legal advice needed. insurence refusing to pay out.

[misdee]

we had a car crash a few weeks a go. the lorry driver admitted liability at the time of the crash. but the insurence companmy his work uses is refusing to pay out as according to them he is not claiming liability for the crash. we are losing a load of money because of this crash. we have had to pay out for hire car, new car seats etc and am very out of pocket. all we've had is an initial payout of £400, which is the value of the car less excess of £400. his insurence comp are basically trying to get out of paying the excess plus the expenses we have incurred. can anyone offer advice.

Actually, I suppose it depends how much your monthly premium is, compared to how much payout you're likely to get, as to whether it's worth it.....

they may well have discounted any payout by the rest of the premiums anyway so I wouldn't worry about the rest of the year yet misdee. Phone them and see. Maybe if you pay May that'll be the end of it.

hopefully it will be. they are meant to be calling us back, bur as the premimum is in my dh name they will only dela with him and not me. i want to phone them and put pressure on whilst dh will wait for tyhem to call.

It might pay to threaten your insurance company with FSA. They CANNOT take premiums once they have written off a car. They must pusue the other driver the police statments make it clear he was at fault, they should even be preapred to take him to court to prove it. Your insurance company are being lazy (nor Pearl is it??)
and backwards
Insulting and very unprofessional behaviour.
DEF insinuate you are seeking legal advice and get VERY ARSEY and ask for a SENIOR manager.

Actually,, I think that you are only allowed to cancel premiums mid-term where there has been no claims. therefore, if you are claiming at the moment, you will still be liable for the premiums until the end of the period. You should be able to claim this back from the other company though. I have been in a similar situation to you re: another driver driving into my car, admitting liability & then his insurance company backing down. His car was a hire car and I received a phone call from the hire company asking where I wanted them to send the bill for the car repair! It eventually got sorted out as I had a witness from the accident anyway, but it took nearly 2 years I would ask the police for a copy of the incident report and forward that to the insurance co. Also, keep on at your insurance co. They sometimes try to go 'knock for knock' as it probably works out quicker & cheaper for them. Also, you probably get some sort of legal cover with the insurance. ring them & see what they say.
HTH & sorry they are being such PITAs

2 years?? omg. i cant be waiting that long for something that wasnt our fault.

Is it worth threatening negative publicity to YOUR insurance company? Disabled dh, difficult circumstances - good sob story.

The problem with other insurance company is the insurance company's, not yours, ie they should be paying out NOW and then trying to recover the cost. Where it WOULD have an impact, if they failed to cover the costs, was on your renewal premium - it's a "No CLAIM discount", not a "No Blame discount".

On second thoughts, did you have Fully Comprehensive Cover or just 3rd party, Fire & Theft? If the latter, that would explain the delay - but I owuld still push the sob sotry. You need to do it with a team Leader/Supervisor, not the first person you get in the Call Centre as they wouldn't have the necessary authority. Ring up, say you have a complicated problem and ask to be escalated straight way, rather than having to repeat your story time and again.

we had fully comp. they have the police details. am thinking about writing a really snotty letter tonight and sending it off. would really like to get this sorted before our holiday in june as we may need to hire a car if new one isnt ready and wont be able to afford it if they dont pay out.

Sorry Misdee, didn't want to panic you. The insurance was a company policy, so I did get the car repaired (paid for by my company) but the company wasn't re-imbursed for 2 years. Also, if I had wantd to get my own insurance in that time I would have had no NCB. Suspect (hope) that they would be a lot quicker for a private claim, although when dh drove into the back of dsil car, she still had a struggle to get the insurance co to pay out, and he admitted it (wouldn't have dared to do anything else)

I think you'll find that the "pay monthly" option is effectively a credit agreement for the annual amount rather than paying insurance for that month. You are, unfortunately, liable for the remaining premums although once the claim is sorted out and paid by the other company, you should be entitled to a refund from the date the policy was effectively cancelled.

It is always worth playing the "sob story" card - don't be embarrassed about laying it on thick. Always try to appear reasonable though, rather than too bolshy or they may dig their heels in.

As for the claim, that is for your insurance company to argue out with his. Go and take photos of the junction to support your claim and it should be blatantly obvious whose fault it was. Have 2 photos and on one, draw the position of your car & the lorry just before the accident and on the 2nd, after the accident with the route the lorry took clearly marked. Send these to your insurance company. After that, it's their job to fight it.

REALLY lay it on thick about your holiday in June. "much needed family holiday" "tough year" "going to be very difficult to sort out the travelling"

well we spoke to them again today. they are putting the pressure on to get it sorted asap.

Contact your MP about it. You can email them via the House of Commons site.