Insurance palava

[french]

On 8/2/16 I was hit by a woman in a range rover , we were @ traffic lights which were red, I was in the Left lane & she next to me in the right. Road markings showing ,right lane left & ahead while right lane markings show Ahead only/ Lights change we pull away , we travel about 15' @ approx 18mph , the woman turns her steering full lock & hits my car with her cars tyre right into the wing of my car, just behind the front wheel & in front of the door.
There is no damage whatsoever to her car as the tyre was the only contact, my wing is crushed & kinked @ the top.

So off she went telling me that I should only turn left etc, I showed her the road markings & said Insurance details please.
She gave me a Business card as its a company car, I said I need the Insurers details & her name in case its a pool car, she did not like that," I'm the CEO"...?

So she got her Insurance details from the Glove box , I jotted down the details & I gave her mine.

I contacted the Insurance company that she gave me later, they told me she was no longer insured with them since Sept 15, but they did tell me who she was with .

So I contacted the "New" insurance company & decided to contact mine. To this date she has not contacted her Insurance company & mine Swiftcover are next to useless.

Today I had a renewal, last years quote was £190 , now they want £451 which is £260 more plus I had 9 years NCB it now shows 4yrs NCB ?!!

Tomorrow I am supposed to take my car to the car body shop for a new wing etc but my excess is £550, I put high Vol. excess . I am not happy, (Swiftcover) have not answered the last 3 emails, they asked will I go to court if needed & thats it?

Oh I forgot to mention, there approved Bodyshop said it was a write off as it would need a new steering rack , the wheel would have to be X rayed(?) & suspension damage.

The S/wheel was out of alignment. I told the assesor that the reason the S/wheel was out of alignment was because the previous week the car passed its Mot, it had an advisory for a lower ball joint, a new arm was fitted but it needed to be set up on a Hunter machine to get it correct.

It was booked in to the wheel alignment garage & that was the purpose of my journey that day!

All they wanted to do was get me to take a hire car while they stripped it down, I said " It was 18mph tops & the wheel was not touched" after 2 mths of arguing I re booked it into the suspension specialist who reset it & gave a report for the Insurance that all was good.... cost...£25!

They Swiftcover reimbursed me the £25 & no mention of how useless their "Approved garage" are...now after all this they have given me this huge rise & 4year loss of NCB...& they are supposed to be MY Insurance company ...
rant over!

 

[def90cars]

Surely failure to provide correct details is an offence? Police??

 

[Doodle]

It is, but usually gets filed in the "Can't be ars*d to investigate" folder.

 

[brucemillar]

Surely failure to provide correct details is an offence? Police??

Correct. Report it /her. Get a crime reference number and inform your insurer. Also consider the Insurance Ombudsman Service and advise your insurer that is the route you intend to go down.

Claims loading is not allowed.

Sent from my iPhone using MBClub UK

 

[grober]

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.swiftcover.com

Swiftcover are owned by Axa.

 

[french]

Yes been to Police for Crime number, not interested as she may have just forgotten she had changed insurers ...

Have asked my Insurers which option I should take ie if I pay the extortionate renewal hike from £190 to £460 I will not be able to pay the £550 excess that the repairers will want which I have waited 3 mths.
If I pay the Repairers £550 I will not be able to drive my car as I will not be able to afford to pay the Insurance renwal price £460 please advise ?

Also got off the phone from her Insurers , they have not received a accident report, they have set up a meeting with her 25/4/16 as she has not sent a report back .
Yes Swiftcover are AXA owned ...is that a red flag ?
Absolute shower!

 

[brucemillar]

Tell your insurer that you are making a formal complaint about their loading and handling of your claim to the Ombudsman. Do so in writing. Demand a crime ref from Police and report their attitude to the Crime Commisioner. Forgetting is not a legal defence. Shocking response from the Police. It is an assumption on their part. I forgot the drink drive limit. Ah ok sir no problem. Sent from my iPhone using MBClub UK

 

[french]

Thank you Bruce , I will look into this, here is the reply from my Insurers S/cover...yes mine! edited my name & the senders name etc.

:
In terms of liability, I would like to reiterate once again that they are not obliged to respond to me within 90 days. The incident happened 8/2 so 90 days is 8/5. After this date, I would look to send the file to our legal team as previously discussed. I am following the rules of insurance claims and I cannot speed this up.

3rd party's insurer confirmed that they are indeed going to interview their driver to get a detailed statement, it is clear that the other driver appears to have a different version of events. We cannot reimburse the excess until they have accepted liability in full as I originally advised you.


Regarding the suspension, I am concerned that you have paid £25 to repair a performance vehicle, seeing as your estimate from Brin Jones, a specialist accident repairer came to almost £2500. Please ensure that the repairer updates our engineers thoroughly as we want to ensure they provide full indemnity to your vehicle as per our promise when you take out a policy with us.
This is rich

The reason your NCDs have been affected is that the claim is ongoing and our policy team work out premiums based on worst case scenario. So until we receive an admission of liability, we cannot confirm to them the final outcome of this incident.

I hope this answers your questions.

Thank you.

Well what can I say...now I'm the liar... Are they really surprised that someone who has to be dragged kicking & screaming to report an accident ,who gives wrong Insurance details , at first she wanted me to just take a business card, when forced to respnd many months later will lie !!

 

[french]

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.swiftcover.com

Swiftcover are owned by Axa.

My god grober do I wish I had read this before !! Cheers though, I will send this to them when they start being smarmy again.

 

[MartynW]

Involving the insurance ombudsman is relatively painless and from my experience, well worth it - they forced my younger daughter's insurer to double its payout when her almost-new scooter was stolen. We just had to present a calm and reasoned case once, with some factual info, and I suspect the insurer just decided it was not worth the fight.

 

[400ixl]

Unfortunately whilst the claim is ongoing they are quite within their rights to reduce your no claims discount (they haven't loaded your price (although they could legally as your risk profile has changed), they have reduced the discount) as per the terms within the contract you have with them.

Normally people don't see this as the claim is sorted within the window of the policy, it only becomes evident if there is a renewal process whilst the claim is still being settled.

In this case it does sound like they have failed in their duty to meet reasonable timelines. You could ask them to accelerate the re-instatement of the NCD, otherwise you will have to take the case to the ombudsman. They may call your bluff as they process with the ombudsman to consider the case is that you have to have gone through a formal escalation with the insurance company, giving them sufficient time to investigate and respond before they will do anything. This will of course be past the date where the policy will need to be renewed.

Staying with the same insurer means that you should be able to get the cost that any policy discount refunded when the claim is resolved in your favour. Changing insurer may make that process harder.

The other thing to remember is that the discount is a percentage off of a base cost. Even if the claim is settled in your favour, the insurer could assess you as being a higher risk and therefore even applying the higher NCD may still mean the price may be higher than last year, as the base price would be higher.

If the 3rd party insurer is going to accept liability you could have the car repaired by them which would avoid the excess, but that relies on them accepting liability. Otherwise it is either pay the excess to your insure and claim it back from the 3rd party as part of the claim, or hold off on having the repair done until the liability has been sorted.

Not much good news of a short term fix I'm afraid

 

[StuartK]

Yes been to Police for Crime number, not interested as she may have just forgotten she had changed insurers ...

Have asked my Insurers which option I should take ie if I pay the extortionate renewal hike from £190 to £460 I will not be able to pay the £550 excess that the repairers will want which I have waited 3 mths.
If I pay the Repairers £550 I will not be able to drive my car as I will not be able to afford to pay the Insurance renwal price £460 please advise ?

Also got off the phone from her Insurers , they have not received a accident report, they have set up a meeting with her 25/4/16 as she has not sent a report back .
Yes Swiftcover are AXA owned ...is that a red flag ?
Absolute shower!

There's a lot of good advice in this thread and from experience fighting an insurer will inevitably end up causing loads of stress and no result.

What I will say and it is with the greatest of respect I find it hard to believe that someone who owns both an E55 AMG and C32 AMG does not have access to £1k (half of which will be temporary) to pay both excess and insurance.

 

[french]

Hi Stuart , I "Can" pay the both, but I would feel agrieved if I gave S/cover anymore of my money - not happening ...ever. I was being sarcastic towards the Swiftcover guy as I have lost all respect towards them as they Lie & fob you off.
You know, reading through the posts of complaints about them, it would not surprise me if this is a bit of "Sharp" practice ie , they have dragged their feet knowing it would overlap . As I said this woman has done (IMO) everything wrong, yet it feels as though I am being punished by my own Insurance company, ie stalling, missed return call, changing the criterea on repairs etc etc. Her company said to me they (S/cover) do not answer calls & e mails, which I too have experienced. My E55 is also insured with them & it runs out in December so I have plenty of time. I will sorn my C32 on principle & sort this out. The meeting on Monday between the 3rd party & her Insurers will be interesting...they said they will contact me as soon as its all been collated...a bit better than S/cover!
Oh well sorry to rant off but better out than in Lol
All the advice here has been spot on & thank you all ,most appreciated

 

[brucemillar]

French

You have been poorly treated by your insurer. You paid for insurance and should receive insurance.

I would still pursue the Ombudsman route. Your insurer has a bond with the Ombudsman. If you complain then they will lose that bond. They know this and will not want your claim to cost them money as well as any potential levy imposed by the Ombudsman.

Your financial circumstances are not up for debate. I find it insulting that some may think they are!

 

[SLKGirl]

Have you gone onto MID to see if the vehicle is insured, then try the DVLA, I think for a fee and right forms/reason you can request details?

 

[400ixl]

Starting the process with the ombudsman as soon as is advisable as you will need to do the engage formally with the insurer part, so may as get that underway. You can drop the process whenever you want, so not reason not to start it if you want to.

The bond with the ombudsman will have zero influence on how they act or deal with this. Never does and never will.

 

[brucemillar]

^

What I would say is that the bond does influence thinking (that is why it is there). This depends on who in your insurance company is aware of your complaint. Write to the MD. If your claim is for less than £750? They will want to settle without the complaint. Assuming that your story is correct ;^)

 

[StuartK]

Hi Stuart , I "Can" pay the both, but I would feel agrieved if I gave S/cover anymore of my money - not happening ...ever. I was being sarcastic towards the Swiftcover guy as I have lost all respect towards them as they Lie & fob you off.
You know, reading through the posts of complaints about them, it would not surprise me if this is a bit of "Sharp" practice ie , they have dragged their feet knowing it would overlap . As I said this woman has done (IMO) everything wrong, yet it feels as though I am being punished by my own Insurance company, ie stalling, missed return call, changing the criterea on repairs etc etc. Her company said to me they (S/cover) do not answer calls & e mails, which I too have experienced. My E55 is also insured with them & it runs out in December so I have plenty of time. I will sorn my C32 on principle & sort this out. The meeting on Monday between the 3rd party & her Insurers will be interesting...they said they will contact me as soon as its all been collated...a bit better than S/cover!
Oh well sorry to rant off but better out than in Lol
All the advice here has been spot on & thank you all ,most appreciated

I agree that your insurer is being unhelpful.

This is the route I would go down, accident management company let them do all the donkey work...

Mercedes-Benz Accident Management Care | Sytner Mercedes-Benz

 

[400ixl]

^

What I would say is that the bond does influence thinking (that is why it is there). This depends on who in your insurance company is aware of your complaint. Write to the MD. If your claim is for less than £750? They will want to settle without the complaint. Assuming that your story is correct ;^)

Writing to the MD is another way to go and a good suggestion, I'd do it as a parallel process though.

CEO details for AXA http://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=b-9239&k=571a48ae&c=AXA Insurance Uk Plc Chief Executive

It is only if a complaint goes all the way through the system and is upheld that the insurer feels any real financial consequence. Very few actually get that far due to the way the process runs and how long it takes.

The ombudsman complaint really just acts as a kick up the backside to get it investigated a bit quicker in the majority of cases. They usually get it resolved before the Ombudsman is forced to take final action.

 

[french]

Just an update .
The 3rd party was scheduled to have a meeting with her Insurance company, they were going to meet her, she did not show.
She fudged them ,so my company are taking Zurich to court as they are not exactly speeding this up, bit rich coming from Swiftcover, but we'll see.