To think I shouldn’t have to use my car insurance for this?

[Mar124]

In my work place carpark, a large tree limb fell on my car damaging it badly. I was in the car when it happened. The car is now financially written off, and I’ve had no car for two weeks. This is because I was told my employer’s insurance would cover it. I was since told, they will not cover it now and I’ve to use my own insurance. I’ve never had to touch insurance in my life and now face losing my no claims bonus higher premium etc. for something completely not my fault. AIBU to not want to use my own insurance, when I was told it was being sorted by my employer?

Well he should know.......

Of course you claim on your car insurance - that's what it is for!

Wouldn’t this be classed as an act of God and therefore not your employer’s responsibility but your insurer’s? I think most car parks are park at your own risk.

It's a bummer, but this is exactly what we pay for any sort of insurance for. To be able to claim from, in the event of needing to replace (or sometimes repair) that which is damaged. Same with home insurance, or any other kind of insurance.

I'm no lawyer, but would only think the employer could be liable if you, or your insurers could prove they could have predicted that the tree was about to fall and had done nothing about it.
From all your other threads about this, you said it happened in very high winds in one of the named storms. I'm guessing it wasn't predicted by anyone.

It is one of those times in life that you reflect how lucky you are that you weren't physically hurt, and how lucky you were that you had fully comp on your insurance, and you move on with life. It is frustrating your NCD gets reduced, but that's the way insurance works.

I did this and founds loads of examples of similar cars but the insurance company just didn't want to know and wouldn't budge.

OP the whole point of insurance is for incidents like this.

I know it's annoying and expensive to lose your no claims, but that's the way life is.

Imagine how much it would cost you if you had to replace the car (fully) from your own funds (I know the insurance company probably won't cough up the actual value of the car).

People have got silly about insurance though. It's all about saving the no claims bonus, rather than actually claiming for damage that the insurance covers.

But it isn't your employer's fault 🤷🏻‍♀️

This happened at my work. A tree from the neighbouring property fell onto one of our employee's cars. He had to tell his insurance but the next door neighbour was liable for the costs because it was proven that the tree was rotten and they were negligible. I'd be looking into that angle and if that is the case, you should be able to keep your no claims as well.

I work in car insurance. Yes you would claim from your insurance. It would be a fault claim unless your insurer can prove your employer is responsible (unlikely) as it means your insurer will be paying the costs.

If you have your NCD protected you won’t lose it but also won’t gain another year. If it’s not protected then most insurers have a step back system (my company does 2 years) so if you have 6 years NCD now, upon renewal you would go down to 4 years.

If you are very lucky and your employer is liable and their insurance pays, it would be non fault and you wouldn’t lose any NCD.

Even if they are liable, you still have to make a claim on your own insurance first.

This is how insurance works. You make the claim, your insurance company will then contact the landowner (your employer) to get the insurance company details for them, and then the insurance companies sort it out between them.

There is no way that you can do this without involving your insurance company unless you take the employer to court. And even then, if you can’t afford to do that, then your car insurance would have to be used to cover the costs.

Make the claim so that you can at least get either a rental vehicle or paid out so you can buy another car.

Car insurance isn’t just for things that are your fault.

You claim through them, and they’ll try to recover costs from the third party if they can.

@Mar124

Also, do not discuss this with anyone at your workplace because anything you say could be prejudicial as, let’s face it, you’re probably not starting conversations with “without prejudice” at the beginning!

Do you protect your no claims.? If you did it shouldn't impact your No claims as you can claim so many times with out losing it.

You have to go through your insurance company (unless your boss pays you up front)

Hopefully the claim will be a non fault claim which shouldn't impact on your renewal too drastically. But do shop around.

Also do you get a hire car in your policy?

Employer’s insurance covering all costs now as tree was shown to be in very bad health.

Great update op.

That's a good outcome OP!

Sadly your premiums will still go up but at least you won't lose any NCD.