As if being involved in a major car accident isn’t bad enough, the time you have to spend dealing with everyone from the police to solicitors can add to the distress.
You’d hope your insurance company would be there to make things easy, but that wasn’t the case according to Luisa Simon Saballs. Luisa was involved in a head-on collision with an uninsured driver near her home in Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, in mid-January. Her Vauxhall Zafira was written off, while she suffered severe bruising that kept her off work for a couple of weeks.
“The accident and physical pain was traumatic enough,” said Luisa. “But I wasn’t prepared for the difficulty dealing with my insurer.” Luisa was covered by Hastings Direct, but it took the best part of a month before a replacement cost was agreed for her Zafira, during which time Luisa was left carless.
Despite having fully comprehensive insurance, Luisa wasn’t entitled to a loan car. Bizarrely, if her car had been repairable and not a write-off, she’d have been kept mobile. What’s more, Luisa couldn’t find a similar Zafira to her own for anywhere near the £3,700 value Hastings Direct put on her car.
We contacted Hastings Direct and shortly after, Luisa received an increased offer of £4,400 for her car – a similar price to the list of Zafiras for sale she’d sent to Hastings. However, Hastings confirmed that as she’d made a total loss claim, Luisa was not eligible for a loan car, but that hire cars are offered if cars are repairable.
We also asked Hastings if it would be extending Luisa’s policy as she hadn’t had use of a car for a month following the accident. The answer to that one was a resounding no.
Hastings told us that nine out of 10 customers are happy with the valuations they’re offered for their write-offs. But as Luisa said: “I wonder how many grudgingly accept the offer without realising they can challenge it.”
The problem
After being involved in a crash, Luisa had to wait a month before Hastings Direct agreed an appropriate value for her car. And she didn’t get a hire vehicle.
Hasting's response
It admitted it should have processed the claim faster and said it would be “rebriefing the relevant members of staff” to improve things in future.
Legal advice
You can prove an insurer has undervalued your written-off car by compiling a list of cars of the same make, age and condition as yours that are on sale for more money. If that fails, appeal to the Financial Ombudsman.
Our verdict
Given how expensive car insurance is, it’s not unreasonable to get a decent level of service. Luisa shouldn’t have had to wait a month for a fair valuation and shouldn’t have been left carless.
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i thought it is degusting how a insurance treated the person they soon want 2 take your money off you and you pay extra for a loan car aswell in the policy they should be no problems
Insurance companies will do their best to avoid paying out. I had a car stolen years ago and they even quibbled about the state of tyres that were stolen along with the wheels. They even knocked back my request for a hire car, despite needing it for my business.
Since then, I've always assumed that I wouldn't get a loan car so the lack of one in the event of a claim would come as no surprise.
As far as I'm concerned, insurance is only there so that you can renew your mvl on-line with minimal fuss. It's a necessary evil which law-abiding motorists cough up for every year while chancers just don't bother.
Should I have to make a claim in the future, I'll be less than surprised when the insurer tries to avoid as much as possible. That seems to part of the game.
This is standard insurance terms. In a total loss your insurance cover ceases, hence no loan car and no extension of policy.
The delay in making an a valuation is bad and uneccesary with the information that is so,easily available. My son who had a low offer on a total loss managed to prove with examples from the Internet of the true, higher, level of value before agreeing a settlement
This is why you need to take out gap insurance to stop this sort of thing happening. Mind you, it's hardly worth it if the car is only worth a few grand - you have to weigh up the risk against the cost of the additional insurance. The best thing is often to whine and bitch to your insurance company and eventually they'll improve their offer, as they did for this woman.
One reason why you see so many uninsured drivers is that many young drivers prefer to risk a criminal record and a possible prison sentence to paying the stratospheric amounts that insurance companies demand. The average car should cost no more than £300 a year to insure - any more than that is a con, pure and simple.