Non Fault Insurance Claim

[larry]

Morning,

Yesterday i went to the dentist, only to return to my car with a smash in the rear quarter! The lady in question was very apologetic (as she should be!!) So we exchanged details as you do. After i got home i called my insurance company (Admiral) and told them about it, and was given two possible ways of going.
1. I claim on my own insurance (£210 Excess)
2. I can make a non fault claim with no cost to myself.

So the obvious choice is to go with option 2, why should i pay for something thats not my fault!

So indeed i did go with option 2. Admiral then refered me to another company (Albany Assistance) that would deal with this, as they dont get involved themselfs?

With Albany assistance , they ask you to sign up to a credit agreement with themselfs. With this agreement they will arrange for you car to be fixed and will supply you with a replacment car whilst yours is being repaired. And then claim the sum back from the 3rd parties insurance policy. All sounds quite fair at the moment! Plus how it should work.

But when you read through the terms and condition of the credit agreement, it all becomes alittle darker.

Basically if the 3rd parties insurance company refuses to pay the full amount then i myself will be required to pay the remaining sum myself!! All well and good if they do pay up, but what if they dont!! Plus after a few google searches it appears that these guys charge the earth for the simplest of things, and some very bad reviews.

Has anyone else had a non fault claim through these vultures?

So my choices are

1. I go ahead and hope the other parties insurance pay up
2. I try and go direct to the other parties insurance, and get them to do the repairs themselfs (which will workout a lot cheaper for themselfs)
3. Just bite the bullet and pay the £210 excess.


Im tempted to try number 2 option but not really sure how to go about it? Anyone got any ideas?

I really dont like the sound of Albany assistance one bit, just seems wrong to me. Plus its these type of guys that increase our premiums every year cashing in on peoples misfortune..

[jman]

Sounds very familiar...

I had a car that forgot to indicate and pulled out into the lane I was driving in, smashed into my left front tyre, pushed me into a bus lane and basically fucked my car up which subsequently got wrote off.

Now the guy who crashed into me refused to state at the scene that he was at fault. he was clearly at fault and I took pictures of the incident to support my claim.

I was with Admiral as well.. and they put me onto Albany Assistance.. I needed a hire car and they quite clearly stated to me on the phone that if I was not at fault then I would not have to pay anything.. so I went with the credit hire agreement.  After I got off the phone to them, I also did a google search and was quite shocked at a lot of negative feedback about them and started to worry a bit.. so much so, I phoned them up to talk to them about the process and they still reassured me that as long as it was found as a non-fault claim, I would not have to stump up anything.  To be honest, I just needed a car, so went with it.

It took a fucking age for my money to come through for my car from admiral.. mainly because the guy refused to take blame.  So I had to fill in a ton of documents explaining how the crash happened, attach the pictures I had taken and send it all off.  They didn't deal with the claim, they put me onto some solicitor who gave me half the money for my car upfront on the proviso that I would owe them it back if it wasn't found to be a non-fault claim.

Then it took about another 6-9 months before I received the rest of the money.. I had to chase the solicitors to chase the third party though.

Anyway.. back to Albany.. I got my car fairly quickly.. nothing like my car at all.. a lime green Picasso c4 I think it was..lol.  I did have in the back of my mind about the unfair charges.. and I bought some shitheap for £200 about 2 weeks after having the hire car.. so I gave the car back as early as possible to avoid racking up a massive charge for the third party insurers and them to basically tell Albany to fuck off and take them to court.

Basically from what I could make out from the Albany paperwork is that I'd of had to of gone to court to prove that I needed the hire car for that amount of time to help Albany win the case against the third party insurer.  If Albany lost, then I would be liable for their bill.  Thankfully it never came to that.  I never paid Albany a penny - their service was good and I eventually got my money back from the third party.  However I wouldn't recommend having to go through the process.

Where were Admiral in all of this?  They didn't get involved at all.. which fucked me off really as I'm paying them for my insurance.. I want them to sort it out.. so I changed insurers very soon after the crash and paid a bit more to go with Direct Line with a hire car option.
 

I can tell you now.. whatever option you go with.. you'll have the same feeling with Admiral.. they are cheap for a reason.  The only involvement they will have is to pass you on to loads of different companies and let you fend for yourself.

[Late]

My first insurance was with Direct Line (in 1996). A third party pulled out in front of me in that first year and I ploughed straight into him. The guy apologised immediately and said he didn't look.
Similar process to you guys. I got onto the insurers, gave them all the details, but a third party (I have no idea who, now) handled the claiming from the third party.
I recall it took a few months but I was happy with how it panned out. Mainly because I wasn't really paying attention (girlfriend pregnant with major complications at the time) and I ended up getting a cheque for £1475 for a car that I'd only paid £775 for in the first place.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect getting third party specialists is a standard procedure - and that the clause that you'll be liable if it turns out you were to blame for the accident is also a standard thing.

It's natural for online reviews for companies in that sort of field to be a bit scary. If you get a good service you're unlikely to go online to review them - but you will do if you get a bad service. High numbers of complaints and negative reviews aren't much help if you don't know how many happy customers/clients someone has had.

[harv]

You should all just drive around with no insurance at all and a number of dodgy number plates in the boot in case you have an accident.

[larry]

I decided to get in touch with the lady who hit me, and she said that her husband wants to pay for the repair work himself rather than go through insurance. So he phoned me this afternoon and asked me to get some quotes for the work. It turns out that he is footballer that plays for my beloved Norwich City (no names I'm afraid  )

So I'll send him some quotes and see what happens. Only problem I can see this way is how to guarantee that he actually pays up.

I also phoned admiral back to see if I could get my excess back if I claimed on my insurance, which they replied yes as long as they accept blame. I'm really disappointed that admiral didn't mention this when I called them in the first place, rather than pushing you towards the Albany vultures way. I'd have much rather that route as she accepted blame at the time. Plus I've been with admiral for a good few years now, and had a few claims over the years and to be fair they have always dealt with everything very well.
So that's always a plan b if he doesn't accept the quotes.

So I'll give Albany a ring in the morning and tell them to fuck right off!

[harv]

That's a bit of luck as far as her hubby goes. You should ask for a signed shirt from him too

I'd say he'd definitely pay up, the last thing he wants is the potential for bad publicity lol

[jman]

Still think that if you are paying an insurance company each month/year to insure your car.. they should do all the running around for you.. not fob you off to this company and that company and get you to sort everything out yourself. 

Fine, if they want to use specialist companies.. do so.. but I think I repeated the details of what happened to 4 different companies I was fobbed off to.  Not only that, but then I needed to send in documents explaning exactly what had happened to the solicitors.. because I hadn't already explained it enough times.

I actually remembered earlier though I wasn't with Admiral but with Hastings Direct..    But looks like you've got it sorted anyway.

Been saying for years.. cant understand why the government don't regulate car insurance.. by law everyone needs it.. yet they can up and up their prices each year for no apparent reason and there is fuck all you can do about it.

[harv]

Of course you can do something about it. See my number plate suggestion above lol

[larry]

A update on this saga..

Currently i still have a big dent in the side of my motor!

As mentioned above, the footballer involved asked me to get some quotes for the repair work to my car. So i took my car to 2 local garages for them to have a look. First estimate was alittle over £2,500 and the 2nd around £2,700, so i sent the quotes over to yours truly but also added that i would have to have a replacement hire car for the duration of the work, like for like size wise ( Our car that was hit is a Ford S Max). The accident happened on the 15th of december and i sent the quotes on the 17th. I didnt have a reply until the 21st saying that he didnt realise that the damage and total cost would be so much, so he would like to go through the insurance after all!!

Fine by me, so i called admiral again to get the cogs starting again.

Admiral then said they would book the car in for repair (2nd of Jan), but would not provide me with a hire car until they had a response from their insurance company regarding accepting fault for the accident (then i could claim a car for their insurance). I said that i couldnt give them my car without a replacement due to family commitments. After phoning admiral on numerous occations they kept on telling me that their insurance company does not accept call from 3rd party insurers, but had also sent numerous emails still with no reply.  So it all went rather quite over the xmas period, i kept on phoning admiral and they still had no answer to liability.

 On the 28th of december i thought fuck this ill phone the guys that hit me and tell them the problems im having. And they have said that they sent the forms off well before xmas so didnt know why they were being so slow.. After our call i finally have a call from their insurance company sayiny that they would like to deal with myself rather than my insurnace company. I said fine, aslong as its on my terms, my choice of garage etc , which they agreed.. But first they needed to send an assessor out to have a look at the damage, but they were closed for xmas and returned to work on the 6th Jan..

 So yesterday the guy came to assess the damage, and too one look at my car and said " you arent driving this are you!?" Errr Yes !! TBH ive done a shit load of miles over xmas. He said because of where the impact was the wheel looked out of line! TBH i havent noticed anything wrong with the car accept the dent! So he deemed the car un road worthy, so with that i called their insuance company and told them the news.

 So they arranged for a car to be delivered today from Hertz hire. Hertz hire phone me today and said that the car (Ford Galaxy) will be delivered today at around 4pm and then read me all these terms and conditions regarding the hire and a damage assessment on  the hire that i would need to sign before they left the car (noteing scatches and marks) They finally turn up at 5pm today with the car, 3 eastern european guys with no id other than a piece of hertz paper work arrive and then start to show me every scatch they can see (bare in mind the time, its dark!!) They didnt even have a torch, instead used an iphone!! and i said im not signing faf all as i cant see anything in this light, and with their limited english aswell the whole thing was rather long winded. Eventually after a call to their office i did sign for the car but stated in VERY BIG letters that it is dark and i cant see anything, as their office had agreed.. The car is pretty much the same as ours, so didnt take them up on the interior layout tour..So the 3 guys fuck off,  i  then take alook in the car to find thats its an automatic, Ive always hated the fuckin things personally! So i take it for a drive and yes i still fuckin hate them! So i call the hire company again to ask for a replacement, which eventually they agree to and should hopefully be deliver tomorrow (fingers crossed!)

Still no currnet date for my car to booked in, so the saga does continue

Happy New Year All