Smash lude

[c_doughty1]

I'll put some pictures on tomorrow it's a mess :'(

[wurlycorner]

[Donald]

Sounds familiar!

[Shiny]

Sorry to hear about your Lude.

It is a little frustrating for me reading some of the posts, so i will interject if i may...

You have three choices here -

1) a private settlement and your boss/son pays you out of their own pocket
2) you claim direct off the son's insurance company
3) you claim off your policy (provided you have Comprehensive cover) and they then recover their losses off the son's insurers

Now it is a condition of your insurance policy that you report any claims or incidents regardless of blame. Strictly speaking, this should happen regardless of which option you choose. However, if you go down the route of option 1, then in reality there is no way your Insurers will ever find out about the claim.

If you choose option 2, then the third party insurers are very much likely to record the claim on the the Claims & Underwriting Exchange (CUE), a central database to which most Insurers subscribe. By not telling your own Insurers, there is a good possibility that they will check the CUE at the renewal and then you will have some explaining to do as why you didn't report the claim (as per your policy conditions). So by not telling your Insurers, you are taking a risk. This risk is increasing, as more and more insurers are now making CUE checks as part of the renewal invitation process.

No matter which route you take, you can not insist your car is repaired. The decision to repair or write off in theory should be the same whether you choose option 2 or 3 (the only variation is that one assessor may have a different opinion on value to another - but the principal will be the same).

In the event of an accident, your entitlement to compensation relates to your financial loss. So if you have a car with a market value of £1500, then your financial asset is £1500. An Insurer will not pay £4500 to repair a car worth £1500. This is why vehicles get written off, because they are not financially viable to repair. You can not insist that an Insurer repairs your car, whether your own or a third party insurer. You may of course be able to (but no always) retain the salvage and repair the vehicle at you own cost, but this only if your vehicle is a Cat C or D.

A great little example of a difference in valuation and why not involving your own Insurers is not always a good idea happened on the ATR forum. Non fault accident, hit in the rear, TP insurers offered to deal with the claim. The vehicle was a write off and the TP assessors offered £1500 total loss settlement or something like that. I helped out where i could, but they dug their heels in and would not budge. I suggested to forget about dealing direct with TP and claim under the accidental damage section of his own policy. Same result, car written off, but after a little negotiation, the offer was near £3k, twice that of the offer from the TP insurers. The TP still ended up paying as the own Insurers were able to justify the £3k payout to the TP insurers. That isn't to say though that it could go the other way round and you could end up getting a better offer direct of TP insurer than you do your own, but it is unlikely.

Let's cut to the chase then. At £1600 labour/paint + parts the car is likely to be uneconomical to repair. Also, boss/son are unlikely to be paying out their own pocket.

My first step would be to take your car to a decent, but independent family run type body shop and ask them for a repair cost. Do not say it is an insurance job, say it is private and ask for a pro-forma invoice (not an estimate, a pro-forma will include all paint, parts and labour). This may be substantially cheaper than an insurance approved body shop and may be low enough for option 1 to be viable.

If not, then you are going to have to consider either option 2 or 3. You will need to get two repair estimates if you want to use one of your own bodyshops. If not, you run the risk of the vehicle going to an insurer approved repairer and an increased possibility of the vehicle being declared a write off as the repair costs are likely to be higher. It may still be deemed uneconomical to repair once it has been assessed even with your own estimates, so you have to bear this in mind too.

If you choose option 2, you will need to make a claim against the TP insurer. They do not always offer a third party repair service, so it may take some time to get the vehicle repaired. They may even ask you to repair the vehicle and send in the bill once you have paid, so they can reimburse you. It is not guaranteed that they will pay the garage direct. They may provide you with a courtesy car, they may not. If not, you may need to hire a car whilst yours is being repaired, pay for it and claim it back. Don't assume this will be a straight forward and easy claim where they just fix your car and you can forget about it, this depends very much on the Insurer the son is with and what TP repair service they offer.

There is also option 3. You will get your car repaired straight away (if repairable) and will have to pay your excess, which you will then need to claim off the TP Insurers. If you have legal expenses cover, they will recover the excess for you. If you use an approved repairer, you may well get a courtesy car, but approved repairers may not be the best bet as mentioned above. Again though, if you have legal expenses cover, they will be able to arrange a replacement hire car for you and claim the costs of the TP Insurers. Provided your Insurers make a full recovery of all losses, this will go down as a non-fault claim and not affect your NCB.

So....get two estimates for the repair, talk to the boss/son and see what they want to do. If they settle privately, all good and well. If they want to go through their Insurers, you may be offered a TP repair service by their Insurers and all may be good. Failing that, you can fall back on your own Insurers, get your car repaired (if economically viable) and then claim back your excess.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need any more info.

[wurlycorner]

If you choose option 2, then the third party insurers are very much likely to record the claim on the the Claims & Underwriting Exchange (CUE), a central database to which most Insurers subscribe. By not telling your own Insurers, there is a good possibility that they will check the CUE at the renewal and then you will have some explaining to do as why you didn't report the claim (as per your policy conditions). So by not telling your Insurers, you are taking a risk. This risk is increasing, as more and more insurers are now making CUE checks as part of the renewal invitation process.

They now check the Claims DB more, yes, hence my comment about even non fault claims now affecting your future premiums (I can only assume it's used the algorithm that decides your overall likelihood to make a claim?)

However under option2, the claim is recorded against the insured party (by claimant's reg number and policy number IIRC?) not against c_doughty.
What's the link that would link it to c_doughty's insurance history onto the claims DB? There would be no record of his insurance policy details, because they don't take them. Option2's insurer just takes his personal details to pick the vehicle up, they arrange repair directly and returns it to c_doughty (or not, if written off). So there is no link against his insurance history (correctly, because he hasn't made a claim), so nothing on the claims DB.

The only link through to the car itself is if the vehicle was written off, that would show against the vehicle (as per DVLA) but even then that doesn't link to c_doughty's insurance history, since he didn't make the claim.
Same as if I buy a previously Cat C car, I don't pick up the historical claims liability for it in my insurance premiums.

[Shiny]

CUE picks up claims details by name and address during the search. We've had cases where claims are showing up and there has been no involvement of the policyholder's own insurance, so i guess the TP insurers must be providing details of persons involved in the claim when submitting the claim details to IDS.

As for the rating, "some" insurers make a small load on your premium if you have a non fault accident, but not all. There is a reason for this and I'm sure an actuary will be able to come up with some wonderful calculation to show why, but basically a policyholder that has had no claims at all is more profitable than a policyholder that has had a non fault accident. Not because the insurers have had to pay out damages to a third party, but because there is normally the need to involve their claims department to initially deal with claim, pay the repairs and then pursue the recovery, all of which involves overheads and costs that can't be recovered from the third party. I realise this isn't the case where a claim has been dealt with in its entirety by a TP insurer, but to investigate each case individually at quote stage to assess how a claim was dealt with would be impossible to do (especially when in reality all claims should be reported to their own insurers anyway as per the terms of the policy).

Gone are the days of a base rate on age, post code and group rating with a discount for age of car, insured only driving and NCB. Quote engines are complicated things with discounts and loadings for every tiny factor imaginable these days.

[c_doughty1]

Ok she's fixed, resprayed and looks as new. Pics to follow shortly guys thanks for the advice

[Vtecmec]

Brilliant.

[Gayno]

Awesome!!!

Assume they settled privately?

[Pushki]