I have a bmw 523 and I am insured with esure (Fully comp with 13+ years no claims and no points). I had an accident on 2nd Jan where a car pulled out of a side road and straight in to my rear drivers side wheel and wheel arch due to the driver looking the opposite way whilst pulling out. He accepted liability straight away at the scene. I also had 2 independent witnesses.
I made the claim with esure about 15mins later after exchanging details with the other driver. I said I was going to take my car to my local BMW dealers for the accident work but was told that they were not approved (BMW not approved to do work on their own cars?
) so if I went with their "approved" repairers then the excess (£250) would be waivered. So reluctantly I agreed. The repairers in question are Banks & Derbyshire of Preston, Lancashire and they picked that car up from my home address. (I did manage to take 4 pictures of the damage before the car went.) I also got a hirecar from a company called Helphire who then would claim this back from the 3rd party.
Two weeks later (Friday 19th January) the car was delivered back to my house. (I immediately noticed that my Oakley sunglasses had been stolen out of the locked glove compartment, but more importantly the rear alloy wheel still showed signs of accident damage. So I complained to esure who transfered me to B&D repairers. I arranged to drop off the wheel and have the spare (which was a smaller size) fitted till complete. This was done and on the Tuesday (23rd Jan) I returned to the garage to have the wheel swapped back. It was then whilst driving home that I noticed that when driving round left hand corners that the rear tyre was rubbing against the wheel arch. I then called esure to complain about the quality of repairs made (also the wheel had just been resprayed and not even sanded down so the dent are still visible) I then took it to BMW for a second opinion and was given a quote for £3000 of damage still to be repaired (New suspension, wheel and various metal work which had been bent in the original crash. Esure's engineer just happened to call my mobile whilst I was there and passed him over to the BMW technician who advised that the wheel was back to wards the rear of the car and this could be seen with the naked eye. Esure advised me that I had to return the vehicle to B&D repairers for them to inspect the damage and report back to the esure engineer for a decision. So this I did the same day (Wednesday) I also gave a copy of the BMW quote to B&D for reference. On the Thursday (25th)the car had a further geometry check made and the results differed from the original checks made. All paperwork and photos (including my photos) were sent to the esure engineer for a decision.
The decision was made that the damage was caused after the car had been released back to me after the original repairs had been made and that I would have to make a second claim for the damage to be repaired as it was now my fault!
I asked him how a wheel could be moved back by 2" to the rear of the car yet not a mark was made to the newly sprayed allow? couldn't answer. I said that the original geo results must have been wrong, but he was having none of it.
So today (26th Jan) I have had to make a second claim, so I have to pay £250 excess, and I loose my protection from my no claims, I have also now have to fund a hire car as BMW don't have any cars till the end of next week (as I work as a freelance contract engineer, if I don't go to work, I don't get paid).
I can't believe that esure are prepared to pay £3000 for the repairs when it is quite clearly the 3rd party's fault and they have accepted liability (They are covered by Direct Line).
I am now writing to esures customers relation manager for a final decision in writing and then to the financial ombudsmen.
What else can I do?
Esure Clowns 
Re: Esure Clowns 
