Urgent help, needed Garage have wrote car off

tlck9

Hi there

Need some advice, my company van when in for some repair work and it looks like the garage have written it off...

My insurance company wont help, they said rightly that its the garage insurance, but the legal protection I paid for wont cover this

What are my rights, I need the van for my business and I'm hoping to get a courtesy van off them tomorrow

But if they write off the van, which is possible then I'm big time out of pocket as the van is worth more to me than trade book and I cant buy anything for that equal to what I have now

And if they dont write it off what am I entitled to?

Advice is much appreciated

mattymoo

I cannot think of any reason why the legal protection cover will not kick in and help you make this claim. Did they give a reason for that?

If they write it off you should receive market value for the van - what you would pay for it in a private sale. Only exception to this is if you are associated with the motor trade in which case, they would argue you can source a replacement at trade prices.

Try to claim for any stuff you had added such as shelving and the like. Unlikely to offer you full whack since they are only required to pay what it was worth but it will add to the claim.

You can claim for cost of a hire van if they do not provide you with a courtesy van.

You can claim for lost earnings but you will need to produce accounts for this and demonstrate that you have reduced the loss as much as possible (mitigated the loss). In other words, you cannot sit with your feet up waiting for them to sort matters out. You can however claim for earnings lost while you deal with the garage, insurers etc.

If it is repairable then it should be fixed by a professional bodyshop and the repairs guaranteed.

tlck9

Thanks for your reply.

Our insurance company are saying because they are not being claimed against, and because neither of the insured drivers were driving the vehicle they will not get involved at all, neither will the legal helpline who I called yesterday to get some advice - they said because the garage is liable as its there insurance they wont help us

(only thing I can say is that I will be looking for any insurance company when I renew that would be willing to help out and looking elsewhere from Aquote van isnurance)

I'm being told there only liable it Trade price, this is a whopping £2-2500 down on the price I would pay to get one of a similar spec

We insulated the van, lined it and carpeted it so this is something we could take into account?

Thanks again

tanith

Just a thought if you have RAC membership they include legal help in the package...

a11waysindebt

as mattymoo said,I cant see why your legal protection doesn't cover you.

Is this a reputable insurance company or one of these joking ones of the site.

mattymoo

Someone at the legal expenses firm has given duff info there. You need to press them on this point and ask for the page / clause that they are relying on to refuse assistance. I suspect they will not find it. If they do, come back to us with the full wording (sometimes available online) so we can give an opinion.

The garages insurance company may have a condition that they pay their customer trade value only. That would be if one of their cars was written off or stolen. This does not apply to third party claims. A court would award you market value which is far higher.

Might be worth approaching an independent motor engineer who could compile a report for you. By IME, I do not mean another garage but a professional who produces reports for insurers and fee paying customers. The fee would be reclaimable.

This website would be a good place to start - http://www.iaea-online.org
They also have a "find nearest" facility.

tlck9

The insurance company we are using is Aquote (if i'm allowed to mention) they are part of Hero Insurance Services Ltd. they are regulated by the FSA

We have RAC cover via this insurance, they were the guys that pulled us back to this garage.

It's worth speakign with them again and also RAC, I didnt think of them

So I should be entitled to market value, that puts a different complextion onto it.

Can anyone tell me if we'll liable for the work the garage may or may not have done to the van before the accident

raskazz

Get onto your insurer again. They may be trying to pull a fast one, assuming your cover is comprehensive.

Usually the relevant exclusion states (for private motor insurance anyway, I'm not sure that van insurance would contain the same clause, but it might be worth checking) something along the lines of:

"We will not cover any injury, loss or damage which takes place while your vehicle is being driven or used by anyone not allowed to drive it"

But this is then altered by

"This exception does not apply if your vehicle is with a member of the motor trade for maintenance or repair"

Ask your insurer exactly which exclusion they are relying on to decline the claim.

tlck9

sorry been off line for a while, lovely BT and their tags! and past tenant not removing their account from my new house - what a pain...

anyway. I have done as you suggested and in fact found a number for the insurance company ratehr than the broker and talked to someone there - they have no passed me through to a claims handler - but they take it over, eg they get the van, and chase the claim

Now I get the impression they wont take this to a solicitor if we dont get the value we need, however they have told me that I need to gather evidence as to values of similar vans which I have been doing.

I had a look at the van yesterday and Looking at the other van it hit and the damage to ours I dont think they'll put it back on the road - the van looks somehwhat twisted...

the only issue is that our van was the last of that style in the last year, so unless we go older by one year, or go to the new style (which averages about 2-3 grand higher as they are keeping there value well at the moment) we're going to have to find lots of money or sacrifice on a higher mileage vehicle

I feel gutted that our clean, excellent cond van is sat in a compound and we're going to be stuffed with something not as good with higher mileage, because I fear we wont get anywhere near the value to buy a similar vehicle

Is a market value, as good indication of what a vehicle is selling for?

Also if I hand the claim over to this company to "handle the claim" what do they actually do and how far will they take it - not having been in this situation I'm not sure on these "no fees no win" claim handlers

Anyone have experience of this?

Thansk in advance

tlck9

can anyone tell me what is reasonable to claim. eg

Lost of earning while dealing

Loss of business unable to go to recent show due to demo vehicle being the one written off - I can prove the level of orders taken at shows

telephone call/expenses such as petrol

Can we also claim for anything else, after all, this has put alot of strain on my relationship, stree in trying to deal with an insurance company who loses paperwork for the 7th time etc etc

What is reasonable, I'm not looking to make money, just to cover what we should be entitled to? and cover the fact that its been a right royal strain.

Do i need to provide a phone billing showing the calls, or do I just put a reasonabel figure for costs etc

I havent had to do this before

(recap - the garage test drove my van and wrote it off by hitting 2 other vehicles)

V_tricky

If you've been reasonable about taking time off work - and the time off was justified (ie you couldn't have hired another van to do the show, prob in your case not) then you will need to send evidence of how you have quantified your claim.

IE If at the last 5 shows you attended, you made £100 on each one, then if you can prove that your orders were generated from this, then you may have a chance. If you made £100 one show, and £50 on 4, you would probably get an average of the 5.

If you got no orders at the first one, £25 orders at the second, £50 orders at the third, £75 orders at the fourth, and £100 orders at the fifth, you could reasonably argue for towards the top end of that figure.

General loss of earnings, provided that you've been reasonable about the length of time taken - including why you didn't hire another vehicle so that you could continue working, the insurer might ask for your profit/loss accounts and work it out as an average days earnings, or if it's only a nominal amount, they may just pay it.

Telephone calls - you can probably ask for about £10 for general undocumented miscellaneous expenses. If telephone calls and postage etc are likely to come to more than that, send a copy of your phonebill to document your claim.

Petrol can only be claimed if you have had to do additional journeys directly as a result of the accident. To/From the garage or scrapyard, or to your doctors for example. Petrol is normally claimed at 35-40p or thereabouts per mile.

Whilst it probably has put a strain on your relationship, and is undoubtedly a ball ache, under English law you can't claim for 'general inconvenience'. If you're in Scotland you can probably claim something in the region of £50-£100.

If your insurance company has lost that amount of paperwork, then I'd be asking for an ex-gratia payment from them on customer service grounds.

One other thing that you can claim for if you haven't hired a replacement van is loss of use, at around £10 per day, or £50 per week if it's been outstanding a long time - but if you've taken time off work instead of having a hire van, then you would be criticized for not mitigating your loss.


Hope this helps