legal experts - on a post card

[StuartFZR400 0]

Ok, this might be an insurance question, but I wanted to grab attention of more viewers and get thoughts on a post card. Mods feel free to move.

 

My quandary is that Im off the road from an accident – where the third party admits 100 percent fault. I’m in a hire car, via a firm that deals with this (not insurance). The third party offer to pay one sum (very low), my representatives engineer say’s its worth say 500 more, and I say its worth 500 more than that still. It’s all so very messy further more.

 

1. If the third party went and bought me a car, then that’s easiest, but they don’t.

2. Instead they look at a book (Glass’ or something) and you have to argue this case, and find examples (I have).

 

That sounds straight forward, but I see it as being more unfair, because my value is (say 1000) more than the third party and is actually conservative, I found examples far in excess of this, but I factored in a negotiating discount.

 

Unfortunately the system seems more complex and maybe someone can tell me if it’s unfair.

 

3. The third party actually wanted to pay me a residual amount, as they assumed I would sell my scrapped car and get a value of X. So they only pay a remainder. This looks messy to me. They refused to substantiate this salvage value and do not provide a quotation. My representative disputes this value (I’ve not a clue) and states it should be more.

 

Playing with figures, lets say the third party is going to pay 4k (I wanted 5k, my firm say 4.5), but they say the scrap is worth 1.8k, that means they only pay out 2.2k. Whereas my firm is saying that the scrap is only 1k and I should be paid 3k by the third party plus the 1k from a scrappy (and take battle for the missing 0.5k later).

 

I refused the 2.2k because there was no gurantee that I would get 1.8k off the scrappy; no quote etc. So now this has gone on for 2 months, the third party then say we’ll re-look at the figures (in my mind restarting the process). They then say, no change to the figures, we only owe you 2.2k … but no cheque has arrived yet. Now they say they refuse to be liable for hire car costs for the last 2 months, because in theory they have been right all along.

 

a) re-looking at it re-sets the clock for me in my mind

b) there was no quote or certainty in scrap value and therefore the residual payment would’ve been not enough.

c) they never sent a cheque, so I could never go buy a car. Therefore how can I be liable for 2 months of hire car?

[Wendy 0]

What a nightmare, I really feel for you having this agro.

 

Sadly not my area of expertise, hopefully someone on here will be able to help.

[Yandards 0]

It's just a big game for the insurance companies and they drag the process out and make it as awkward as possible because more people just give up and accept a lower sum.

 

My wife had an accident in our MK 2 Golf a year ago in January. The car was obviously a write off from the offset but we had it towed home so we had some more leverage with the insurance company. The 1st offer from them was useless, so I trawled through various ads, listed some bills for work to prove the quality of the car and sent that back to them (as you have done). This then dragged on furthur with me chasing them and eventually some 3 months later a higher offer came through. I once again dug my heals in and finally 6 months after the accident I got an offer I felt was acceptable.

 

A few points for you to bear in mind, 1st of all if you have fully comp insurance you should only be dealing with your insurance company, it's up to them to sort out claiming the cash back from the other party - this is what you pay them for. Again the hire car costs should be left with your insurer, if you have not had any payout how can you be expected to purchase a replacement vehicle. Scrap value, I would argue that you don't want the hassle of disposing of the car and they give you a full cash settlement, the whole point of insurance is to protect yourself against loss.

 

Finally consider google'ing some of the consumer advice type forums and sticking a post on there, I am sure you will get a better answer.

[gregulate 0]

Surely as you weren't liable you can just ask for the £4k (or whatever value you agree) as a lump sum payment and get them to sort out the scrappage of the car?? Seems like they're asking you to take their risk on board.

 

Also as its their liability can't you force them to repair your car to the condition pre-crash regardless of cost?

 

My gfs going through the same at the moment, as some idiot in a lorry smashed her ka into the central reservation of a dual carriageway last week....then drove off. Shes claiming on her own insurance (the police couldn't be bothered to trace the other driver) and they're just giving her the payment of the agreed value which we're negotiating at the moment.

 

Car insurers are a bunch of sneaky xxxx's if you ask me.

 

Hope your car wasn't a dub anyway !