Kathryn wrote: An update: I've been in touch with her insurers and it was actually pain-free! I knew she'd already contacted them because I had a missed call and text from them. She has admitted liability, they are aware it is a specialist car and are happy for me to have it repaired at a garage of my choice. I've now got to wait for an engineer to come out and look at it, show him the repair quote and it's up to him to authorise it. Fingers crossed!
Sounds good. You do need to keep control of the repair process and 'ownership of the project'. Just a word of warning to all ... don't trust Insurance companies,they have no ethics!
I had my stationary Subaru Forester seriously damaged by a towed car 'that got away' from the towing vehicle and the driver correctly accepted full liability. Hastings Direct, his insurers, contacted me to say they would arrive with an Enterprise Hire car for me, take my Forester away to a repair company in Ipswich, repair it and return it. Sounded great... but things went wrong after a couple of weeks when Enterprise turned up to collect the hire car 'as the claim had been settled'. Seems Hastings Direct had decided to write off my Prodrive Subaru Forester XT (2 litre turbo, significantly enhanced by Prodrive) but hadn't told me. When I contacted them they offered about 50% of it's value when looking at 'ordinary Foresters' on ebay & Autotrader. (If you think Elan S2 with Everest chip and big bore exhaust being replaced by a very high mileage NA you might get the idea.) I showed then equivalent Foresters on Autotrader but they weren't interested, but were a bit surprised I had an alternative vehicle (Elan) and was going to continue to argue with them.
I spoke to the FSA but they only controlled Financial Company's dealings with their clients, not client's claimants, but the lady told me they were seeking wider powers as Hastings Direct, and others, were immediately offering several tens of thousands of pounds for full and final settlement for serious personal injury when later assessment would determine hundreds of thousands were needed for a permanent disability.
I then rushed off to get my possessions out of my car, SatNav, CD's out of the player etc and the guy at the repair company told me Hastings Direct write off 50% of the cars they offer to repair. He suggested I take anything removable - handbook, mats, boot liner etc and helped remove rear spoiler and side skirts. Seems he didn't like the way they did business either.
Fortunately my Subaru had been a dealer demo car, which is why it was 'fully loaded' with tinted windows, leather heated seats, rear spoiler, skirts & Prodrive conversion and the dealer sent me a fairly conservative valuation based on it's mileage at the time. I sent 'an amended version' to Hastings Direct with a letter saying I was prepared to take them to Small Claims Court in Ipswich and got a letter with a cheque for £8,600 which was £150 short of £8,750 in my letter. When I asked why £150 short they said 'we don't think you'll bother chasing £150'... good job I used Photoshop to change valuation of £8,150 to £8,750.. but it still didn't compensate for all the aggravation and inconvenience of dealing with them and then chasing around the country to find an acceptable replacement and the train fare to go and collect it. Replacement was standard XT with lower mileage but wasn't a Prodrive so was never equivalent in any way, and no tinted windows..
. That meant I couldn't catch the train to collect my replacement car as I couldn't pay for it so I went back with a claim for cost of train ticket I couldn't use and loss of earnings for 3 days, as I used Forester for business. I got £466 for unused train fare and 1 day paid but they argued liability stopped when I presented the cheque so train travel to collect car and loss of earnings after that was my problem.
