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Car fire.
Comments
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My feeling is that your insurers are fobbing you off
This is based on the fact that any sensible person does not rely on a report commissioned by someone else
I suspect neither the Finance company nor the dealers will be in any hurry whatever to pay
( The last fire investigation on a garden office that i am aware of cost the insurers the thick end of 2K)
Formal complaint to insurance company that they are breaching their duty to treat customers fairly will I imagine persuade them to behave.
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It does seem that way but we’ve only done what we were advised to do.
We called the insurance from the scene of the fire as we had to arrange for the car to be collected.
We haven’t spoken to them anymore this evening since they have sent the email saying that the finance company and dealership need to provide the forensic report.
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Who advised you to reject the car, the insurance company, or someone else?
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Answered earlier:
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A manager from the finance company said that we had to email the dealership rejecting the car due to the timeframe which everything happened and to copy in the finance company to the email as it needed to be to both of them.
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"The insurance company has advised me that they can’t proceed with my claim until they have a forensic report and have referred it back to my finance company who need to obtain one from the dealer."
Put the fact that you have (tried to) reject the car within the 30 days short term right to reject window to one side for a moment. It does seem that the insurance company is making up rules as they go along here. Your car catches fire, you are insured against fire (and other stuff), its their responsibility and business to cover your loss and progress the claim in a timely manner. If they want extra reports or whatever, then they can go and get extra reports done (if they have access to the car and the resources to be able to do so).
It would be worthwhile delving into the small print of your policy to understand how to make a claim, and your responsibilities for providing the necessary information etc.
Obviously it is also complicated by the fact you're trying to reject the car, and it being on finance. If the dealer accepts the rejection and pays out, it becomes the dealer's car, you've got your money back and the insurer is not obligated to pay you too (the dealer will have lost out immensely though - they certainly don't insure against this type of risk and would normally only lose out the partial cost of fixing whatever fault caused a rejection, then prepping and selling the car again).
I imagine the insurer would delay a payment until the conclusion of whether the dealer would fully refund has been decided.
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Where is the car now?
It might be in your best interest at this point to pay for the forensic report yourself and then claim from whoever is ultimately found liable.
Neither the insurer, finance company or dealer are going to want to pay for a report that'll prove they are liable. Your bigger risk is that you pay for a report and then the party implicated by the report says they don't recognise the validity of it, so it'd be worth trying to nail down from everyone what would be acceptable.1 -
Your chances of getting the supplier of the car to accept a rejection in these circumstances, with the car a smouldering wreck and no conclusive cause, are just about zero.
It's just going to be a perfectly vanilla insurance claim.
Did you have gap insurance?1 -
I am somewhat confused as to what is going on, as it seems that you are doing two conflicting things at once, which is probably what is muddying the waters
If you can reject a pile of ash & twisted metal for a full refund, then the insurance claim should only be for cost of recovery, repairs to the road surface and any call out charge from the Fire Brigade which you will be charged for in the fullness of time, so there should be no need for the insurer to have a forensic report as their contract is to settle your loss and any claims against you (less excess) if you have fully comprehensive cover.
The pile of ash & twisted metal would belong to the insurance company if they are paying out on it as a total loss, so you can't reject it if you are claiming it's value on insurance.
I would have thought that the simplest way is you don't bother with rejection, but claim for the total loss of the car by fire (plus costs) and the insurer pays out market valuation to the finance company (because they own the car), then your gap insurance pays the difference to bring it up to invoice cost.
Obviously, if you don't have Gap insurance there will be a considerable shortfall between invoice price and valuation, so rejection if possible seems the best way to go.
I want to go back to The Olden Days, when every single thing that I can think of was better.....
(except air quality and Medical Science
)1 -
Was the car new or second hand?
My insurance replaces “new for old” on written off cars bought new for up to 12 months from purchase.
It is up to the insurance company to appoint an investigator. Out of interest, which insurance company are you with?
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