I could obviously then take it to the FSA or small claims. I felt that it could take months with the FSA and then I may have to go to court so I just went straight to a claim. To be honest, the court may have expected you to simply pay the repair costs yourself in order to mitigate your own losses i.e loss of use and further storage charges - then make a small claim against the underwriter. That would have been the quickest route. You are going to have to suggest you are an impecunious person i.e. dont have the means to do this! However, Looks like you have been dealt a rotten one there matey. Its not unheard of to be honest - there are major flaws in the way ancillary insurance is created and sold these days and the FSA, since their introduction a couple of years ago in terms of General Insurance Regulation, have done absolutely nothing about it. Jobs for the boys. Its very likely CD dont even understand the nature of the product that they are insuring - very common in Lloyds. Units sales, underwriting fees and no claims is all they are interested in. All I would advise you to do is to make contact with Lloyds first, tell them that the small claims process has started and in the interim, would they like to sort the mess out as it going to get very costly for them as a small claims judge is hardly going to rule against you. To be honest I would be 99.9% sure that Lloyds do not know anything about your case and its a pure mis-management by WD. When you get to the court - stick to the terms of the contract. Make play on the fact that you have followed the correct procedures as stipulated in the contract and as a result have been dealt with this blow. I hope you have been keeping your reciepts for alternative transport. You may want to stipulate that you would like to claim loss of use also. In terms of the paperwork prior to Tuesday - yes you would have to change the defendant to CD. I hope you do well mate, keep us posted - I am definately interested in the outcome. Sorry if I was a little negative early on but there was little information to go on ;-)

I thought contract law was absolute and the contract I have is with WD? Nope. The only contract you have entered into is the contract of insurance (not the sale of the contract of insurance!). That contract is between you and the underwriter. WD are merely 'policy administrators' i.e they have permission on behalf of the underwriter to sell the insurance within certain guidelines and administer claims on behalf of the underwriter. Liability ends with the underwriter, unless WD as an FSA regulated organisation has breached any FSA rules - not treated you fairly etc, intentionally misled you - those complaints would go to the FSA. Hope this makes things clearer. You complaint it against the underwriter themselves.

Ok I think you have now reason for complaint. If WD have located one of their network garages and asked you to take the car to them then it is up to them to ensure the communication channel of its own network supplier remains open and clear. This is obviously a communication problem. However, your first point of call is with the Lloyds underwriter. I suggest you write to them and explain the situation. Explain to them that you have followed the advice provided by WD and that you have ended up where you are. You will also have to explain to them that you are an impecunious person and do not have the funds to pay the garage in order to mitigate your loss and reduce the ongoing storage charges. In answer to your original question, WD are not a party to your contract. Your complaint is with the Insurer. Your action will be against the insurer and not WD! Just to let you know a little about myself, I have worked in new product development roles in the insurance industry and have designed many warranty, gap, legal expense products - so I do have a little background. Make sure you have a chat with the Lloyds underwriter as this will be the necessary procedure as detailed in the complaints section in the Key Facts document. You may predjudice your claim by not doing so as a small claims judge will ask you what steps you have taken to settle the matter prior to court action. Personally as working in the industry, I cant see what the problem is - unless the network is badly managed and WD dont trust there own suppliers - maybe they rely on an independant inspection before repairs are authorised and someone has cocked up?

I wouldnt proceed with this case then. Clearly both yourself and WD are suggesting that the garage should not have repaired the vehicle. That sounds to me that you should not have paid the garage if you did not authorise them to repair and should have been an estimate only. Its the garage that is the fault not the underwriter or their agents. Is the garage a nominated repairer of WD? Did WD instruct you to take your vehicle to them? Or did you select the garage yourself, get it fixed and then send WD the bill? They are correct in saying that it is Cassidy Davis that the action should be directed towards as they are the underwriters. You do not have a contract with WD - a contract of insurance runs from the underwriters to the insured. CD will argue that, there is a claims process i.e. repair estimate first then they authorise and agree costs of repair and that you have not followed this. This is likely to be part of the contract? If there is no claims process forming part of the contract then you could argue this - but I find it very unlikely that they would simply pay out hand over fist any repair/warranty work without some sort of management. At the end of the day - if you lose this case (which there is a high probability!) you are then liable for the defendants costs.

What does the terms & conditions say? Is what they have subsequently told you correct? Sounds like your cover had ran its course but they were willing to provide intermediate cover while your renewal was being processed. They maybe should have told you this before you 'claimed' on the policy? In a black and white situation though it would seem you would lose because you recieved a service outisde the scope of the insurance cover and are therefore liable to be charged.

It was a brand new unused phone.

It was a brand new phone and the mic was broke so any contacted parties couldnt hear our voices.

After some research it seems that most policies sold by Warranty Direct are underwritten by Cassidy Davis which are part of Lloyds. Warranty Direct are only Scheme Administrators so your Contract of Insurance is with Cassidy Davis. Warranty Direct are part of your contract as mere administrators - selling the policy and possibly administrating the claim on their behalf. Ultimately you are making suggeestion that someone has breached the contract that you have with the Lloyds Underwriter? If Warranty Direct have failed to honour the claim have you followed the advice provided in the Key Facts document? This would have suggested you speak to the Lloyds Underwriter directly. Personally I think you should follow a certain procedure before issuing in the small claims.

First of all - who has told you that you cannot claim on the policy? Are Direct Warranty policy administrators? Coverholders? Agents? What does it say in the policy? If Direct Warranty have refused this then you should then take it up with the underwriter! Secondly, which underwriter is it in Lloyds? There are hundreds? Does your policy say; Certain underwriters at Lloyds?

In a nutshell I am looking for some consumer case law in terms of examples of the 'reasonable timescale' in order to obtain a refund/replacement from a retailer under SOGA 1979. 02 have a 28 day policy return policy in that if your mobile phone becomes defective after this period then its a 'repair only'. You guessed it - bought phone for a present. Opened 3 weeks ater, phone is knackered. Brought to attention of 02 retail store 3 days after the 28 days - repair only! no replacement. Accepted 5 working day repair - took 2 weeks to come back - 2 days later phone is knackered again with same problem. Took phone back, refused replacement/refund and suggested another 2 week repair. I refused this. 4 weeks of letter writing and talking to monkeys on customer services lines indicating that 28 days is mentioned in SOGA 1979! (??????LOL) and all letters werent responded too. So issued proceedings in small claims. Day after proceedings issued, letter from H/O saying they are prepared to refund. I tell them that I need an extra £30 to cover the court issue fee. They tell me to stick it. Looks like a day in court. So anyone got any nice case law?

ok, but what is your loss? What is your solicitor attempting to recover? In terms of the chances of succeeding - the legal profession work from success matrix to establish whether your chances are better than even. Unfortunately the legal profession are under a strict guidelines (and zero chance of recovering costs!) to not lead clients on in the event they feel the client has a fruitless claim so unfortunately they cannot wait to see which judge they get on the day - it doesn't work like that im afraid as the court system would be clogged full of claims without merit. The No Win - No Fee system curtails merit less claims as a solicitor is very unlikely to take cases on that end up costing him money. The balance of access to justice has tipped from a better than even chance of success to a 95% chance of success unfortunately. Money is always overriding factor im afraid. I hate banks myself, they are **** and I do appreciate what you say and I understand entirely as I have been through a similar thing myself but I wouldnt waste any more of your energy unless you have suffered a loss and you can also evidence someones negligence.

No I am not against that at all. The thread is about poor service supporting a particular legal expense product. The legal expense provider is merely saying that they cannot provide cover to bring a class action against a bank for not providing uber-secure banking. First of all, any case brought under the policy would have to possess a better than even chance of success and I am pretty sure that the insurance product is limited to the policy holder. In this instance Nannamoons losses are nil, apart from the stress and anxiety it may have caused which has a nil quantum value. This is a crime and not actionable as a consumer dispute. Ok if the bank didnt reimburse then he/she would have a case under the terms & conditions of internet and telephone banking, but to ask a legal expense provider to undertake a wasteful journey championing the cause of someone who hasnt suffered a loss is just laughable. I am sorry. Fraudulent activity is becoming more sophisticated and unfortunately sometimes organisations cannot provide any resolve to the security lapse until after they have learnt or suffered from it. I am pretty sure the banks are doing their utmost best to do something about it because I would imagine they can't stomach handing out £4500 to everyone on frequent occasions. To the original point about the complaint against Esure, as you can tell, I am a legal expense provider and we provide a brilliant service and wonderful products only to receive numerous complaints from consumers whose expectations are far beyond what was promised in a Key Facts Policy Summary. I propose writing to your bank instead or campaigning to your MP.

Yes I agree. Odds against you im afraid. You may well have problems proving negligence even though you may find evidence that his lights etc were faulty. The driver may have been unaware of the problem.

As a legal expense insurance provider I fail to see what you are attempting then? Maybe if you hadn't be recompensed your provider may well have provided assistance. What legal proceedings do you wish them to bring against an organisation who has put you back in the same position you were before the crime?

Is it underwritten by any insurer? Drive assist are primarily a 'credit hire' organisation which specialise in the hire of replacement vehicles to people who have suffered non-fault accidents. It should ordinarily cover claims for uninsured losses with legal costs covered in the event that proceedings are issued agsinst the third party. If you are not happy with the service so far, you should insist that this claim is passed to a legal representative under the terms and conditions of your legal expense policy. If this does not work, play hell with Halifax. Drive assist are not renound in the marketplace for providing an uninsured loss recovery service.

If you truly purchased a 'legal expense' product then this product should effectively cover the costs of a solicitor to issue proceedings against the third party insurer should they refuse to pay up within a reasonable time period. Who is Claimassist? How did you come across their policy?