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Last month I was travelling to work on the A1124 Halstead Road at Earls Colne in Essex and on the way I stopped at a newsagents to purchase a newspaper. When I exited the shop I witnessed a blue van reverse into my car causing damage to the rear right hand side. It began to drive away so I ran after it and stood in front of it to stop it. The driver got out and said that he was sorry for hitting my car and that he wasnt looking where he was going, he apologised again and gave me his insurance details.
When I arrived at work five minutes later I telephoned his insurance company and confirmed with them that he was insured and had given me correct details, I told them what had happened and they told me there was nothing they could do until the accident was reported to them by the policy holder. So I telephoned my insurance company, Admiral and reported it to them. They told me to take my car to Colchester accident repairs where it would be repaired.
As instructed, I took the car to Colchester and was given a courtesy car while mine was being repaired. When settling the bill with the garage I had to pay an excess of £300. I questioned this with Admiral as the accident was not my fault and I was told that that I had to pay it and that it would be refunded to me when the money was recovered from the other insurance company. Like a fool I trusted Admiral and paid the £300 believing that it would be refunded to me as promised.
The next week I received a letter from my insurance company stating that my policy was due to expire and that I should renew. My premium had gone up by over £300 so I telephoned Admiral to ask why. I was told that I had lost my no claims discount due to the accident. Naturally I told them that the accident was not my fault and that I had given them the details of the guilty party who had admitted fault. I was told that there was nothing that they could do about it as until money was received from the insurance company, it was counted as pending and that I should pay the extra and that it also would be refunded to me along with the £300 excess when the money was received from the other insurance company. Again, I believed them and paid up, presuming that in the near future I would be receiving around £600 that was due to me.
At the time £600 was over half of my monthly salary and put me into financial difficulties. But being naive I believed that I would get it back. The next thing I heard was that the van driver had apparently contacted Admiral and admitted fault. He told them that he didnt want the accident to be dealt with by his insurance company and that he would pay for any damage himself presumably to retain his no clames bonus. Admiral agreed to this without ever consulting me or even informing me of their intentions.
When Admiral sent the van driver the bill for repairs he returned their letter saying he no longer lived at that address and had left no forwarding details. This was a blatant lie because he lived a short distance from my work and I saw him every morning. I lived in Colchester and worked in Halstead, he worked in Colchester and lived in Halstead and I passed him on the road every morning. I informed Admiral of this and again was told that there was nothing they could do about it and I would not receive the money owed to me until the money was collected from him in full. They also informed me that they had passed his details on to a debt recovery agency who were trying to trace him. Even though I continually enquire about this matter by telephone I am told it is still pending, that was three years ago. Since then I have had quotations from other insurers who quote an over inflated premium because I have an ongoing claim to which no fault has been agreed.
I would estimate that to present, building up my no claims discount again by paying the higher premiums together with the £600 owed to me I am out of pocket in the region of at least £1,000, money that is due to me because of Admiral's incompetence in dealing with this matter properly.
Article By: Aggrieved from Colchester
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he drove a company van and and admitted liability, so i claimed off his companys insurance,
now my insurance HAS INCREASED BY £500 - £600 A YEAR taking it well over a thousand pounds a year now and all for an incident that wasnt my fault in anyway whatsoever. i have shopped around and everywhere is the same result.
to make matters worse i only bought my car 6 months before on finance and so now am still paying for a car i dont even own, insurance claim doesnt cover the cost of what your paying for your car never does.
this bastard has got away scott free as it was a company van he worked for, so may just got a slapped wrist from them, however i am still paying for my car and my insurance has sky rocketed thanks to this asshole being careless, i really do feel like going to his house and beating the crap out of him it is soooo unfair how he has completely impacted my life and he has got away scott free.
I was insured by Privilege when I got hit by a Romainian car in North London. The registration format was the same as UK and they kept telling me I was mistaken as the registration I gave them was a motorbike in Nottingham. Once they finally understood that they needed to check the Romainian equivalent of the DVLA they confirmed my description of the car was correct. I thought this would sort it out but it didn't. They felt it was too much trouble to contact that drivers insurance so they classed the accident as my fault, kept my £400 excess and took my no claims away.
I'm currently pursuing them for a breach of contract but they've strung it out since Sept 2014. It's hugely stressful and I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Meanwhile my insurance has gone up over £300 a year, I'm out of pocket by the excess and as I moved away from them to another insurer they are telling me they cannot deal with me as I am not a client of theirs anymore.
Time for some solicitors maybe!
As far as I remember it's generally assumed that if you are hit up the back it's the fault of the person behind, that's how the scam of braking suddenly to make the driver behind hit you works; so they should have assumed it wasn't his fault anyway.
I hope you were one of the people that voted BREXIT to start the revolution against corruption and the decline of principles and decency.
If you have an issue with your insure advice that you would like to raise a complaint (simple I know, but read on). They will log the complaint and do one of two things, either try and resolve it there and then or advice they will be in contact within 2 working days (they are required to do this). You now wait, because they can write to you on the second working day, so the allow 6 working days (2 for the company & 4 for the not so royal mail). In this time you should receive contact, if you haven't chase it.
Quite often that letter will advice the next step. If it something simple like you aren't happy if how much you have spent on call or bank charges due to their error, expect a cheque for the cost plus a little bit to keep you sweet. If it is something more complicated, they will advice they are looking into it and the process from here.
The process is simply a continuing set of processes until you are happy or they are sick of dealing with you, at which stage they will close the case.
They will try to resolve the issue on their system, IE, get you to agree it is resolved. If you agree to the outcome you agree it is close, you never have to do this until they say that they are unwilling to discuss the matter further and are closing the case. Donnast - 3-Dec-12 17:53 - for example accepted the outcome, they could have argued and forced them to honour the sales call. Once they decide to close the case, that is it for them. I hear far too often "I'm the customer you can't close it till I am happy", that's a load of horse s***, it can be closed without your agreement at any stage the company wishes, a lot of customers are unreasonable and are asking for way too much.
If the complaint is ongoing for 8 weeks it will have gone stale and you no longer have to wait for further contact and can jump to the next step without the complaint being closed.
Right, at this stage you have to remember 2 things. One, if you are being reasonable they will probably have settled with you by now. Two, if it is under 8 weeks and the complaint isn't closed, there is no point jumping the gun.
At this stage you are allowed to contact the FCA and raise the complaint with them. You can do it before this point but they really wont be that interested, they will open a file and the like, but they wont be actively involved until the complaint is over 8 weeks or closed.
Side notes - Raising a complaint with FCA costs the companies silly money, like £500 per complaint to be investigated EVEN if the complaint is found in THEIR favour. So anything below £500 where you push the point, they are likely to just settle with you.
But you want more than £500? SAR time. SAR - subject access request. This is your requesting ALL data they have on you, you will have to pay a nominal fee, but it will cost them £1000-2000. So once again they are likely to settle for £999.99 at this stage if it convinces you that you are no longer interested in your SAR.
A SAR will piss the company off, and is a last ditch manoeuvre, and if they think you are a dick they will just do it.
ABOVE ALL ELSE, be nice. Complaints handlers are people. Pissing them off is not in your interest. Do not shout, do not scream. Speak calmly, know what you want exactly and express this clearly. If they know exactly want you want they know the target and can be honest and say whether they can meet that or not.
Lo and behold they accused her of being a bad driver when in fact she was not in the car at the time of the collision.
The idiots doubled her premium. I don't know if they, as the census returns around 1900 where they need a column for idiots/lunatics or imbeciles, should have a column headed thus referring to the insurance co..
Well.... my renewal has just arrived for the year and they have removed 3 years off my no claims bonus and charged me just under £80 for the privilege!! I'm disgusted to be honest. I have never claimed against my insurance in the 10 years I have been driving. So to receive this has really upset me,
orthodontic treatment
vasi
Also,It seems that some insurance companies work together for their benefit and not the poor paying customer.
What are our options