I bought myself an absolutely mint Alfa 156 V6 at the end of February to keep me entertained until the Z was sorted. Fantastic handling, 6 speed box, full leather and the best sounding engine I've heard on a "normal" car all for a bargain £4K - it was £21K new 3 years ago!

Feel sorry for whoever paid that...

 

9th March:

Had it all of 2 weeks before a little shit smashed it up for me.

I live in the corner of a cul-de-sac and arrived home after work to find a fiesta parked half up my drive with a couple of lads in it chatting to the young girl next door.

I pulled up behind so he could see I was trying to get in my drive and then reversed back and parked on the corner of the road to let him out.

The tosser decided to show off to his 15 year old girly friend and slammed it in reverse and red lined it backwards.

Unfortunately he couldn't keep it straight and swerved towards me so fast I couldn't do anything to get out the way.

He must have been doing over 30mph when he hit the side of me.

Hit the wing mirror, both passenger side doors, rear wing & bumper.

His rear wheel hit mine so hard his car went a foot in the air and bent my wheel out at 45 degrees.

 

I got out looking not too happy.

He said "I'm really sorry mate, you can hit me if you want" LMFAO

"No" I said, "I just want lots of your money"

 

He said he was going to pay cash and not to tell the insurance as he was only 17 and passed his test the week before and only had his car 3 days!

He didn't want to give me his details so I threatened to involve the police so he'd have even more trouble. I ended up sorting it all out with his dad on his mobile to prove who he was.

****er!

His fiesta just had scraped paint on the bumper but found out in the end there was £3.5K of damage to my car so suprised they didn't write it off.

I did offer to let him settle privately for cash! :D

 

Reported the accident to e-Sure who I only took the policy out with 2 weeks earlier. Thought there would be no probs as i'd get a free courtesy car within 48 hours if I use their approved repairer but I can arrange it all myself if I wanted to.

Chased it up 2 days later when nobody had called me to arrange the car as the said they would. Was told they had never received my signed policy docs so they couldn't proceed but the lad HAS ACCEPTED LIABILITY for the accident.

They put a new set in the post which took 4 days(!) to arrive and I sent them back next morning.

Called to check they had got them a day later and they told me it takes them 10 working days to "process" my form so it could be nearly 3 weeks before I get the courtesy car! I went mental. Are you insuring me or not?!?!

They told me I could hire a car and claim it back as the accident WASN'T MY FAULT. Decided it was too much hastle and I'd wait for their car.

 

23rd March CD Bramall of York (large Vauxhall dealer) finally towed away my car to start inspecting it!

 

Eventually on 28th March an 850cc Corsa courtesy car arrived :(

All this time I'd been spending £15 a day on the train/buses/taxis to work.

Was told my car would be repaired within a week...

Garage couldn't get a rear suspension arm (from Alfa UK or in Italy! Yeah right - an Alfa 156 is such a rare car!) so it sat for 3.5 weeks waiting.

 

29th March called e-sure to discuss my expenses being refunded.

Was told the other party DOES NOT ACCEPT LIABILTY so they couldn't do it!

It's a good job I didn't arrange my own hire car as you suggested then!?!

Posted them all my receipts anyway.

 

1st May Car returned to me but the rear bumper is a totally different colour to the rest and 2 speaker grills, a handle and trim parts are missing from inside the doors! The side skirt still has a paint chip and there's rubber from the tyre impact hasn't even been cleaned off it.

Had to pay £350 excess to garage so with expenses I'm £600 out of pocket so far. Would have rejected it but bank holiday in Scotland in couple of days and I wasn't driving a 600 mile round trip in an 850 Corsa.

 

3rd May, Chased my expenses and XS and was told I will get a cheque shortly as it's being dealt with by the other party's insurer who HAS ACCEPTED LIABILITY.

 

14th May, Garage insist on coming to inspect the car.

"You're right. There's some trim missing" No shit Sherlock!

"The paint never matches - it's because it's a plastic bumper" Do I look like a firkin idiot?!

They will call me back to sort it out. Not heard anything since.

 

Today 21st May Called e-Sure to chase my £600 expenses and excess to be returned. Was told the other party DOES NOT ACCEPT LIABILITY!

Lost my temper big style and after lots of arguing was told they don't have my receipt... What receipt I asked.

They have not even sent a claim to the other insurance company because I haven't posted a receipt for my XS to them!

I wasn't told I had to do this and after being told it's in the policy I signed I asked them to point out where it says I have to send it to them.

They couldn't...

If it's their approved repairer, why do I have to do this for them?

Asked why it's taken a month for them to tell me this when earlier they said it was in progress and asked how long they were going to keep my money before calling me... no answer.

 

3 months from the accident and I'm still having to chase them every couple of days.

No wonder these companies are making so much money when they give no service and you have to do all the work for them while they earn interest on YOUR cash.

 

I'll never use e-Sure again.

The Z will be fixed this month so I may as well never have bought the bloody Alfa!

 

Can you tell I'm pissed off?!?! :mad:

P.S Do I get a prize for longest ever post?

 

I don't care if anybody reads it, I feel better for typing it! LOL

F'kin typical of insurance companies.

 

Hope you finally get it sorted mate.

Speak to AY3388. It took 6 months for his accident to get settled, even though the other driver was sent on a driving course by the police, and the police said it was the other drivers fault.

 

These are the things which you should also take into account when looking for insurance. I am happy to pay another £50 or so for a company who is compitent at doing claims.

 

I have also learned, from other people mostly, always get stuff in writing and always take note of when you phoned and who you spoke too. If the person on the phone says "they accept responcablitly" ask them to send you confirmation on writing.

 

I know its no help now, but maybe others can learn from your or other people's experience.

Maybe we can have a FAQ or help page on making a claim.

 

Stuart

i had a lad drive into the back of my old scorpio...bent the frame..a write off...anyways when he hit me i went into a car infront...who drove off...no insurance i guess...anyway i asked the lad to sign a deciption of the accident saying that he was responsible for hitting me...guess what..his insurers said he wasnt liable because he had only crashed into me because i had crashed into someone else first and it had distrated him...can you believe that?....anyway i said ok you send your man to inspect your clients rear end damage and we'll leave the front out for now...report came back saying the rear damage was more than enough to make it a write off but still disputed liability...it was then i pointed out to them that i had a hire car taken out with a co called vision vehicle hire who pre vet claims with the accident recovery drivers and that the hire car was £75 a day and the more they argue over the £700 ford the worse it gets...they paid up in full...just boggling when you think it was just a rear end shunt...

 

regards

The latest on my Z, just sent this to the claims department.

Chris i know how you feel!

 

Dear Sir / madam

 

I am writing to you with regards to my “total loss” claim on my vehicle on the 2nd of April 2004 Ref: Z04/1952436.

 

I received official conformation and was told that the claim was in the hands of the engineer. I was offered £5000 plus £100 for a car phone kit. In total I felt that this was not the market value and rejected the offer. I posted out a rejection letter including adverts of 4 different vehicles to support my claim, this was logged on your system on the April 20th. I contacted yourselves on the March 5th to see what your response was and was told that the letter could not be found. It was suggested that the engineer would contact me the next day.

I received a call from Cliff Goodger on march 6th, Cliff had only just been made aware of the rejection offer and asked what value did I put on the car. I told him that I feel that the current market value is £6000. He suggested that there was “No way” that you would pay this amount and suggested that he could offer £5,500 and when I replied that I couldn’t accept this he retaliated in an aggressive manner with the words “well I retract that offer and it goes back to £5000.” He then went on to say that the car was personal to me and stated “to be quite honest your car really didn’t do much for me”.

I then called NIG to file a complaint and this was logged on the system and I was referred to Melvin Tebbett and told that he would now deal with the claim. I waited for a call from him but there was no response, after 6 days I called again and was told that he would call me the next day. The following day 19th may I had a call from another member of staff to say that he could not contact me but I could call him on his mobile after 5pm or he would call me the following day. I called Mr Tebbitt that afternoon and he had no knowledge of the claim (other than the call from one of your operators earlier that day asking him to call Me) and said he would look into it. He suggested making an interim payment of £5000 plus £100 for the carp-hone kit minus the excess.

Mr Tebbitt called me six days later to say that he had looked at the claim and agreed that the value was £5000, he suggested that this was an average figure for my vehicle. The cheque arrived later that day and was £100 short of the agreed interim figure and I called NIG to confirm that it was an interim payment but I was told it was payment in full.

 

 

 

 

I have been offered “top book price” from yourselves taken from the “guide price” books that are available. What I must question is that to work out an average price you need several exact vehicles to do this calculation. I suggested that there are no 1994 UK Nissan 300zx twin turbo cars for sale that I can find so where did he find this information. He replied that he agreed he didn’t find one either but this was the average price he had worked out using the guidebooks and cars he had seen for sale.

I feel I have been dealt with very unfairly and in a very unprofessional manner. I have had no contact from yourselves to try and resolve this and every time I call I am told that to support my dispute I must send in copies of adverts and I reply “I already have but you have lost them”.

I must say that I have wasted much of my time trying to resolve this but to no avail and I am wasting even more time typing out this letter. I now have a cheque that I can’t bank as this would state that I accept the offer in full and I certainly do not.

I could continue to moan about my feelings on all of this but I will spare you that and hopefully someone will take control of this from now on.

fkin insurance scum.. theyre up there with banks!