How ca I get my insurers to actually do something?

[Mossycat]

Your insurers will not recover your excess that's up to you to do.

 

You need to write to the other persons insurance company, state why they are liable and ask for your excess back

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

your insurer will only chase your excess back once liability has been established. You got to keep calling your current insurers & ask for updates on liability.

 

????????

 

 

An excess is an uninsured loss and the OP's insurers will not recover it, it is up to him to get his excess back. It's a waste of time the OP contacting their own insurers.

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

You are completely missing the point here.

 

Your insurers will not get your excess back, the best way to speed things up is for you to detail your claim against the other person for your uninsured losses, you do this by writing to them, stating what happened, why you hold them responsible and get them to admit liability.

 

It's as simple as that

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

You asked for advice on how to speed things up, you said that you were £500 out of pocket ( that will be an uninsured loss then probably your excess), and you said that you were fed up with how long it was all taking.

 

The point is that YOU NEED TO START MAKING WAVES and not with your own insurers but with the other side.

 

Your insurers will not be chasing your uninsured losses and it is the recovery of these that establishes liability.

 

The key to achieving what you want is as I have stated, it's quite possible that your own insurers have an inter-company agreement with the other insurers and don't recover monies from each other, hence why it has been left in abeyance for so long.

 

The title of your thread is How can I get my insurers to actually do something?, what exactly would you like them to do, they've paid for your repairs, they are presumably dealing with third party correspondence, what else is there for them to do?

 

Mossy

Edited December 8, 2009 by Mossycat

[Mossycat]

I can only assume that they reckon they will recoup their losses as they gave me the choice about whether my car was written off of not (as there was about £5500 worth of damage and was very little between that and the value of my car) and I guess they would only do that if they thought they would get the money back.

 

 

In borderline total loss claims it is standard practice to offer the insured the choice between write-off and repair, it has nothing whatsoever to do with liability or chances of recovery from the other side.

 

Any insurer is under a duty to mitigate losses, so just because they might recover their outlay does not give them carte blanche to pay out whatever they want.

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

With respect IG in the OP, he states his insurers told him "it was the TPs fault and it is clear cut". Clearly the OP isnt getting much information on progress from his insurers or advice on how to claim his un-insured losses so what assumptions am I making?

 

If the insurers do not recover the excess as Mossy states, then writing to the TP seems to be the obvious avenue to go down. As for liability, well according to the OPs version of events I would agree with his insurers 'pretty much clear cut'.

 

Sailorsam you are assuming that the OP is telling the whole truth, and whilst they may well be doing just that, you don't know what the other person is claiming.

 

If the OP's insurers stated it was the TP's fault then that would have been based on what the OP told his insurers, however, if the other person does not say the same then it's far from clear cut.

 

The other person may disagree that the OP's lights were green for example, or they could have any number of versions. Since no-one here has seen either a sketch, a road layout or even heard what the other party is claiming happened then it's impossible to speculate.

 

The OP has an outlay that they feel they shouldn't pay because they feel they were not at fault, so the thing they need to do is attempt recovery of that outlay from the other insurers. By doing this, it will open up a line of communication directly between them and then they will find out what the other person is claiming happened and can then attempt to dispute that.

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

From experience of dealing with motor claims it's really not unusual for a guilty party to change their story after the accident, immediately after an accident they will tell the truth, but when they are over the shock of the situation they often change their story in the hope of retaining their NCD, so the fcat you have witness statements should make it easier for you to prove your case in this one.

 

Mossy

[Mossycat]

If you have recovered your excess then liability has been accepted by the other persons insurance company.

 

Advise your insurers about this, they then have no excuse for not recovering their losses and allowing your NCB

 

Mossy