So not had the Mondeo quite three weeks. All filters service complete, new front discs/pads, alloys refurbed plus 4 new tyres, new Ford carpet mat set and loadspace mat, timing belt kit in the garage ready to fit.
Pleased it runs so nicely and seems to be the decent car I thought it was. Then last Friday early am daughter from three houses away reverses hard into my passenger front door as she leaves for work. Leaves a note as it's early and also witnessed by our next door neighbour. Girl and her mum admit it and say can I get a quote to save it going through her insurance... I was wary but to establish a baseline cost took it to the nearest insurance approved bodyshop we've used before.
Door is mangled but luckily absolutely no damage to adj panels. Quote arrives by email for £1853 inc vat. New Ford door plus handle etc is over £1100 alone. That concentrates their minds so they offer insurance details.
I phoned my company, Churchill, to inform but not claim. They are keen to deal with it all, supply hire car etc, and state there will be no excess to pay and no impact on my no claims. I am of course realistic next years premium could lift a little but not worried about that.
Soon after I have a phone call apparently from the girls company, Admiral, the caller was keen to offer to have everything dealt with inc a hire car delivered in a couple of hours and a £200 general expenses "bonus" paid on top of repairs to cover any out of pocket expenses. I told them no to everything saying Churchill were on the case. By the end of the call I wondered if it was a crafty third party claims company because of their expansive offers.
Then I get emailed letters and phone calls from Churchill that include the phrases the excess may become repayable and the car may not be an economic repair. Next their nominated bodyshop phone and want photos to make an initial assessment on the the economics of repair vs scrapping. Once they'd seen these they then requested they collect it to make that economic assement in more detail.... and they mention I will have to pay my excess.
Have further call with Churchill that I'm worried there seems the possibility they will write off and pay out. I discuss I've only had it a couple of weeks buying at a garage price and since then spent £750+ on getting it spot on. They comment it is unlikely I will be settled for as much as I paid and they cannot pay any extra for the specific work I've carried out. So I could look at losing £1000 or more.
Bit fed up and reluctant to let them collect the car knowing what's likely to be offered... then my mind turns to the Admiral call so I phone them and sure enough I'm on their system. After I set out my case that I just want to put my car back in the condition prior to their insured damaging it he asks to be emailed half a dozen images of the car, the damage and quote I have from the bodyshop.
Guy mutes the call for 2 mins then offers a "cash in lieu of repair" bank transfer for the £1853 of the repair quote for me to sort it all myself in an manner I chose. I jumped at that, now have the offer letter attached to an email and the funds should arrive soon today.
Result in the end as I get to keep the car unencumbered by a damage category marker and I will source a good used door to save most of the parts cost and also build in a buffer which will cover an unrelated ding on the driver's side which I'd intended to do before long anyway.
Funny that my own insurance seemed so keen on a course that would have lost me money but the other company were pragmatic and quick in their decision.
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Well you seem to have it all in hand. Well done Admiral. And you'll finish up with the driver's door undinged.
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In a way both companies were correct. They are just looking it at it from a different respective. If you damage someone’s property you are liable for the full costs incurred in putting them back in the same position as they were before the loss even if that cost exceed the value of the car The Admiral seem to have done this to your satisfaction on behalf of their client,
You own insurance policy is one of indemnity which means they need to put you back in the same financial position i.e give you the worth of you car which in their estimation the did.
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...last year I went through a similar process.
Hit from behind whilst stationary letting an ambulance through. Guy whizzed round the corner through the traffic lights behind, and into the back end. I even had the handbrake on!
He admitted responsibility to me immediately, but of course........
Reported to my insurance company. Who had everything in train within an hour of reporting. Then next morning got the other guy's insurance company confirming he'd admitted responsibility, and offering to take everything over.
As I was already well under way, I continued through my own insurance. The only downside (if you can call it that) was that I had to pursue my own company to register it as a "no-blame, all costs recovered" incident (maintaining NCB, and the subsequent premium moved very little). They were a trifle tardy in confirming that, and, having paid my excess with the repair, I had to pursue that through the third party's insurance (though my own insurance did assist)..
It's unlikely you would have been significantly out of pocket going through your own insurance* if you had written (or text) acceptance of liability from the third party's insurance company, but it might take longer to get back to square one.
*unless, of course, they did decide to write it off at a low price.
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Green car y'see...
( sucks teeth and touches rabbit's foot )
;-)
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>>>Green car y'see...
Well yes... and I do factor it in on the road when someone not seeing me might cause an accident. Now had it been "safe" silver the local scrappys have a perfect door that I could just bolt on myself and come out... well substantially up on the deal. But calls round the country indicate this is a rare colour to find in the breakers. Worth spending a day phoning round though as far simpler to get the right colour then no need to strip off all the seals and trim to spray the inside bits.
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Sorry, to read this, but glad it seems to have a good ending. It is shocking how high these repair bills can be - hit a pheasant in the Scout last month. It only broke a few of the vertical struts in the grill. I phoned the local garage thinking a new grill might be less than the £200 excess, only to discover that you can't get the grill separately, it's part of the 'front assembly'. The part is £400 and the 'top bumper' bit has to be sprayed, so just over £700 in total. Fortunately I have a protected NCB.
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You might have a protected NCB but expect a rise in base premium at renewal :-(
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Yes, I know - just had the renewal, it's gone up by about £100. How much is general increase I don't know but some must be due to the claim...
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>> Funny that my own insurance seemed so keen on a course that would have lost
>> me money but the other company were pragmatic and quick in their decision.
>>
I was a bit dismayed by the way LV= handled the write-off of daughters car after an Argos van rear-ended it.
I knew it would be marginal but I'd thought you could pretty well demand to be "put back in the position you were in before" but they wouldn't hear of repairing the car. One suggestion I heard is they (LV at least) guarantee repairs for 5 yrs and as the car was already 7yrs old they don't want to be on the hook until it's 12. We got market value for the car but that didn't reflect the value to us as we'd owned it from and had fairly recent cambelt / brakes / tyres etc.
Separately - be interested to know of you get the VAT inclusive figure. Wife's car was swiped by a bus and they settled by cheque for around £700 based on their engineers estimate but wouldn't include VAT unless we produced an invoice that included it, as they can't reclaim it. Incredibly a PDR guy polished out the scuff for a tenner!
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I think what puzzled me was that my company, Churchill, really pushed to deal with this claim as if they were the perfect solution to both the financial and logistic elements. But in reality that quite quickly started to unravel in both respects.
Yet the other drivers company, Admiral, simply stated what they'd do and kept to that with a very fast settlement.
The bank transfer arrived yesterday afternoon and it included the VAT element thankfully. I have previously experienced trouble with this though when a new Ifor Williams flat bed trailer was stolen and under the policy wording due to its age under a year I was due a brand new replacement or a payout of the price paid. I went for the price paid on the invoice I had and the loss adjuster tried to claim they were largely a commercial user trailer and such people would have already claimed the VAT back... that it was my "fault" for buying a "commercial" trailer as a private person and he'd not authorise the VAT element.
It was with the NFU and I just phoned them and said you've wasted your money on an idiot of a loss adjuster... they agreed and paid in full.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Thu 18 Apr 19 at 08:33
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Your insurers were keen because they will push it to their claims management company who will sting the other insurer for £100 per day credit hire costs etc. Conversely Admiral know that, so jumped at dealing with you directly because they can hire one in for £20 a day.
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Yes true... after a couple of days I had a letter detailing contacts and phone numbers for my case from my insurer and I'd been moved from the claims department to their debt recovery department and told to deal only with them. That was another of the alarm bells that caused me to seek other ways to get this settled... didn't want to get between the insurance companies.
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Bit more of a result than expected.
I nipped down the local scrappy who found a mint door which they took off for me... £50. And they left in all the lock and window mechanisms which are normally stripped out and sold as extras. Took that round to the bodyshop to re-quote on the basis of using that door and the internal/trim bits they needed as if new from Ford... but otherwise doing the fit/spray job to insurance spec. Oh and including an unrelated ding which I was going to do at some point anyway.
The saving over the quote I was paid out on amounts to a somewhat embarrassing surplus of around £900 after taking the cost of the door into account.
It's an ill wind and all that.
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I'd use the 900 quid to change it from unlucky green...........
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Hmm perhaps buy all the youngsters here parking sensor kits. When we moved into this small cul-de-sac there were only parents with cars. But in the 7yrs since inc our own daughter there are now six youngsters with cars.
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Dont know what you will do about the pensioners with Auto's in a few years tho.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 21 Apr 19 at 12:13
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Ford Mondeo IV - An accident... so soon! - hawkeye
