[whirlypig]

I'm looking for some advice on the best way to progress an insurance claim, it's been 3 months now and what I thought would be nice and simple has not only dragged on has suddenly got even more complicated.

I was driving my partners car, for which I'm a named driver, around Christmas. There was a hold up in the lane I was in, I stopped as did the guy behind, however some daydreamer didn't and ploughed into the car behind, in turn pushing him into the back of our car. We didn't sustain a lot of damage, broken brake light and a damaged bumper. We all exchanged details and the guy responsible apologised. Foolishly we went through our insurers, Aviva, who put us in touch with their solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, who were supposedly going to progress the claim. Aviva booked our car into a repairer who took their own good time fixing it. Added to that they screwed up the excess figure which meant we covered the entire cost of the repair, after double-checking our policy it turned out our excess was half what they'd come up with. After a lot of calls a month later we received a cheque for the difference.

My understanding is, and I'm hoping someone can confirm this, is that our claim is with the car that was pushed into us and then their insurer recoups both his and our costs from the party at fault. This is why I thought things would be easy, he is with Aviva, probably because he works for them, so you thought it would be sorted in-house quickly, apparently not.

We've been chasing the solicitors and they're forever waiting for something back from the insurers. To add to the confusion we've had a letter from Aviva to say the other insurer is disputing the claim so they'd like to put us in touch with their solicitors, someone new as it happens. Eh?!? We're already dealing with their solictors and in any case what reason could there be to dispute the claim. It's a trivial amount, total cost was about £330 and we didn't even have a courtesy car. Beginning to wish we'd gone to an accident management company and screwed them for a dealer repair and a 4x4 courtesy car :evil:

Fed up with Aviva now, is there any other way I can progress this; Insurance Ombudsman or take small claims action against the guy who ran into us? I'm not relishing another call to Aviva's clueless call centre.

 

[denimblue225turbo]

with the amount of people dealing with this in the way of insurance companys and solicitors you will be hard pushed to get anything sorted quickly, at the end of the day i cant see how they can dispute the claim as you were the last person to be impacted, so no matter what the cost (within reason) it was in no way your fault.
Unfortunatly you have to let your solicitor do their job, i have been waiting 10 months since my bike accident, slightly different due to personal injury claims but as yet i havent had a penny and i have missed out on 10 months pay in that time so i know how it feels, its a p**s take at best but to be honest there isnt alot you can do apart from get on the phone without fail every week, unforunatly i was in hospital when my car that my girlfriend drove got written off aswell by another driver but i got £700 more than i paid for it and that only took 2 months to recieve payment in full.

Hope you get it sorted soon

 

[whitty]

Aviva were formally NU I think - my Dad had loads of hassle with a no fault claim that dragged on over 12 months - I filled a complaint form online detailing the issues & he was contacted within 48hrs with the claim finalised & a bunch of flowers for the delay

 

[skiwhiz]

We dealt with Irwin Mitchel regarding my wife's accident reclaiming the excess and injury payment but we did not have to pay the excess and that was with Esure and a rear end shunt where the other insurance company were a load of tossers.
Its all about money, IM paid esure a finders fee then they make their money chasing the 3rd party and our premiums rise.
I would ring and speak to a senior claims manager, explain and ask why you had to pay the excess and why did they not recover it on your behalf which they should do.
That should be the case even if you are claiming for injury.

good luck

also IM are slow and its an 0870 number which really peed me off to

 

[whirlypig]

Thanks for all the advice.

The only reason Irwin Mitchell got involved was because we had legal cover with Aviva so they just passed the details on to them. If we'd known at the time we'd have not involved out own Insurer and simply put this in the hands of a reputable accident management company.

I simply can't understand why the 3rd party's insurers are querying the claim; there's no question of fault, the repairs were very economically done (we could have doubled the labour costs by going to Land Rover) and we even passed on a courtesy car to help keep the costs down. Next time we won't be so helpful or perhaps naive.

Please can anyone confirm who our claim is with? Is it the guy immediately behind who was pushed into us or is it the guy behind them who actually caused the accident? If it's the guy immediately behind, who is with Aviva, then I'll ring them to ask why they're disputing the claim. If it's something stupid then it may just be simpler to take them to the small claims court.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I was in this situation a couple of years back, I just phoned Helphire and they sorted everything , I was pushed into the car in front and thay were pushed into the car in front of them. I didn't hear from anyone but it was all sorted fairly quickly.

 

[Dash]

Accident Management companies are the way to go as they do everything on credit and deal with claim back the costs later, so you're never out of pocket more than the tenner it costs for the service.

I would phone Aviva and ask them how exactly liability can be contested in a rear-end-shunt, with at least one witness. Ask for your money to be refunded and the incident marked as non-fault on your record, and point out that you'll be taking your business elsewhere permanently if they cannot resolve it within a reasonable time-period. If you don't get the response you like, speak to a manager or something.

 

[whirlypig]

I was in this situation a couple of years back, I just phoned Helphire and they sorted everything , I was pushed into the car in front and thay were pushed into the car in front of them. I didn't hear from anyone but it was all sorted fairly quickly.

Helphire will be the way to go in the future, unfortunately I don't think they can take this on now that Aviva and IM are involved.

Accident Management companies are the way to go as they do everything on credit and deal with claim back the costs later, so you're never out of pocket more than the tenner it costs for the service.

I would phone Aviva and ask them how exactly liability can be contested in a rear-end-shunt, with at least one witness. Ask for your money to be refunded and the incident marked as non-fault on your record, and point out that you'll be taking your business elsewhere permanently if they cannot resolve it within a reasonable time-period. If you don't get the response you like, speak to a manager or something.

I'm ringing Aviva this afternoon. We've already taken our business elsewhere, our renewal was up in January and given the delays in the claim and policies were cheaper elsewhere we switched. Probably means they don't have much incentive to recover the money but we figured there'd be an ombudsman or regulator that could help if they got funny.

 

[Charlie]

I used Chris Knott as my broker and am insured with LV (having bought Highways) my car rolled down the drive on Mar 17th - It went in this morning to Audi to be fixed and I must say I have been extremely impressed with the speed with which everything has been dealt with.

Unusual to hear something positive about an insurance company or a main dealer - credit where it's due though they have both been great.

I hope you get it sorted ok soon, as it is so minor that it must have cost them much more than £330 with all the mucking about they have been doing.

Charlie

 

[Dash]

Helphire will be the way to go in the future, unfortunately I don't think they can take this on now that Aviva and IM are involved.

Indeed, if the repair has done they won't be interested as there is no way for them to make money.

 

[Little_butterfly]

I used to work for Allianz some years ago and from memory the person who hit you probably will deny liability based on they were pushed into the back of you. So you're probably better off trying to claim from the responsible party....not sure why your insurers have not told you this or tried to claim from them already

 

[skiwhiz]

IM will sort it just it will take a while and cost the the company of the guy who caused the shunt, except we all pay because IM will make more than the cost of the excess I would guess.

 

[whirlypig]

IM will sort it just it will take a while and cost the the company of the guy who caused the shunt, except we all pay because IM will make more than the cost of the excess I would guess.

Well they've been on the case 3 months now and Aviva seem to know more about what's going on than they do, and Aviva don't know much. The claim file has no useful information on it so a claims person is going to ring back, I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Dash]

Do you have the insurance details for the person you're claiming off? If so, phone the insurance company and ask about the liability on the claim. If they say it's in dispute, mention that they went into the back of you, so they need to admit fault to your insurance company. It's clear cut liability.

Get them to fax through the admission of liability with your claim reference number and then phone up your insurance company and tell them it's on the way. Give them a day to process it and call back. Repeat until successful.