Sainsburys van wrote my car off

[Wildflower1987]

On Dec 6th, my Sainsbury’s delivery van scraped down the side of my parked car. It caused significant damage and the car was written off.

It was an old car but running perfectly, but due to age and mileage the insurance payout was very low. It caused me immense stress sorting out the hire car and a new car just before Christmas and in order to buy another car I had to take out a loan.

I haven’t had any apology from Sainsbury’s at all even though I have notified them via complaints.

All the car insurance info was done through my insurer.

I’m a longstanding customer, and spend on average £4-5k a year with them. I feel like surely I should receive some type of goodwill gesture or compensation? AIBU?

Can you imagine the abuse.
Buying an old car and getting a friend to accidentally’ write it off.

Yes you were insured, but although you got a payout, it covers the value of your car. They don't take into account that you will need to purchase a new car or go without. I think this should be taken into consideration when it a no fault claim. If someone were to write my car off (god forbid), my insurance payout would only cover the remaining finance and then I would need to source a newer car and take on probably higher monthly payments.

It's so bloody annoying. At least you are not hurt, hope you get something sorted soon.

You can get 'new for old car insurance'. It's called Gap insurance but I suspect might have some stringent limitations and would be prohibitively expensive on older cars.

@ScienceMumm yes but your son didn't go through the legal process of an insurance claim. They offered you some compensation as goodwill.

If you asked for their public liability insurance details you wouldn't have received whatever they compensated you.

I thought gap insurance was only for cars on finance?

Well yes it would have to be quite the process to prove legitimacy and would come at a higher price.

Writing off your 2014 corsa, 120k miles to get another 2014 corsa, 120k miles in the version of equivalent insurance probably wouldn’t be as appealing for con men.

@UndermyShoeJoe Apparently not although reading up on it they do say it is associated with new cars as a car loses significant value just by being driven off the forecourt. You buy it separately to your standard car insurance.

@CountTo10 yes I just did a fast Google and it does have mileage conditions and have to be purchased within so many days of owning the car so mainly for those buying new/newer cars.

Wouldn’t help a lot of the population who just scraped together their couple of thousand to get an older but running car.

Surely you're joking? You've already been compensated.

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.

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!

What was the response to your complaint?

They're liable anyway

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 😫

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

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.

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