I have had the worst experience with LV. My parked car was struck by a drunk driver on the 31st of May this year. It took 3 months to get our cheque out of them and when they did finally send it the loan company the put the wrong details on the cheque so I was being harrassed by Mercers right up until the 19th Sep. To add insult to injury they told my insurers for my new car that our no claims would be witheld(despite us having no claims protection).

The pond life that wrote my car nearly killed my kids so the stress alone with this ongoing saga with LV has damm near killed me.

LV offered me £400 compensation today, and they seem keen to avoid the FOS, how much compensation should be suitable, given that I nearly had a doorstep collector call to me house from Mercers, I am not sure what figure I should ask them for,

If you go to the FOS, it will cost them a £500 case fee, plus time and affect on their complaint stats.

Suggest that you ask them for £1000, as the £400 does not reflect the gravity of the mistakes they have made and the distress caused.

Many thanks for the advice Unc - I had a figure of about £1000 in my head but I was unsure as to whether I was being a tad outrageous!!! Great advice and I feel more confident about responding to their offer of £400 now!!! I am having problems of a mammoth proportion with my mortgage provider(this has been ongoing since 2003 and I have appeared in the Times money supplement regarding the matter), but I shall deal with the insurance debarcle at LV first before I let loose my rant and vent my spleen about Northern Rock on the forum. Many thanks again!!!!!!

£400.00 sounds ok, it's rare for the FOS to award more than £500.00 in insurance cases, please let us know how you get on., you have nothing to loose, even if they allow it to get to the FOS.

Personally, I think £1000 is somewhat outrageous, and also is a figure that seems to have been come to without some of the pertinent information.

Primarily - actual financial loss incurred by yourself as a result of their mistake, and the value of the claim.

Always ask for more and expect to get less.

My experience is that Insurers will work out what it will cost them and make a decision based on that assessment. If the OP goes back to them, they will probably increase but not pay as much as £1k. It depends on the exact details of what had occurred to cause the complaint.

On the face of it, the OP has had no actual financial loss, just inconvenience.

I am not belittiling inconvenience, but the reality is that generally in this country you do not get compensated (sizeably) for inconvenience.

As such, again on the face of it, £400 seems like a very generous offer - and also conveniently just below the cost they will incur by going to the FOS.

Theres trying to get higher, but more than doubling the value? I suspect they may laugh and invite the OP to go to the FOS.

MR SHED: I would be happy to furnish you with all the details pertaining to the claim. An internal investigation has taken place at LV, and I have been informed by LV that there were numerous failings of vast proportion from the moment we commcenced with our claim. LV did not seem to think that the fee payable to Fife Constabulary for the incident report was of any importance nor relevance, and we had to go to great lengths personally to obtain the drunk driver's number plate so as to secure the hire of a vehicle. That my friend was the first of many incompetent mountains that we had to climb with LV. Please do let me know if you wish to have the pertinent details forwarded to yourself and I would be happy to do so. LV have asked for quote for compensation based on the findings of their internal investigation and LV do admit that many. many vast errors have been made on their part. The drunk driver in question nearly killed my children that was stressful enough, not only did he write of our car, he also wrote of the car parked next to ours. It was not an intricate claim, liabilty was not of issue, as I said this is a very involved case with a list of categorical blunders that is enormous hence how I just gave the very basic bones of our case over for debate to the bloggers on CAG. I can assure you the pertinent information would make for very interesting reading. Why would LV ask me to name a figure to keep FOS involvement out of the case?, especially after admitting how catastrophic their handling of our claim had been? Can one assume that you work in the insurance sector or finance indusrty? I would be more than happy at some point to list every aspect of our case should you wish me to do so.

Lyndsey - I get the impression I have "got your back up". Apologies - this was not intended. Bear in mind that I can only go on what is posted, I am not psychic, and hence most of the information in your last post was not known to me or anyone else.

In any event, I am still interested in whether you have had any out of pocket loss due to this issue.

Apologies for my rant and Sorry for the outburst Mr Shed. It really is the mother of all internal failings at LV, let me know if you have a spare 16 hours and I promise to list the whole sorry saga(minus the emotional outbursts). LV have really put us through it and I suspect that they know that. I am off to inhale some Nescafe and hopefully become a more pleasant and rational person to boot. Sorry if my hackles were raised - I am just so weary with all things LV. Lupus and the intense pressure and stress that I have had to deal with at LV do not mix well, I have been ill since 4 June, my GP is of the opinion that this is predominatly down to LV's handling of our claim. It has to say the very least been a total nightmare.

It would be interesting to post up some of the detail if you can...

Ok here goes. May 31st, our parked was struck by a drunk driver who had to be cut free from his wreckage(it was upside down outside our front gate). The police went into the ambulance to interview him I immeadiately phoned our broker Budget. I am just going to check that I am sending this correctly as I have lost a few of my replies to your threads Mr Shed, please be patient I am a CAG virgin!!!!!! The following day we were contacted by Drive Assist who asked us for the 3rd parties details. Due to the trauma of the incident we did not have these details and explained this to Drive Assist who contacted LV. Fife Constabulary charge £65 for the full incident report and we had the incident number yet neither LV nor Drive Assist would pay to release 3rd parties details. It took us 2 days but we managed to get a plate number via a friend's son's pictures taken on his mobile phone of the wreckage. Had it not been for this then we would not have secured a hire car - alarm bells were begining to ring. My husband lost 2 very important days off site at National Austrialia Group and his firm were miffed to say the least. I am going to break this down in to managable pieces so hang on. I was demented, having the realisation of just how close my girls came to losing their lives was a bind in itself.

We requested that our dealer take our car for repair and 24 hours later they phoned to inform us that our car was a write off. I phoned LV got the relevant numbers for our dealer to fax his report to them, 3 weeks later and numerous denials from LV that our dealership had indeed sent 3 reports to them - an engineer was finally despatched. I wish I had kept an accurate record of all the phonecalls made, by this point they were many.

We phoned our finance company the day after the crash and they advised us after hearing the details of the crash to cancel the DD as we had made our payment on the 1st of June and given the circumstances it would be unusual to go beyond 5 weeks for such a basic claim. When Drive Assist dropped off our rental vehicle(another BMW), LV advised us that once a settlement figure had been generated at their end, we would have 5 days from the point of this figure being generated free of charge in the vehicle. I asked what the scenario would be should LV's communication directly to us with this figure go astray(my alarm bells were by now screaming as so far their track record responding to our dealership and Fife Constabulary had been poor) and I was advised that (this isin my own words) that the whole deal was down to my psychic abilty and if their letter took a month to reach me then I would be charged for rental minus 5 days. Things were not looking good.

Our Gap insurers had expressed concern as they had previous dealings with LV and those dealings had not been positive. We bought another car whilst waiting for LV sending an engineer out, we could not take the risk of a massive rental bill and we knew our old car was a write off it was a matter of getting the death nell from LV - panic was now setting in. An engineer was finally despatched on the 22 of July - LV apologised profusely for the delay

The begining of July was the start of the long and weary struggle with total loss(total waste of time, total loss in phonecalls) - I would phone and phone and phone again. I knew they were lax as some years ago we had been in a motorway pile up - we had no blame status at the scence(we were right in the middle of the pile up) and our claim was done and dusted in 4 weeks with our insurers at that time. I kept our finance company informed I have a record of all the settlement figures presented to us over the summer, I would phone and get passed from pillar to post, everyday I tried to get them to reach a figure and my efforts resulted in a costly nonproductive telephonecall.

In August we were finally told of a figure - success - our finance provider had been making up to 10 phonecalls to our home per day(and texting my husband on site - delicate to say the least given his profession) - to be fair there had been no payment on the loan since June and the only parties accessable to Barclays were us so fair's fair. Then came the bombshell - LV had conducted an HPI check and our car had exisiting finance on it - they refused to pay out. I phone up LV apalectic with panic and they said they would sort it out, Mercers debt collectors began contacting us at this point and they meant business. 2 weeks passed lots of phonecalls to LV lots of stress and still no further forward. I phoned my dealer and he could not understand where the HPI had came from as the car had been trade and new finance agreed with our cars previous owner. I begged the dealer to give the finance house's no regarding the HPI(LV by now had more or less told me to sort it out myself) and I was given the number of Creation Finance. I stalked Creation with a vengence and they finally the agreed to remove the HPI as it had been a mistake and they provide personal loans not secured finance!!! I thought that perhaps my insurance company were meant to take care of that! Never mind surely we would be finished now - NOT!!!!

After one to many broken promises, assurance after assurance that my cheque would be released we finally had confirmation that a settlement had been sent to the DCA(the phonecalls from Mercers were mounting as was the pressure) - I still had to do a load of leg work as LV could not quite commit to the cheque going out but Mercers kept phoning and on the 2nd of Sept LV told me that the cheque had been cashed. Thank god thought I - Not.

Mercers began phoning again this time it was nasty - there was a cheque in a suspense account and I had to prove that it was ours - once again many. many, many phonecalls to LV ensued - all I wanted to know was what was on the back of this bloody cheque - no one at LV could furnish me with the details. My husband began getting texts at work from Mercers informing him a doorstep collection was imminent - I was sick with worry - still LV could not trace the details of the cheque. The phone rang early Sunday morning(19th Sept) - it was Mercers - I just broke down and luckily for me a very sympathetic employee traced our cheque using the exact amount and the date the cheque was issued - once again problem solved due to my own steam - that has to be uas finished - or so I thought.

I phoned LV the following day and asked for my excess - they said it would not be dealt with until 3rd party "physically" admitted liabilty" - in other words forget it until it hits court. I contacted the FOS and put an offical complaint into LV regarding the saga.

What else could wrong? A letter came from our new insurers at BMW last Wednesday asking for proof of no claims - erring on the side of caution I phoned BMW told them of our problems with LV and they kindly agreed to phone LV and get oral confirmation. BMW phoned back shocked and informed me that our no claims would not be upheld by LV and that our new insurance would have to quite rightly be cancellled if this was not sorted out. I phoned LV this time a derranged monster - I demanded Excecutive complaints(tried it before - it does'nt work) but this time my anger was tangible and a new name was thrown into the ring. He made some phonecalls and promised to try and get out no claims honoured but he could not garauntee it. He would phone me the next day - I do not mind telling you that it was the longest 24 hours of my life -especially as my husband had to come home early as I became ill(an ambulance had been sent for by my Doc - I refused to go to hospital - LV would not get the better of me!!!!!) Overnight we checked our policy and even more disturbing was the fact that we had protected no claims with LV. Why the hell would they not honour our no claims and what would happen to my husbands job if we had no car.

2 days later a received a very sheepish phonecall from some guy who assured my that our no claims would be upheld and that our excess would be sent out via a cheque which it has. That does'nt make up for the last 5 months of misery we have had I thought. Another bloke phoned and asked me how much compensation I would like as the internal investigation into our case had not been pretty and massive errors and failings were abundant , LV were keen to avoid my involving the FOS - which brings me up to date - phew.

Sounds like a dreadful few months. I would ask for £1k, but you really should just put together a summary of what the compensation is for. Perhaps do this in bullett points. The FOS might not award much for distress, unless you have medical reports which point to the problems with LV being a factor. This is a big part, but you also appear to have suffered financial loss as well e.g. days off work. Make a list of losses that you can quantify.

Be aware that if you declined any offer from LV, that the FOS are taking 2 years or more in some cases to actually issue their final decisions.

Cheers Unc, LV were very contrite when they approached me, and they did say what did I think was a fair offer to prevent me taking LV to the FOS. They do seem very keen to make sure I do not take the complaint further, this 2 year wait does make me a tad nervous, would this limit the fine that the FOS may impose on LV?

I wouldn't like to say what the FOS would or wouldn't do, but they are not normally that generous with any compensation for distress, unless good evidence is provided. You could wait 2 years and receive less.

What companies don't like is that the FOS will publish their findings on particular cases ( keeping names private) and this can cause embarassment to the company.

If I were you, I would contact the person dealing with this at LV by phone or letter, saying that you have been discussing the matter and think that £1k would reflect the gravity of the problems experienced. Provide them with a list of the major issues. They will have to get it sanctioned, but I doubt they will refuse it out of hand. They might come back and try to offer slightly less.

I do know someone that works for LV. During the last year they have been expanding and this included taking over a claims office/staff from another company. The previous company had real problems with this particular office and some of the practices that had crept in were seen to be very unprofessional. But this was just one small office and may be nothing to do with your claim problems.

Many thanks Unc for all your sterling advice. I shall give the chap a call who is dealing with this and try my hand. The claim was intially being dealt through Highway Insurance which on the telephone calls comes up as part of the LV group - since the matter got out of hand all cheques, final decision letters etc have came directly from LV so what you have told me seem's to make perfect sense!!!! You advice has been invaluable to me and I am ever so grateful - with thanks x