To think this is ridiculous/unfair? (car accident related)

[ThreeJumpersIsNotEnough]

Last month, I was hit by another car. The other driver admitted fault in front of three independent witnesses. There was no doubt that I was not to blame.

My insurance company supplied me with a hire car, however, I cannot believe the amount of time and money this accident has cost me and it wasn't even my fault!

1. I had to take a half day annual leave to sort out my car getting to the garage and collecting the hire car.

1. I then paid £70 for an insurance excess waiver thingy on the hire car (not recoverable as this was non-compulsory)

1. I had to clean the hire car inside and out before taking it back to the hire place as I'd be charged if it was not in the same condition as when I received it

1. I had to take another half day annual leave to take back the hire car and collect my own car from the garage

1. I had to pay the £300 excess on my own insurance to the garage for the repairs. The law company I get through my insurance said they cannot work to reclaim this until I could send them proof of payment.

1. I have spent at least an hour on the phone in total sorting everything out (insurance, hire car, garage, law company who recover costs)

1. Yesterday, I received a 40 page document from the law company which I have to complete in order to reclaim my insurance excess. This will easily take me 90 minutes at least. Why? I have already given an in depth description to them and my insurance company via telephone. What was the point of doing that when a) i still had to pay the excess up front and b) they want it all written down anyway?

I am royally pissed off. Another driver makes a stupid mistake and I have to go through all this trouble to get my excess back and to restore my no claims discount.

AIBU to think that if the other driver is blatantly at fault - and admits so - the accident should be immediately recorded as non-fault (for the non-fault driver) and the NF driver shouldn't have to pay the excess?

I don’t understand what you are complaining about. You list a lot of expenses but then you only focus on the excess and say you have been told you can reclaim it with evidence. So why not just do that? Its an unfortunate situation and expensive but the excess that you can reclaim isn’t really something to moan about

What's unfair is that someone hit my car in a car park, didn't own up to it and now I have to pay hundreds to put it right as its a company car.

I'm with you. Whinge away. Had this a few years back and ended up well out of pocket, wasted precious time and lots of stress (once when my car was written off entirely and another time I'd only had my car for 6 weeks when someone took the side off it /£10k of damage )
The insurance business needs a good shake up. They are slow, and wouldn't know customer focus if it slapped them in the face!

Too much small print and paying up
Front then having to claim back.
It's rubbish.
You have my sympathy.

At least you weren't hurt.
My DC was injured in a RTC that was not their fault.
The other driver admitted they were not familiar with the highway code in the UK
The other driver was abusive and aggressive and should have been arrested but was not.
I had to pay up front for private physio, hire car, replacement car that cost a lot more than the estimated value of our car that was written off.
I had to take DC for various medical examinations plus support and care for them for weeks while they slowly recovered.
It took nearly 3 years to resolve the claim despite the other driver admitting liability the day after the incident.
We went through 4 different claim handlers due to sheer incompetence and about 1000 emails plus dozens of bits of paperwork.
The eventual settlement still left us out of pocket until we eventually sold the replacement car.
Even an accident that is completely not your fault is a time consuming and expensive business.
And your premiums go up as a result.

I'm not sure why you're so hyper about the excess. On my insurance I set how much excess to pay & know in the event of an accident I'd have to pay it upfront.

If you had to clean the inside of the hire car...it must have needed it.

Of course you need to put everything in writing, it would be stupid not to for both you & the insurance company. You're asking for money to be refunded, it's common sense you'd have to show evidence you'd paid it out in the first place.

I know you're pee'd off but YBVU.

Maybe it's time for a new insurance company.

I really sympathise op. It’s a crap system.

you choose the insurance company and policy, yabu

I had a non fault claim last year & didn't have to do any of this. My insurance company collected my car from my work & delivered the hire car at the same time, no excess waiver even offered as my policy excess transferred over in the event of a claim in the hire car. Didn't need to do anything with the car before it was then collected from my work again & my car returned. No excess to pay for the repairs. I think you need to change insurance companies, the claims service you've received isn't great. There shouldn't be any barriers to claiming which there does appear to be in this instance, particularly in claiming the excess back.

Change insurer.

I was hit by another driver at the start of this year. Loads of witnesses so no issue with liability as it had also been caught on street CCTV and police attended (it was a bad smash involving several cars).

I went through my own insurance but passed on the other driver's details. I didn't have to pay my excess because my insurer was happy I wasn't at fault. They arranged a hire car for me at my nearest town. The branch had long opening hours and it took 5 minutes to collect. No issues at all with being told to clean the car - I just dropped it back when I was done, which was a quick in and out with the key. My own car had been repaired and fully valeted by the garage and it took 5 minutes to check the condition and sign the paper to say I'd got my key back.

My premium for my car insurance was not the cheapest - by about £100. But when it comes to claims service you get what you pay for, and I wanted a big firm, with good cover and service.

Oh and the only legal statement I had to sign was a couple of pages from the law firm outlining what had happened - to check that I was happy it was an accurate version of events. I didn't have to pay an excess waiver either, because my own insurance excess transferred across.

Another one here with a different non-fault claim experience. My car was undriveable so insurance company sorted taxi and pickups so that I could get to the hire car place (we were on holiday) - no charge. It was clearly not my fault so no excess to pay. The only expense I did have to claim back was buying a new car seat.
It did take a lot of time though, probably 6 weeks before my car was sorted with the associated phone calls to/from the garage and insurance company about that. No massive forms to fill in though. I was with direct line, I've had to claim a couple of times in my 20 odd years of driving and direct line have always been great.

This happened to me recently but my experience has been the exact opposite - the insurance company have made it all v easy. The accident was near home on a Thursday afternoon and I managed to get my poor old car to limp home so I could ring up from there.

I called at about 4.30pm and sent through some photos on their app to show the extent of the damage. The circumstances (other driver pulled out of a side road and t-boned my car) made it clear that it was not my fault so they waived the excess immediately and organised for someone from a hire car company to come to my house and pick me up in order to get a hire car. They also gave me a write-off quote. By 6pm I was back home with my hire car.

I rejected the quote they had offered and sent through one advert from auto trader with a similar car to mine and they raised their offer by £400, which I accepted and they paid that into my account the next day. They arranged for the breaker to pick up my old car on a day when I was working from home. I kept the hire car until the day after that so that I could get my new car sorted.

I've been amazed by the good service - it wasn't what I was expecting at all.

I had similar when I was hit in February. Not my insurance company's (Admiral) fault, though. I had to arrange everything through my insurance as the person who went into the back of me didn't report the accident to his insurance company until Monday afternoon. It happened Friday morning! I needed a car to get to work on Monday so I had no choice but to organise it and claim it back. Bloody expensive it's been as well!

It's really frustrating. But at least you're not hurt. And you can claim it back.

I’m not sure you have the best insurance ompany to be honest. Y car was parked and hit by a neighbour (she buggered off and left me to find the door shoved in) we found it was her by CCTV her insurance paid for my repairs and even the memory stick to download the CCTV as evidence. I didn’t have to clean the hire car just return it with same level of fuel as on collection. I didn’t lay out a penny.

DP car has just been sideswiped last week other driver admitted liability, excess has been waived due to this it goes in Thursday for assessment to be repaired.

I do totally agree the time and inconvenience is absolutely not fair and infuriating when it’s not your fault but what other way could it be dealt with?

But seriously reconsider your insurance company they sound really poor

Also as I was busy my hire car was dropped and collected for me

I work in the industry and service varies so much with uninsured loss recovery companies, some are just interested in making money and are actually quite unhelpful! I take it you haven’t gone through a broker ? With regard to wanting excess proof that is standard as is filling a form out for the uninsured loss company, however 40 pages is very extreme, you could ask your insurers to forward them a copy of their report and you just add all your out of pocket expenses to it. Insurance claims can be a minefield , if you’re not through a broker @ThreeJumpersIsNotEnough and need any advice I can try and help.

Some delightful soul keyed my car. Had to pay excess, take time off re hire cars etc, and lost my no claims bonus. Yup, its crap but at least your hard work will put ou back in a good position.

I've paid out ££££ in excesses recently

Neighbours flooded my flat - twice. £50 excess the first time, £100 excess the second
Someone punched my car. £150 excess
The latest was a firework through my window, not worth claiming but £300 for a new carpet as it's been burnt and melted

I have two non fault incidents (hit in rear & hit whilst parked) in recent years. Both occasions I was looked after very well by the third party insurance companies.

However, what I find very unfair is when I've declared these incidents on renewal my own insurance has gone up by 25 percent, despite my NCD not been affected.

That sounds terrible - seriously change insurers!

Our car was damaged in an accident that definitely wasn't our fault this year. We had a hire car and damage repaired, cost us nothing. We did have to take the hire car back after but that was it.

Also had a windscreen chip repaired, cost £10, done at work with no impact on my no claims.

We're with Aviva.

My car was hit with £1800 of damage. 2 witnesses got all the info for me as I was in work.

Insurer picked up my car, the hire company picked me up to collect hire car.

The insurance company did all the work and the insurance company of the van which hit my car, paid my excess.

You should’ve dealt direct with the third party’s insurer. In a case like this where there is no argument over liability their third party claim team will bend over backwards to help you as it will mitigate their loss. You would not have paid out your excess and they would have supplied you with a hire car. The only expense may have been if you chose to remove the hire car excess. You would also have been able to use the repairer of your choice which may have been more convenient for you.

I had a non fault claim a few years back. I think you have chosen a bad insurance company. I paid no excess, they repaired the car and the hire car was delivered to my house and then collected by the hire car company. I kept it clean and had to put fuel in it when I returned it. Took about 2 weeks and was easy!

You should’ve dealt direct with the third party’s insurer. In a case like this where there is no argument over liability their third party claim team will bend over backwards to help you as it will mitigate their loss. You would not have paid out your excess and they would have supplied you with a hire car.

Not my experience at all! I was hit by another driver a few years go. Went directly through his insurance (Admiral) and they were a nightmare. I didn't have to pay my excess but they wanted me to sign a credit hire agreement for a car that would make me liable for the payment, if for any reason the insurer didn't pay! I refused to sign it, was left with no car and having to get to work on public transport (I drive to different sites so this was a nightmare). To add insult to injury they refused to reimburse my travel costs (train and bus tickets), admitting that they should pay them but telling me that I'd have to take them to court first. Shitty attitude and shitty service - the irony being that I was also insured with them at the time! Funnily they couldn't apologise enough when I rang to cancel my policy - too late.

That's why I went through my own insurer when it happened again, and I'm glad I did because their service was brilliant (Aviva, if you're wondering). Not cheap but you get what you pay for.