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BEWARE – The person that crashed into you - How good is their insurance company?
When someone hits your cherished RS and they admit liability, you think your ok, or are you? It’s peace of mind when you have good insurance cover, but what happens when someone hits you with a rotten insurance company that does not care about classic cars?
Having just put my car back on the road, and on my second day out this year, 2 months ago a young girl drove into the back of my RS, claiming she did not see me…………there in front of her eye’s! This little mistake resulted in damage to the rear panel, bumper and fog light. To my relief she was insured, she admitted liability and I put in a claim to her “well known” insurance company. I then went to my trusted body repairer for an estimate of costs to repair the car back to it’s previous perfect condition, which turned out to be £1940.00 to strip car, fit new rear panel, bumper and paint which includes black panel, fitting stripes, and painting the rear wings to avoid matching up problems.
Next the insurance engineer came to view my car. I explained that I could see no alternative, that I would have to spend my time locating the parts, and the prices of new parts could be at a premium as I would be looking for some genuine Ford parts, for example estimated £300 for a back panel. Later on in the week he telephoned me to tell me that he was prepared to repair the car, followed by a ridiculous offer of £1739, which I of course refused as it did not even cover the cost of the labour and paint, never mind the parts. The company then sent me a letter to confirm that I had refused their offer and requested detail estimates to cover the cost of parts. In the meantime I learnt that the engineer is known to be “penny pinching”, the insurance company is one of the worst for paying up enough for repairs, and someone had to threaten them with claims court to settle the problem.
I began to panic a little, I then sent in an accurate estimate of parts, which came to £536, and added a claim for cost of time spent on the internet looking for parts, telephone calls, fuel to collect parts, and my time. The result is 2 months later they have been difficult to deal with. Every time I ring, I have to speak to someone different who has little knowledge of how the claim is progressing. The staff do not return my calls and nobody picks up my mail for well over a week, I am then told that a fax is quicker, and when I send a fax I am then told that it is probably lost in the mailroom. I find staff unhelpful, and nobody takes any responsibility for the claim. They even told me they were not obliged to repair the car, what were they going to do, write it off?
Two weeks ago the insurance company agreed with the garage to knock the charges down, they have mentioned an acceptable payment for the parts and have given the go ahead for repairs, but they have not had the decency to tell me about any of this. Instead they are now attempting to run down the rest of my claim (uninsured losses) by finding problems with my Internet costs and not wanting to pay up for my time.
A Classic car insurance claim is totally different from a modern day car claim as the parts are not as easy to obtain. It involves higher costs for parts from specialists etc, usually means that the repairer is not set-up to locate these hard too find parts and the job ends up with either yourself which takes hours, or you employ someone to do it for you, which is going to cost you, especially if you employ a solicitor or a plumber to do this! Who would take this specialised task on for nothing?
When I first considered my claim I did not intend to claim for these “uninsured losses”, but after such a low offer and as time went on I realised how much work and cost was involved in finding these parts. Has anyone experienced any of these problems and how did you get a fair deal? It’s a problem we should all consider, it’s put me through misery trying to deal with them.
RS2000 EXPRESS
RS Mk2 Club 099
When someone hits your cherished RS and they admit liability, you think your ok, or are you? It’s peace of mind when you have good insurance cover, but what happens when someone hits you with a rotten insurance company that does not care about classic cars?
Having just put my car back on the road, and on my second day out this year, 2 months ago a young girl drove into the back of my RS, claiming she did not see me…………there in front of her eye’s! This little mistake resulted in damage to the rear panel, bumper and fog light. To my relief she was insured, she admitted liability and I put in a claim to her “well known” insurance company. I then went to my trusted body repairer for an estimate of costs to repair the car back to it’s previous perfect condition, which turned out to be £1940.00 to strip car, fit new rear panel, bumper and paint which includes black panel, fitting stripes, and painting the rear wings to avoid matching up problems.
Next the insurance engineer came to view my car. I explained that I could see no alternative, that I would have to spend my time locating the parts, and the prices of new parts could be at a premium as I would be looking for some genuine Ford parts, for example estimated £300 for a back panel. Later on in the week he telephoned me to tell me that he was prepared to repair the car, followed by a ridiculous offer of £1739, which I of course refused as it did not even cover the cost of the labour and paint, never mind the parts. The company then sent me a letter to confirm that I had refused their offer and requested detail estimates to cover the cost of parts. In the meantime I learnt that the engineer is known to be “penny pinching”, the insurance company is one of the worst for paying up enough for repairs, and someone had to threaten them with claims court to settle the problem.
I began to panic a little, I then sent in an accurate estimate of parts, which came to £536, and added a claim for cost of time spent on the internet looking for parts, telephone calls, fuel to collect parts, and my time. The result is 2 months later they have been difficult to deal with. Every time I ring, I have to speak to someone different who has little knowledge of how the claim is progressing. The staff do not return my calls and nobody picks up my mail for well over a week, I am then told that a fax is quicker, and when I send a fax I am then told that it is probably lost in the mailroom. I find staff unhelpful, and nobody takes any responsibility for the claim. They even told me they were not obliged to repair the car, what were they going to do, write it off?
Two weeks ago the insurance company agreed with the garage to knock the charges down, they have mentioned an acceptable payment for the parts and have given the go ahead for repairs, but they have not had the decency to tell me about any of this. Instead they are now attempting to run down the rest of my claim (uninsured losses) by finding problems with my Internet costs and not wanting to pay up for my time.
A Classic car insurance claim is totally different from a modern day car claim as the parts are not as easy to obtain. It involves higher costs for parts from specialists etc, usually means that the repairer is not set-up to locate these hard too find parts and the job ends up with either yourself which takes hours, or you employ someone to do it for you, which is going to cost you, especially if you employ a solicitor or a plumber to do this! Who would take this specialised task on for nothing?
When I first considered my claim I did not intend to claim for these “uninsured losses”, but after such a low offer and as time went on I realised how much work and cost was involved in finding these parts. Has anyone experienced any of these problems and how did you get a fair deal? It’s a problem we should all consider, it’s put me through misery trying to deal with them.
RS2000 EXPRESS
RS Mk2 Club 099
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