Can I use a third party to deal with my insurance claim ?

[Paddy]

So this is the situation.

My wife is driving her mother home on christmas evening when a woman in a mini cooper runs a red light and hits her in our car. My wife calls the police at the incident and they come charge the woman with section 3 or something for running a red light and hitting a car. Our car is damaged at the front end. Now we have been waiting to hear from the police with an incident number to give to our insurance company which is meant to speed things up.

Now I have the number and will be phoning my insurance tomorrow. Although someone at work today said I should phone one of these accident helplines and get a company to deal with the whole process for me. Just made me think if it is worthwhile and is their such a company and would it be beneficial ?

I am totally pissed off with this. The damage to the car looks repairable but then a friend said they might possibly write the car off due to the extent of the damage.

Honda civic type R. 2007

Front bumper smashed
grill smashed
bonnet crumpled
air con rad smashed
headlights smashed
heavy duty bar which sits in front of radiator (not sure if crash bar) bent abd cracked
Thats only what i can see.

[Slamz]

Deal with it yourself. No one I know has ever used a 3rd party company to deal with an insurance claim, in fact my brother has just settled one.

[Paddy]

Yeah,thought it was a daft idea tbh. Maybe if she was going to claim for whiplash or something. Got to be something in it for them to take it on I guess.

[Slamz]

Yea you'll end up paying them for something you can do easily. Maybe different if it wasn't as clear cut, but someone going through a red light and hitting her seems pretty simple.

[Jon]

The word Helpline used to suggest some sort of beneficial service.

These days, it is a word which is misused by all sorts of artful dodgers; This includes ambulance chasing whiplash lawyers.

[R3K1355]

Those insurance scammers only exist to rip off people left, right and center.
You'll be pressurised to lie about injuries, make stuff up and everything.

They're not operating for free either, someone has to pay for it all - where do you think that money is coming from??

[green_rs13]

basically who ever deals with the claim be it your insurance company or a claims management company will charge the third party (the mini drivers insurance company) a fee for processing the claim. they will also charge a storage fee for your car if they park it in their compound and charge them for a courtesy car for as long as it takes till the car gets written off or repaired. if it is a police approved compound it will be like £25 a day storage, if its outside some back street garage getting looked after by a nasty Rottweiler then its more like £15 I guess they would give you an astra or a mondeo so that would be £60 odd a day rental. insurance company try to rip each other off left right and centre.

I worked as an assessor for just over 2 years and would have outstanding claims land back on my desk that were months and months old because the third party were trying to weasel out of paying.
the way I see it is you wouldn't go to court and defend yourself if you had free legal protection! so why is this different? you will be doing battle with people who do this professionally and know all the tricks in the book to get out of paying.

who are you insured with? as some of the mickey mouse company's out source stuff to claims company's anyway.

[green_rs13]

just be wary that claims company's will chase you for the fee's if the third party don't pay out.

my mate crashed his motorbike overtaking a car turning right and went to a claims company telling them it was the other guys fault etc.. got a basically brand new courtesy bike to thrash all summer till the claim got settled with him being liable. then he owed them about 2 grand. he is half lucky he went 'no win no fee'

[auz200sx]

basically who ever deals with the claim be it your insurance company or a claims management company will charge the third party (the mini drivers insurance company) a fee for processing the claim. they will also charge a storage fee for your car if they park it in their compound and charge them for a courtesy car for as long as it takes till the car gets written off or repaired. if it is a police approved compound it will be like £25 a day storage, if its outside some back street garage getting looked after by a nasty Rottweiler then its more like £15 I guess they would give you an astra or a mondeo so that would be £60 odd a day rental. insurance company try to rip each other off left right and centre.

I worked as an assessor for just over 2 years and would have outstanding claims land back on my desk that were months and months old because the third party were trying to weasel out of paying.
the way I see it is you wouldn't go to court and defend yourself if you had free legal protection! so why is this different? you will be doing battle with people who do this professionally and know all the tricks in the book to get out of paying.

who are you insured with? as some of the mickey mouse company's out source stuff to claims company's anyway.

Months is that all lol. Five years!!!!!!

[-ghost-]

oh and your cars a write off :S

[Paddy]

oh and your cars a write off :S

My car is getting picked up in the next few hrs by my insurance company and will be taken to the bodyshop for examination. If it is written off,will they offer me the chance to buy it back ? The reason I ask is because im sitting here with a lot of parts which I havent yet fitted. Bonnet,wings,grill,front bumper plus splitter.

[-ghost-]

Make sure you take a load of good photos of it just incase anything comes up.

It depends how bad it is if it's only cat d or c then yes otherwise i think you have to be a registered breaker.

Not sure I'd bother buying it back unless you know it's not bent or its going tonne easy fix. Plenty of civic out there bud

[Paddy]

I know but its got my wheels on it and stoptech brakes and double din in it just now. How would I recover these ? Only just installed and are not on my insurance yet.

[-ghost-]

You might be utterly ****ed then if the mods aren't declared you may have just voided you insurance.

[Mike41288]

You might be utterly ****ed then if the mods aren't declared you may have just voided you insurance.

If its not the OPs fault, their insurance company very very rarely checks the car for mods as they don't need to try and wriggle out of paying anything, due to the other persons insurance having to pay everything. Also the other persons insurance won't have a list of declared mods for the OPs car, so won't know what been declared and what hasn't.

[Slamz]

I know but its got my wheels on it and stoptech brakes and double din in it just now. How would I recover these ? Only just installed and are not on my insurance yet.

Take them off if you have standards, I've known of mods 'going missing' in storage when being assessed.

[Jonny Wilkinson]

If its not the OPs fault, their insurance company very very rarely checks the car for mods as they don't need to try and wriggle out of paying anything, due to the other persons insurance having to pay everything. Also the other persons insurance won't have a list of declared mods for the OPs car, so won't know what been declared and what hasn't.

Whilst this is true, not declaring mods is a frequently done thing and is always a bad idea.

I reckon the car will be considered beyond economic repair.

Depending on the insurers practices, they may be willing to settle the claim as a monetary payment. That way, the car is not declared as a write-off and you get to keep the car and can repair it using the cash payment.
They will only settle the claim this way if it is cheaper than paying you the book price of the car minus what they can get for the car as salvage.

If its damaged beyond repair (CAT C) you definitely won't get that option.

If you are insured fully comp, your insurers may settle with you quite quickly (provided there are no injuries and especially if liability is not being disputed) then they will reclaim the costs from the other drivers insurer.

Until those costs are recovered, you won't get your NCD back and, unless you have legal protection, they probably won't recover the excess from the other party for you either. You can recover the excess from the other driver through the small claims court if you haven't got legal protection.

[Jonny Wilkinson]

My car is getting picked up in the next few hrs by my insurance company and will be taken to the bodyshop for examination. If it is written off,will they offer me the chance to buy it back ? The reason I ask is because im sitting here with a lot of parts which I havent yet fitted. Bonnet,wings,grill,front bumper plus splitter.

Don't mention any of this to your insurer. Simply ask whether it might be possible to take a cash settlement and get the car repaired yourself.

If they say "no", DO NOT ask if you can take parts off the car before they scrap it - just accept (to yourself) that you made a mistake not notifying the wheel and brake change and suck it up.

[Shotaro]

Also hope you and they don't have the same insurer as if you do they won't be paying you a penny if you have undeclared mods no matter who's fault it is

[Jonny Wilkinson]

Also hope you and they don't have the same insurer as if you do they won't be paying you a penny if you have undeclared mods no matter who's fault it is

Again, most likely reason for undeclared mods to be discovered is if the policyholder tells them. Its fairly common for the claims dept. to ask the policyholder if the car is modified when a claim is made.

Unless the mods are obvious and extensive, the assessor won't usually bother to note them as they probably don't know what brakes/wheels come on what model of Bini.