Insurance not being able to get my excess back

Cpu2007

A year ago, a friend of mine was involved in an accident.

His parked vehicle was hit by a van, and the van driver got out and ran away.

My friend opened a claim. It was straightforward because the van was still at the scene, we had the registration number, and CCTV footage clearly showing the van hitting the car.

Esure wrote off the vehicle and paid the claim, minus the excess.

However, to this day, they still have not refunded the excess because they say they are still dealing with Hastings Direct, who appear to be repeatedly delaying the process.

For several months, I have been in contact with both insurers, but the issue remains unresolved. Hastings Direct says it has not received any evidence from my insurer, while my insurer says it has sent everything.

I eventually submitted SAR requests to both companies. Hastings Direct provided a heavily redacted response, with only basic dates and notes, making it impossible to understand what happened. When I objected, they said the redactions were compliant with GDPR.

I reported this to the ICO, but they said they could not investigate because it appears to be linked to a dispute I have with Hastings Direct. I do not understand why that matters, since their role should be to assess GDPR compliance.

The SAR from Esure shows that they did provide the evidence.

I cannot raise a complaint against Esure because they appear to have done what they said they did. I also cannot raise a complaint against Hastings Direct because I am not their customer, so I was told to escalate to the Financial Ombudsman.

Is this normal? What are my options?

user1977

Your story is confusing - what's the relationship between you and your friend? You say your friend's vehicle was damaged, but you're the one dealing with the insurers?

Cpu2007

I have been dealing with his case in terms of helping him chase each insurance, escalate it and so on.

Effectively I have been chasing this on his behalf as I have been drafting emails, complaints and so on and he has been forwarding them

sheramber

Did he have legal cover on his policy?

Cpu2007

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82060389#Comment_82060389

no he did not, but Esure decided to include the recovery of the excess as part of their claim process.

They said they'll do that as they try to recover their own cost.

Also, the TPI to this date has not admitted liability so esure seems to be frustrated as well

Lorian

If esure have not yet recovered their costs they will still currently be considering your friend at fault and needs to declared as such on insurance renewals until they pay up.

I've been in a similar position with the 3rd parties insurers stating they did not have the dash cam evidence over and over. Eventually my insurer decided to start court proceedings against the 3rd party at which point their insurers paid up within a week or two.

Cpu2007

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82060494#Comment_82060494

I know, which is why their current insurance has that claim on their file, this is very frustrating as it add more complexity and more cost burden, having to get some money back once the issue is resolved by telling the insurance that it was a non fault claim

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6675296/insurance-not-being-able-to-get-my-excess-back

I love how your "friend" morphs into it being you half way through.

Your insurance covers you for the market value of the vehicle less the excess, having not bought the legal expenses cover most insurers would have washed their hands of it and told you to recover your own excess. In my days we did used to do excess recovery too but mainly because the pre-written letter had an option to include or exclude the excess and for the sake of selecting option B rather than A on a form it seemed mean not to do so.

The driver running and abandoning the vehicle is the obvious red flag. Hastings will be wanting to identify who the driver of the vehicle was and were they covered by their policy. Assuming they had the owners permission to drive it and they weren't on the policy then does the driver have any other form of insurance that would cover it. The other possibility is that the vehicle was stolen or on cloned plates, this would dramatically change the likely outcome.

Most insurers split their claims teams based on specialty, the general call centre tends to be the basic trained people and often there are more specialist teams that deal with recoveries, disputed liabilities etc. In my prior employment (not esure) we didnt publish these teams telephone number on websites etc but you would get a letter from the team with their phone number. For this type of enquiry you would be much better going to the team actually attempting the recovery than the general team.

I'd ask them if Hastings have acknowledged the claim, if they have stated if there are any indemnity issues and then as esure if they are attempting to get Hastings to act as the RTA insurer if there are driver/indemnity issues.

Claims can take a long time, even more so if the third party is a company. There is a lot of message passing and often backlogs. For you this may be your number 1 priority in life, for many others in the chain its not and if each step adds a weeks delay the process becomes very slow.

Cpu2007

I understand that a claim can take time depending on the circumstances but the time it takes should be justified.

I have been drafting email/complaints to HD as without legal cover you'd need to get the excess yourself anyway

They said they didn't receive any evidence, I requested SAR and they've redacted pretty much everything making it difficult for me to know what they received and the timeline(they redacted dates as well)

how is this allowed under GDPR? My understanding was that only sensitive/personal data should be redacted. What surprises the most that the body that should be taking this as a red flag thinks this is fine too (ICO)

If companies are allowed to redact whatever they want then this whole GDPR nonsense that has been brought up is just a facade.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82064629#Comment_82064629

In reality it does… insurance is a highly regulated environment but 99% of that covers the relationship between the insurer and their customer. Head over to the Motor or Insurance section here and you will find tons of stories from people claiming as third parties from another insurer and then finding out they cannot go to the Ombudsman to complain etc. For policyholders there is a requirement for reasonable timeframes etc.

For the claims between insurers or third parties against insurers you are basically looking at common law claims rather than a regulated industry or statutory requirements. There is no requirement for reasonable timeframes, in deed delay can be an intentional strategy. The item that keeps matters in check is the fact a party can litigate if they dont think the third party or their insurers are being reasonable and by counterance to unreasonable litigation the judge can use their discretion to award costs to the loser if the claimant breached the CPRs or otherwise were unreasonable.

You didnt have legal expenses, your excess isnt insured, so you have no regulated complaint. Your real direction of frustration should be at the third party and their insurers. Your hands here are a little bound though, if you litigate you must litigate for the total claim including your insurers losses else you block their recovery. In short, if you want to go to court speak to your insurers first. Again, its not uncommon for insurers to agree to exclude their costs but settle on the basis of the outcome of the court case but again it may be a strategy not to agree to.. a policyholder claiming £300 excess will go to the small track and so win or lose the third party insurer will have to pay their own costs. Add the £12,000 total loss payment this now goes into fast track instead and if the third party wins you have to pay part of their legal costs… this risk of fees discourages some to litigate which is why sometimes insurers wont agree to exclude costs.