Not paying up.

shafee

I was involved in a car crash and accepted liability. My insurers initially sent me a ubstantial checque as my car was a write off but then stopped the cheque. They say their engineers found discrepencies between the 2 vehicles and are now sending a hired investigator to interview me.

I am afraid they wont give me my money. Who is this investigator and what is his legal position and role? PLEASE HELP.

geewhiz

He is just hired by the insurance company to carry out interviews, does not normally have any say in payments etc, just gets you to explain your side of things, right it all down then gets you to sign it.

Did your car have modifications that the insurance company did not know about maybe ?

shafee

Are his questions limited to the events of the accident.

I am unaware of any modifications to the car but i do know that the recovery team had to pull of the front end of the car ? radiheater - to access the battery to jump start the car and get it onto there vehicle.

raskazz

He/she can ask whatever he likes. Of course, there would be no point in asking questions that are unrelated to the insurer's investigation of the claim.

I must admit, to many people, the fact that you asked that question could imply that you may have something to hide.

mattymoo

Normally the insurers would check things like outstanding finance and previous write off history of the vehicle before sending out the cheque.

I am a bit puzzled when you say "discrepencies between the two vehicles". Does this mean your car and the other car it hit (or was hit by) or does it mean the car you insured and the car you claimed for.

Since an investigator is involved, this would suggest something reasonably serious since a motor engineer would normally deal with vehicle dicrepancies etc.

Provide some more info and we might be able to help further though like Raskazz I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye.

BenL

The discrepancy maybe with the other car.

The person you hit maybe trying something on.

They maybe trying to get some damage repaire dto the car that was there before you hit it. The insurance company has to put it back to what it was before not better.

e.g.

If you hit the back of them and they did not hit anyone else, they maybe trying to get the front repaired from another incident. You and your insurance co don't want to be paying for this.

The whole claim maybe reviewed so they have cancelled your payment for now.

mattymoo

BenL wrote: »

The discrepancy maybe with the other car.

The person you hit maybe trying something on.

They maybe trying to get some damage repaire dto the car that was there before you hit it. The insurance company has to put it back to what it was before not better.

e.g.

If you hit the back of them and they did not hit anyone else, they maybe trying to get the front repaired from another incident. You and your insurance co don't want to be paying for this.

The whole claim maybe reviewed so they have cancelled your payment for now.

Insurers do not generally delay payments to their own policyholders if there is a dispute with the third party. It could happen the other way round though if the third party has suggested something iffy about your claim, e.g. if they suggest it was a staged accident.

StaceyAKelly

Not heard of this happening before. I think the only option you have is to wait and see. Soz cant help any.