our insurer. Unless anyone else has any input against it. Does seem to be the simplest way.

Courtesy car might be a pain as don't think it's on our insurance, but with us both having health issues, one being fatigue, means its probably better to let our insurer do the work seeing as that's why we pay them.

Thank you again, I really appreciate it.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008537#Comment_82008537

Your insurers will therefore probably offer to sell pass you to an ambulance chaser to give you a credit hire car. If you look on here you will see a large number of people worried about them but 95% of cases go through without issue. The only word of caution is that you do have to support them with what they ask for in reasonable timescales if you are one in the 5% that are problematic - after having had the car for a few weeks its too late to back out and their hire rates are very high (in part because they are taking the risk that they never get paid or only ever get part paid).

They probably won't call them an ambulance chaser nor credit hire, and it could be a firm like Enterprise, but all the hire car companies have an ambulance chaser division and there are many specialist companies that only do credit hire

Royalty is pretty much the only one I've not claimed from, have done Ambulance, Police, Fire, MOD, an MP, local council etc.

heatherw_01

Thank you for the info, I really appreciate it!

Hopefully it goes through ok.

I will come back and update later.