Absolutely flaming furious-norwich union/asda-avoid!!

solicitormike

I am a personal injury solicitor and I specialise in road traffic accident claims.

I read your problem and to tell you the truth I am not surprised by its contents. It is a common problem that I have with my clients.

The reason why your insurers have released a cheque for a fraction of the amount of the value of your vehicle is to effectively stop the hire charges. They know that they are going down for something so they routinely start with half the trade value. They will then wait for your rejection of the offer and start negotiating from there.

If you then incur further travel/hire expenses and make a claim against the third party insurers (the other party's insurers) these insurers will then be in a position to refuse to pay these charges. There is a legal principal which says that you are under a legal duty to mitigate (minimise) your losses and they will argue that you have not done this if you hire after receiving the albeit paltry sum from your own insurers.

My advice is to make contact with a personal injury solicitor asap. I cannot believe that you did not sustain an injury in that sort of collision so your solicitors will be in a position to manage the whole claim including giving you advice on hire vehicles as when as what to do if you want to appeal the valuation of your car.

I will be quite willing to help. Send me a quick e-mail on mike@goodgelaw.com.

pinkfluffybabe

jacquesmalone wrote:

there is a company called drive assist who if you ring them will provide a car whilst you are waiting to be paid and then recover the payment for the car from the third party at fault. i used them and there were brilliant.

I agree, the RAC put me in touch with them and they were very good.

hlmurray

They won't give me a car on credit hire as it is not within 14 days of the accident, apparently the third party can argue that as I have survived thus far without a car and can survive until I recieve payment- apparently they don't take into consideration the fact that I have survived because I have been signed off work due to the injury substained in the accident and when I am due to return to work on Monday I have no way of getting there.

Boyd_2

I would advise everyone to use Direct Line - they are brilliant at sorting claims out

stellagypsy

NU have been slagged off on here but I had 2 claims with them in 1 year (one Nov and one Feb) and they were great - they let me have my car repaired at main dealer both times with no fuss. I got a decent hire car both times too even though I was at fault in both cases - second one was for 5 weeks as they had bother getting a part. And the renewal premium the following May was quite reasonable, considering how much I had cost them!

We have also had good service claims-wise from DAS legal insurance in the past, and Churchill.

I think you get what you pay for with car insurance. I don't mind using "direct" companies (I used to work for an insurance co and a broker so I ALWAYS read the summary of cover before taking it out and can handle my own claims) but there are only about 6 I would consider insuring my car with. OH prefers to use a broker but he drives performance cars so the market is quite restricted for him.

We ALWAYS buy the legal cover - we consider it a false economy not to.

impy78

hlmurray wrote:

They have told me I am still responsible for paying my £89 a month premiums until the claim is settled for a car I don't even bloomin well have, Is that right? Should I be paying my premiums still despite the fact liabilty has been accepted just because they are dragging their feet?

Sadly this is very much true.

Until the third party has fully reimbursed your insurer, it will be treated as a fault claim on your policy, and you would be liable for the remainder of the premium.

Loretta

Norwich union really are awful, we are in the middle of all this with a claim too. My son, 21, had his car windows smashed and his speakers stolen. We phoned NU and they sent someone round almost immediately to replace the glass which seemed like a good start. Since then they have 'not received a claim' 'have received a claim' 'lost claim' 'never heard of him' will not pay for glass' they instructed glass firm to do this. They have now written to say my son fruadulently obtained insurance, whatever that means, I arranged it for him and paid for it. So the battle continues.

In 2000, insured with NU, I had 2 to non fault accidents in 6 days, 2nd accident I was injured car was written off. NU could not grasp at all that I had 2 seperate accidents, had legal cover, completely useless, instructed my own solicitor to deal with it after several months of trying to sort it out and after being diagnosed with breast cancer. 2 years and 9 months later I found out that my solicitor had been sent to prison for drug offences and had been struck off, money had already been paid to him. His firm of solicitors completely denied he had worked there and I had been a client, ridicluous, complained to Law Society, useless and still on going.

All because someone bumped me up the back while I was stationery. All the proffesionals involved in this situation have been either useless or dishonest, except for the wonderful NHS which provided the very best treatment and care or the breast cancer and one would think that the NHS would be the ones to worry about but they have been brilliant.

Good luck with this, you read this story so many times, everyone seems to have this trouble. I really think customer services in nearly every firm: insurance of any kind, phone companies etc is really awful and I think that we should pool our experiences about it all and plan some sort of actions to let these firms know we will not be treated this way after we have paid for a service. We mostly have to deal with this timewasting stuff when we have other stresses in our lives, an injury or just normal stuff like work, children etc and we should not be wasting our precious time on people who do not do there job, do not phone back and who are downright rude.

MarkyMarkD

Loretta_Tucker wrote:

They have now written to say my son fruadulently obtained insurance, whatever that means, I arranged it for him and paid for it. So the battle continues.

If they are suggesting that you purchased the insurance in your name, with him as a named driver, when it was in fact his car, they would be right to say that your son (well, actually you) fraudulently obtained insurance. If that isn't what they mean, then I expect that they are confused.

dunstonh

Norwich union really are awful, we are in the middle of all this with a claim too. My son, 21, had his car windows smashed and his speakers stolen.

NU General insurance (cars and household) are different parts of the aviva group to NU Life and Pensions. I wouldnt touch NU general insurance but NU life and pensions are not bad and has greatly improved in recent months.