Sainsburys van wrote my car off

They won’t do anything that shows them actually admitting liability. They will go with the insurer judgement. The worry is if they accept liability then down the line you instruct one of those ambulance chasing scumbag firms they are to pay a lot more.

It's not up to her insurers. Her insurers are doing the negotiations and admin for her as part of the service (possibly badly) but Sainsbury's are the people who have wronged her and owe her the money.

If my neighbour recklessly breaks my greenhouse with a football then they owe me a replacement greenhouse. If my neighbour recklessly breaks my car with their car then they owe me a replacement car. The fact that the latter transaction probably goes via their insurer and possibly also via my insurer doesn't change who's liable to pay.

What?

Many years ago my Maestro was written off after being rear ended.

I got a surprisingly good settlement on the basis that while the car was old it had been my parents before it was mine so was a known quantity whereas if I went out with £350 I could get a heap of odure

It’s up to her insurance to ensure that she is adequately ‘compensated’. If a neighbour scraped my car, and insurance paid out, I wouldn’t then be seeking compensation from the neighbour.

It's not "grabby" to want full recompense for the (vicarious) actions of Sainsbury's. The OP has a legal right (in theory) not to be put out of pocket at all, to be back in the same position as she was before they rammed into her car: with a functioning elderly car.

The financial recompense should come through their insurance. But once the insurer has accepted liability and paid out then IMO Sainsbury's should also apologise just as a neighbour would who scraped your car.

When my DH had an altercation with an Asda van I got a voucher for a month of groceries.
When my DS got side swiped by a Domino’s driver he got a free pizza a week for a year.
I’m on the hunt for an Ann Summers delivery lorry…

But that’s a risk we knowingly take when we buy a car. The OP is just being grabby and hoping to get ‘compensation’ as the vehicle just so happened to belong to a public facing company. Unfortunately, it’s simply ‘tough shit’.

Insurance companies sort out the costs. Not sure what else you want from this. You won’t get extra compensation. 🤷‍♀️

Unfortunately, they will not to anything to apologise or compensate. This could be seen as a admission of liability which may go against them if you decided to take a personal injury claim etc. They are going to act on the advice of their legal department or insurers. The fact that you are a customer who buys from them is irrelevant to them

Agree with pp that cars should have contents cover. Ours was set on fire in an act of vandalism and we lost our car seat and buggy as a result

Mine has. I have £200 personal belongings cover and full replacement child seats. I don't have much in my car so £200 is fine for me but I presume you can increase it.

Yes, the feeling cross is understandable, but I think it falls under “shit happens” rather than “I should get compensation”.

You and Yours on Radio 4 had an item on car accidents with delivery drivers today, worth a listen as you were lucky to get a payout it seems!

Agree with pp that cars should have contents cover. Ours was set on fire in an act of vandalism and we lost our car seat and buggy as a result 😫

But she isn't right to expect an apology from customer services, 50,000 Nectar points and a bunch of flowers. That's not how insurance works.

The OP has done nothing wrong and yet is out of pocket as her insurance will have risen next time she renews (even if she is not at fault) and she has only been given the very bare value of her car. And then there’s the massive admin hassle and inconvenience. She’s right to be pissed off.

Think if it this way - if you hit and wrote off Joe Bloggs car that was parked on the street, exchanged insurance details and gave an accurate description of the event to your insurer, which accepted you were at fault and paid out to Joe (ie you met all your legal obligations), would you also expect to personally send Joe flowers, an apology and maybe even monetary compensation for the inconvenience of having to get a new car? I wouldn’t. I don’t see why the fact you got hit by a company van rather than a random individual means you think you should get something extra.

Your annual spend is pretty irrelevant. In any case you aren't exactly a big customer at under £100 a week. But as I said it's not really relevant. They are insured as are you. If you were in their car park shopping and someone crashed into you would you expect the supermarket to compensate you?

My old banger got written off while parked up last year. My insurance company had a hire car to me within hours, sorted everything out including recovery and paid out enough to buy another old banger 2 weeks later.
Yes it was a pain, but it was made as stress free as possible for me. The only issue was I got rather attached to the lovely hire car!!
We're you only on 3rd party, because your insurance company sounds rubbish.

Payouts are usually the current value of the car. IME you always lose out with a total loss claim, regardless of fault. The fault determines whose insurance pays.

With a claim like this you should have been put back in the position you were before the accident. So able to buy a car similar to the one that was written off. If that was not the case it is your own insurance company that has let you down in their negotiation with Sainsbury.

Surely Sainsbury's insurers should have been involved here? We had a car hit by a bus and the driver left a card with details of who to contact at the bus's insurers.

They're liable anyway

What was the response to your complaint?

OP I have a lot of sympathy for you. My car is old but well maintained etc and I intend to keep it for many years to come. Sadly insurance is "bare bones" and only pays out what your car is worth. It doesn't take account of the inconvenience you suffer and the fact that if you have a well maintained car, albeit old, the payout won't get you another car you can trust in the same way.
It's like many things in life when a crime, or an accident, affects you there may be some penalty for the wrong doer but it will always be a more negative experience for the victim.
My only suggestion is that when you buy a car start saving for the next one the same day!

A furniture delivery van drove into our car when it was parked in the street. We weren’t at home but a kind neighbour was outside at the time and took details and photos for us.

When I called the company (I’m not a customer) they were very apologetic- while still staying on the right side of admitting liability. I appreciated that. After that we let our respective insurers deal with it. Our car was fortunately repairable, but about 6 months later we were contacted to say that the furniture company had denied liability and so we had to give a witness statement for court. We filled in a form saying we had seen nothing but referring to the photos. Didn’t want to offer up our neighbour to give evidence and we weren’t pressed by our insurance company to do so. Heard no more of it, our car was fixed so we weren’t really bothered. I did always wonder on what grounds they were denying liability though - our car was legally parked so it could not have been our fault. They must have said it was a different vehicle that hit ours, but the driver admitted at the scene that he had hit our car and there were photos of bits of his taillight on the ground next to our car, along with a corresponding snap of the broken light on his van. Must have been some sort of game of legal chicken about adequacy of evidence since there was no driver in our car to give a first hand account of what happened. I have no idea if our insurers eventually succeeded.