Way back in June, whilst stationary waiting for the car in front to turn right I was rear-ended and shunted into the car ahead, by a van that had better things do than watch the road. Besides the whiplash I suffered I have been told by my insurers that I have to pay an excess of £350. This will be when I collect my car (assuming it ever gets repaired). To add further insult I have been given a most basic Ford Fiesta (fiasco) as a courtesy car while my much enjoyed convertible is alledgedly being repaired. The said fiasco has now broken down and the supplying company are being most unhelpful. I was shocked to read the HJ faq stating that I have a right to be supplied an equivalent vehicle! My questions are this, am I able to somehow reclaim my excess payment and if so how? My insurers have advised they will offer no assistance! Also do I have any redress against the insurers for having to put up with such a basic vehicle (not equivalent to my own) and the days where I have been without a car at all?
Thanks
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With regard to an equivalent courtesy car, you would have to check the T's & C's of your policy. I imagine each insurance company will be different.
Mine for instance states that I get a guaranteed hire car that is a 1-litre hatchback or similar, which is less than three years old.
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IF! the facts as you state them are correct then I am quite sure that your insurers are wrong.
"My insurers have advised they will offer no assistance!" Who is the Insurer I would be interested to know.
vbr..............................MD
{Martin, as the OP has made that allegation - whether it be true or not, then to post the insurers name would amount to naming and shaming them. The OP can however if he so wishes email me the details and I in turn will pass them onto you - DD}
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I am quite sure that your insurers are wrong. "My insurers have advised they will offer no assistance!" ..
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insurance companies are commercial businesses who will act within the contract you have with them. they are not run as charities. their aim generally is to meet their obligations to you at the minimum cost to them.
if you make a claim on your comprehensive policy for a "non-fault" accident, they will repair your car at their expense (less your excess) and hope to recover their cost from the third party's insurer.
however, they have no interest or duty to help you recover your uninsured losses. that is why they usually have an option for you to pay for legal expenses cover to help you in this type of situation.
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Pooh, I thought that my insurance was a branch of my local Social Services, so basically what you're saying that I have to take some responsibility for doing something ?? :-)
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was shocked to read the HJ faq stating that I have a right to be supplied an equivalent vehicle
That is inaccurate. Your insurance may or may not offer a replacement vehicle. If it does, then it will be a vehicle as indicated in your policy which may or may not, and usually "not", be similar to your own vehicle.
In claiming from a third party you may nto be entitled to a car at all. You must minimise your losses and if you cannot show that you NEED a car then you may not claim for a temporary replacement. Even if you can show that need, that still does not entitle you to use a vehicle similar to your own if a more economic vehicle would have done the job.
If you were nto at fault you can recover your excess from the third party. If you do nto have any uninsured loss recovery policy then you will have to do it yourself.
Have you listened properly to your insurer ? It kind of sounds like they might have explained some stuff but you've heard only the sensational headlines.
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>> was shocked to read the HJ faq stating that I have a right to be supplied an equivalent vehicle
That is inaccurate.
no-fm2r : are you saying hj's faq is inaccurate or that mlrogers has quoted the faq inaccurately?
i think the faq in question is this one:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=58
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>>"It also means you are entitled to an equivalent temporary replacement car either until your car is repaired"
100% wrong.
I have a duty to mitigate my losses. I drive a Ferrari. The longest drive I do is 1 mile to the office. I never carry goods, shopping or passengers. There is a bus stop outside my house which is a direct route to the bus stop outside my office.
I am not entitled to rent a Ferrari. The chances are I am not strictly entitled to rent a Corsa or any other car. In practice, providing I don't push it, most insurers will pay for a reasonable vehicle. One could justify a car only because you need it, and a larger or more powerful car only if one can justify that NEED also. Because you want, because you already have or because its easier are not sufficient justification.
So that quoted statement above is wrong. It is more wrong than a wrong thing on a wrong day having a wrong discussion about somethig it is wrong about. Wrong. Very wrong. Completely Wrong.
The following is somewhat dubious also..
"That means for your car to be repaired or replaced so it is of exactly the same quality as it was before the other party did you the damage. "
It is possible that it is not economic to repair your car and that it is not possible to replace it. The insurer can take the third option of paying its financial value. This can also happen where extensive repairs to an older car are concerned. e.g. a wing is damaged and must be replaced. The inner wing that it needs to bolt do is rusted rending the repiar inpossible without replacing the inner wing. They can ask you to pay for the inner wing, if you refuse then they can offer you the money for the repair rather than repairing it.
It is a mistake to make any definitive statements about what an insurer must or must not do without understanding what a loss is, how it is defined, how your duty to mitigate losses works, what contribution and improvement are and their impact, and the options available to an insurer. By and large insurances is there to compensate for financial loss, but there is a duty to mitigate that loss.
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In an open & shut case where there is no personal injury the 3rd party will often cough up your excess (£350) within a few weeks.
If there is a PI claim they will lump your excess and the PI claim together, sit tight and spin it out.
It took 23 mths for me to receive my excess & my PI claim - but I had to go to court and have a date & time fixed - they settled 16 hrs before the court appearance. If I had been a young family man, with few funds I would probably have had to settle for no PI to get my excess & other losses paid.
An acquaintance, 1 x wife, 2 x kids & a large mortgage was hit but a Drunk Driver (who was charged as he was being followed by police B4 accident) settled for his loss of car £1000 and £500 PI - he was in hospital for 4 days and had fairly severe injuries). He stated he needed the £1000 for another car and could not wait months far less years.
The police were of little no help @ the accident as they feared they might be implicated in the claim as they were just behind the drunk driver having followed him for miles and might have been accused of failing to stop him earlier or may be harrassing the driver and helping him crash.
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Thanks to everyone for your comments, sounds like a bit of a minefield though. With regards to trying to claim back my excess should my insurance company give me details of the other party insureres? At the time of the accident the other party would only give details of the company he worked for.
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Yes you need to get details of his insurers. Then if it's as simple as you say, that he drove in the back of you, it's a simple process.
Pay your excess
Send a copy of the receipt to the other person's insurers.
They'll send you a cheque.
Pay cheque into bank :)
Send a copy of the cheque and the letter from the insurer to your insurer so that they can adjust your record to show that you were not at fault, the other party has paid out and the case is closed. That way you don't have an open claim affecting your no claims when you come to renew.
You could have avoided paying the excess at all by claiming directly from his insurers but by the sounds of it he was not keen to give you those details, so you've probably gone about it the right way.
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Yes you need to get details of his insurers
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my method for dealing with non-fault accidents, which has been found to work extremely well in practice by those who have taken this route, is:
1. write to the third party (in this case to his employer's address) teling them you hold them responsible for your losses/damages. always send letters by recorded or special delivery, and give them a week to respond; otherwise threaten to start proceedings in court.
2. they will generally pass this on to their insurance company, and you will then be dealing direct with their insurance company.
3. keep your own insurance company fully in the picture, initially telling them that you are not making a claim on your own compreshensive policy at that stage, but may have to do so if the third party fails to repair yor car
mlrogers can start at step 1 for his excess and any other unisured losses/damages/expenses.
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You insurer may well give you details of the TP Insurers, but they have no duty to do so.
I'd basically follow Dalglish's advice further down, although I always advocate starting with a polite letter first.
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>>follow Dalglish's advice further down
[sigh] or up.
Wherever it is, its dated Thu 14 Sep 06 08:21
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I always advocate starting with a polite letter first
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ditto.
i second that.
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>> was shocked to read the HJ faq stating that I have a right to be supplied an equivalent vehicle .. That is inaccurate. ...
no-fm2r : this backroomer says hj is correct -
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=43285&...e
Non fault accident - best way to proceed - CGNorwich Thu 14 Sep 06 22:51
HJ is correct. I believe there is a confusion here between what the Insurance comany will provide you under the terms of the accidental damages section of the policy and what you are legally entitled to receive in compensation from the third party as settlement of damagages. I believe a court would normally view the cost of hire of a similar car for the period a damaged car is off the road as reasonable calculation of special damages. You may have to arrange the hire of an equivalent vehicle yourself if your Insurer will only provide for a lesser car but they should be instructed to include your hire costs in their recovery from the third party
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You are of course aware that you have a duty to minimise your losses as far as is reasonable ?
No doubt you are also aware that insurance is about financial compensation ?
An example....
If you have a McClaren F1, but do not drive during the week, do you think you are entitled to hire an F1 and leave it parked on your drive while you're at work all week ? Why not ? Because your own would have been parked like that ? Perhaps because the *need* isn't there nor justifiable and therefore you would not be minimising your losses. In fact you would be pointlessly increasing them ?
If you feel that to be reasonable then follow the principle through. You are not entiteld to any car if you don't need it, and you are only entitled to the minimum vehicle you need for the minimum amount of time you actually need it. In practice, as I said, most insurers are more lenient that that, however that doesn't affect the situation if someone wants to push it.
You'll have to make your own mind up as to who is correct and as I always say - anything in here has the value of a pub conversation after a few vodkas and if a particular fact or situation is important to you, then you should go and seek professional advice.
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....You'll have to make your own mind up as to who is correct and as I always say - anything in here has the value of a pub conversation after a few vodkas ...
except for the fact that hj's faq is not in a discussion thread, but has a special page devoted to it.
unless, of course, no-fm2r is saying that the statement "anything in here has the value of a pub conversation after a few vodkas " that it applies to hj's faq pages too.
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HJ can comment on his own pages, I am talking of my comments. I try not to voice opinions at all, and certainly not represent them as definitive statements, unless I am pretty sure of my ground.
You cannot neccessarily claim for a replacement car from the TP insurers at all;
Where you can, you cannot neccessarily claim for a car equivalent to your own;
Where you can, you may not be able to claim it for the whole period.
And insofar as insistng that your car is repaired or replaced with a similar example, you can't. Under certain circumstances your insurer can simply give you money and refuse to eiher repair it or replace it.
That's how it is.
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In an open & shut case where there is no personal injury the 3rd party will often cough up your excess (£350) within a few weeks.
Is it likely to be a bit more complicated, as in the OP's case he was pushed into the vehicle in front, so presumeably they will be claiming from him?
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Well the saga continues, I'm still struggling to get my car repaired properly. Basic bodywork is ok apart from panels and seals not alligning. More annoyingly, it's a convertable and the hood no longer opens amongst lots of other niggles. Clearly I'm never going to get my car back in anything like the condition it was in prior to the accident. Then there was the courtesy car, which broke down and not replaced! Now the really sting in the tail, the driver who caused the accident was driving a courier van from company that has offices in 3 towns and which I see lots of the vehicles in these towns. My insurer tells me that the details are not on the insurance database and that attempts to contact the company have so far failed! Clearly without these details I've no chance of recovering my £350 excess, but yet more seriously does this mean that I am liable? I've tried asking my insurers but they won't answer and have just given an unreachable telephone number! Any ideas, tips, suggestion please?
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I would check the Companies House website
the free search should give you the address - follow the arrow to Find Company Info
then Webcheck - free service
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A hood that opens is a fairly basic requirement on a convertible... I would reject the repair immediately in writing, the longer you keep the car the weaker your case will be and they may claim "well Sir, it was working when we handed the keys back to you....."
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The saga continues, I've managed to get my car into a reasonable condition, albeit at my own expense! What really annoys me now is that on my insurance renewel the accident is listed as 'Fault'. When I queried this my insuraer stated that this was because they have been unable to recover the cost from the guilty party. Initially they said that the problem was that the vehicle registration didn't show up on the insurance database. I have enquired about this and was advised that commercial vehicle insurance often covers a quantity of vehicles rather than specific vehicles, anyone know if this is true? I have tried chasing my insurers but after the usual long wait they blind transfer to a solicitors voicemail! The company whose vehicle caused the accident are still operating, have a website showingf multiple offices, and the vehicles are prominent in the towns where they operate so why can't the insurer claim against them? Ant any advise would be very very welcome.
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sounds like crap to me as all vehicles have to be on the abi database if on the queens highway,i think someone is lying
at one time if the company in question was "self insuring" like a hire company lets say then yes there was a possibility that a particular registration plate would not show up
this has all now changed
go see a solicitor conversent in motor insurance
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