My Peugot Partner van has just been written off. 2004 123,00 miles and only worth £1225 on the book price. It was for commercial use. Plainly not my fault as the Dodge Charger pulled out of a car park onto the main road .. he never looked and I smacked him. I am looking for another van (any offers) and also trying to keep the Painting and Decorating business customers happy. Will lose working days for sure. Anyone have the expereince of how I can maximise my claim above the value of the van. It was all signed up .. does that put value on? Cheers
I'm no fan of the "claim for everything" culture, but to prevent lost income sounds like a reasonable grounds for claiming for a rented van, not sure how easy it is to do without getting the loathsome claims management companies involved (who will encourage you to claim for whiplash treatment and a gold-plated hire van).
Is the van actually damaged beyond reasonable repair or is it mainly cosmetic? If the fault is clearly with the third party then their insurance company can't just write the van off, only your own insurance company can do that. So if the van can be made road legal for not much money then it may be worth keeping it whilst maximising payout from the third party.
If they do write it off, the ins company will offer you silly money for it in the first instance.
The technique (I learnt from a fleet manager) is to refuse the money & ask them to buy you an equivalent van e.g same make, model, spec, year & mileage.
They obviously can't do that & will make all sorts of excuses. Just use the broken record technique.
Eventually they will get so fed up they will raise the offer.
How is it insured? Fully comp? Does your insurance include renting a replacement? Do you have cover for solicitor's fees? Have the parties, or the insurers agreed who was at fault?
If it's agreed the other party was at fault (and it's not just your opinion), the other party is responsible for meeting your costs, but you must be able to show that you kept them to a minimum (e.g make sure you have quotes from 3 van rental places and can show you picked the lowest). If you are fully comp, then it may be easier to do this via your own insurer who will reclaim if the other party was at fault. Last time I was involved in anything like this (which was probably too many years ago to be valid today), it was the act of claiming your insurance excess back from the other party which was their effective admission of liability at the end of it all, and was the key part to eliminating any loss of your future no claims discount.
Meantime, though you're without transport (or have had to buy a replacement yourself with your own money). I've always wondered why people let their insurance company handle _all_ aspects of a claim. After the vehicle, can't you just sue the other party (small claims would probably be enough) and then let them reclaim the monies from their insurance.
It may vary from insurer to insurer. When I was rear ended a few years ago (very minor damage, my towbar only had paint damage but it had punctured the other drivers aircon radiator and fan). Direct Line who insured the other driver phoned me up the next day to admit liability and offer a hire van and take my van in for repair.
It was one of the strangest phonecalls I have ever had. The guy was unable to believe that I did not want any repairs doing. I ended up having to sign a disclaimer that my van was not damaged and that I had wiped the paint off the tow bar and did not want paying for doing so.
It seems that the insurance company were prepared to cut out the middlemen to save costs.
On Mon, 5 Sep 2011 17:56:42 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) gently dipped his quill in the best Quink that money could buy:
Fully Comp I have a rental van as part of my insurance, for 7 days .. tho it took
4 days before I knew my van was a write off. Van goes back 2moro. Have heard nothing from either insurance company yet .. will start ringing 2moro. I have registered with a no win, no fee solicitors.
If it takes me a week to find another van, can I keep the rental van and claim on his insurance ?
The other driver is from USA and using an American insurance comp.
Some insurance companies have worked out that it is cheaper to sort out a valid claim from a TP themselves rather than the TP knock up higher costs that they reclaim anyway.
I know someone who did just that, he had to argue with the insurers 'cos they wanted to take the hire car back, but he argued that the three days they'd given him was not enough time to find another similar spec, similar history vehicle and make the arrangements to buy it.
I have no idea what complications that might add.
I am assuming that as he's American and he's on his own American insurance, he's likely to be in the services or working for a big American company. If he's services and his contact details tell you where, then down the line, if there are any problems, contacting his commanding officer might help.
If it is settled as his fault, then you also ought to be claiming for loss of income for time lost due to the accident, general running around and looking for another vehicle.
When a wagon hit my wife's parked car, she was unable to take it to their nominated garage (partly because she was too nervous about going to an area she didn't know during rush hour, but also because she had a full caseload of mentally ill patients booked in weeks ahead and couldn't just cancel), so I had to take it. Due to the time they wanted the car there I had to leave before the nursery was open, drop my wife at work, drive to the garage, wait for them to take me and our son to the hire car company, wait again for them to finish preparing the car, find that the car they'd given us was too small for his trolley to go in the boot (despite me informing the insurers in advance), negotiate a change with them and the insurers, wait while they prepared another car, drive to my wife's work, drive her home so that she could then drive back to work, while I got my car to drive to the nursery and drop our son off, before finally getting to work at 12:00 - I normally started at
07:30! The whole thing had to be repeated in reverse when the car needed to be picked up again. I could legitimately demonstrate that I'd lost 9 hours at £27.50 an hour and although they queried it, one written response got their agreement and a full payout.
If it's clearly not your fault, they are confident that the thirdparty insurer will cough up for all the repair/expenses plus a not inconsiderable amount for claim management etc.
They've realised that instead of paying some dodgy claimsdirect4Ualike they may as well manage it themselves, and claim those fees from the third party themselves... easy money.
In which case you can probably have your insurers deal with it all.
I can't see the point in that, at the moment anyway.
You can try. (Always bear in mind that you might get nothing, if it later turns out he wasn't insured and has no money.) You may still need to be able to show that you minimised costs, so make sure you get (and keep) several quotes, and you picked the lowest. That may mean you have to change rental vans of course.
That would ring alarm bells in my mind, about if he's really covered.
Because if you have fully comp insurance and legal expenses cover they will deal with all of it, including reclaiming costs from the third party (vehicle rental, loss of earnings etc).
If you have legal cover your insurers (or their solicitors) deal with all this for you. All you have to do is sign a few forms.
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