Suspected Fraudulent Claim

[bmwman]

Hi All

 

Could someone give me some advice please.

 

Back in December 2007 i was involved in a minor knock for knock accident in my local Sainsbury's car park. I had called in to pick some shopping up on my way home from work. On returning to my car I noticed two people loading a Ford KA Parked behind me on the other side of the other side of the road way. I got into my car started up put lights on selected reverse looked arround was the Ford had no lights on so I started to reverse slowly with full right hand down lock in the mean time the ford KA also started to reverse out at the same time. Whereby we collided at about 3 to 4 miles an hour collision speed.this put a minor scuff mark on the near side rear corner of the bump strip on my car and a small dent in the near side rear quarter for the bumper of the Ford KA.

 

Have had to change cars so swapped insurance to another car. I received my new quote today this has recorded the accident and cost me 3 years no claims bonus.

 

So I phone the insurance company to find out why. They had told me they paid 50% of the damage £354.00 of the third parties claim this would make the total cost of the repair £708.00. This I was not notified of. I phoned my local Ford agents and priced up the parts £35.00 for bumper part and £4.00 for clips and bout £50.00 to fit. This would put the cost of repair below the standard excess.

 

When I sent in my report about the accident I enclosed some photo's of the damage to the cars although on the actual cars involved. My car has never been inspected by either insurance company to confirm the damage sustained.

 

Any advise please

 

Many Thanks

[gyzmo]

There may well have been underlying damage. Also labour is often the largest part of a bill. then there is a courtsey car that may have been provided. With all due respect, you do not know anything of the damage to other other persons vehicle other than what you could see. Their insurer would not pay for damage they did not believe would be caused by the incident, in the same way yours would not pay you.

[zed007]

gyzmo is right undelying damage e.g to back panel (behind bumper) and maybe to the bumper enforcer (that goes behind the bumper).

 

Many cars have less visiable damage looking at it, but underneath parts could be damaged / cracked / dented. which all need replaceing.

 

also an independent engineer would have come out and inspected there vehicle for the damage.

 

plus apart from adding labour cost you also need to add paint and material cost (to paint the bumper, back panel etc if it is colour coded).

 

and the cost of the hire car while the vehicle is being repaired.

 

all these cost add up

[JonCris]

In the case of many insurers if the damage is what they would consider light & there is no personal injury involved they will accept the repair estimate below a certain figure without question therefore no engineer will be needed

[Slimm]

Doesn't sound like fraud given the fairly trivial sums involved. Labour, paint and a new bumper+VAT is never going to come in much under £500 if a repairer is giving a quote to an insurance company.

 

A Ford garage on the other hand will give someone calling direct an incredibly low quote to get you in the door then try to add on other things afterwards.

[TheJeanGenie]

HI

 

New to this forum so be gentle.... Thought I would add our little knock to this thread...

 

About 3 years ago my wife And I bought our first brand new car, a shiny black Ford Focus 1.4. We were pleased with the car, though a few teething troubles. Anyway, we were out one day and it had been raining so the roads were a bit slippery. We stopped at a junction to wait for a gap in the traffic when a mini hit us in the rear end. Not hard but enough to shake is up a bit. The driver was very apologetic and admitted blame as the road was wet. We swapped insurance details and the only piece of damage to our car was a cracked bumper. We rang our insurance company "Royal Sun Alliance", who approved us to take the car to a local repair centre. We made the appointment which was for the following week and used the car as normal. We about 10 days later took the car to the repair centre and were given a cup of coffee whilst the engineer took the car into the shop to take a look. He came out and asked us to follow him as he was shocked at the damage underneath. Now, remember I said it was a small crash, and the bumper was cracked.... well it turned out that the floor had crumpled, the spare wheel had been crushed, and the rear axle was out of alignement. Basically he refused to allow us to take the car away and after a few phone calls to the insurance company we were given a courtesy car and ours had to remain at the garage for immediate repairs..... In short this small bump cost the guys insurance over £1300.... So maybe the bump was genuine.....

[JonCris]

Valid comment jean

 

Even at very slow speeds the kinetic energy generated when 1/2 ton of metal hits another 1/2 ton of metal is quite severe & even though car bumpers are designed to flex above 5mph they are unable to absorb all of that energy which must go somewhere. This is usually to the weakest point namely the crumple zone of which the rear boot floor forms a vital part of occupant protection

Edited September 15, 2008 by JonCris