Small accident/large bill...being ripped off??

comad

I posted this in another thread but it might be a little lost in here. Can any one offer me some advice

Hi,
A month ago I tipped the back bumper of a 10 year car as I pulled out of a tight parking space. The bumper was already in a bad way but I caused a 1 inch scratch on the side. There was no dents or anything damage bar the scratch. We agreed in front of a witness that this scratch was the only damage I caused. I took a few photos and agreed to pay to fix the scratch. I then made a statement to the guards that evening and instructed my insurance company not to pay anything without my consent.The person got back to me yesterday saying they brought the car to a garage and got it repaired and they want me to pay the €700 bill. The never rang me and told me it would cost this much. I had brought the photos to a garage near me and they said they'd do it for €150 which is more realistic and the damage was as minor as you can get.

What can I do?

Sids Not

I think you should let your insurance company handle it..they should have sent out an engineer to view the damage ,then consider the overall value inc. the car...dont pay a penny....

Darragh29

Sids Not wrote: »

I think you should let your insurance company handle it..they should have sent out an engineer to view the damage ,then consider the overall value inc. the car...dont pay a penny....

My other half got screwed by someone at the same game. A 12 year old car, she tipped off the car and broke the indicator unit and a tiny scratch that the insurance company ended up issuing payment of 1,800 Euro for, based on this sap going to the most expensive main dealer in the city, and the car not worth over 200 Euro. Your man was living beside us so we could see that 12 months later, he didn't get the car repaired, so obviously used the money to pay for his holiday, which of course is his entitlement.

Unfortunately it seems to be a watertight scam once you are in the wrong with respect to the damage.

modm3

Get a letter drafted from your solicitor, get an independant SIMI :rolleyes: authorised insurance repair center to quote based on the photograph, description of damage agreed. Send him on the amount of money they think is owed and tell him to go feck himself - he's obviously gotten you quoted for a new bumper out of it. He needs to produce appropriate evidence that the repair was completed to that cost and the itemised list of parts required - as he has stated it has been repaired.

I would try this, don't know if I'd have a leg to stand on, but sometimes if you give the impression that YOU are right, you might convince others the same - management 101
In any instance like this, you should try and both agree on the establishment that the repair is to be completed, get the quotes to agree what is to be replaced (we opted for a new door skin instead of a whole new door at one time)

Anan1

Sids Not wrote: »

I think you should let your insurance company handle it..they should have sent out an engineer to view the damage ,then consider the overall value inc. the car...dont pay a penny....

This is good advice. By the way, OP, I don't know where you got the idea that you could dictate settlement terms to your insurance company - it's their money and their decision.

Berty

They cannot send a car to any garage without your insurance companies consent.

What usually happens in these cases is the insurance company will send an assessor to another garage and ask them how much to fix a scratch. If it is, lets say €150 then you will pay this and the idiot who sent it to his own garage will pay the balance.

Its his own fault for not following the rules.

comad

I appreciate the advice. This is only my second ever incident like this. The first guy laughed it off with a "It happens" comment. This guy went to the other extreme.

I'm going to ring the insurance company in the morning to see what they have to say. I'll post the outcome on here.

Anan1

At the end of the day, you pay insurance so you don't have to worry about this sort of sh1t. Just hand it over, forget about it and enjoy your Christmas.:)

Our man in Havana

Anan1 wrote: »

At the end of the day, you pay insurance so you don't have to worry about this sort of sh1t. Just hand it over, forget about it and enjoy your Christmas.:)

+1. That is why you pay insurance.

321654

Berty wrote: »

They cannot send a car to any garage without your insurance companies consent.

What usually happens in these cases is the insurance company will send an assessor to another garage and ask them how much to fix a scratch. If it is, lets say €150 then you will pay this and the idiot who sent it to his own garage will pay the balance.

Its his own fault for not following the rules.

Not true. ive worked in insurance companies. They pay what they are invoiced in the end .... always.

They can chance their arm arguing and sometimes it works but if the other party doesnt flinch they end up paying it all.

PeakOutput

321654 wrote: »

Not true. ive worked in insurance companies. They pay what they are invoiced in the end .... always.

They can chance their arm arguing and sometimes it works but if the other party doesnt flinch they end up paying it all.

maybe in the company you worked for


in the insurance company i work for the engineer always sets the price and while there is discretion there its always the engineers price that is the starting point not the garages price

At the end of the day, you pay insurance so you don't have to worry about this sort of sh1t. Just hand it over, forget about it and enjoy your Christmas

+1. depending on the insurance company obviously but 99% of them are not out to screw you and also want to pay out as little as possible

My other half got screwed by someone at the same game. A 12 year old car, she tipped off the car and broke the indicator unit and a tiny scratch that the insurance company ended up issuing payment of 1,800 Euro for, based on this sap going to the most expensive main dealer in the city, and the car not worth over 200 Euro. Your man was living beside us so we could see that 12 months later, he didn't get the car repaired, so obviously used the money to pay for his holiday, which of course is his entitlement.

Unfortunately it seems to be a watertight scam once you are in the wrong with respect to the damage.

i can almost guarantee you that that payment was made because thats how much the car was worth not how much the repairs would cost. the damage to the banger was obviously significant enough to make it a write off (beyond economical repair / ber) and therefore the person gets the value of the car less the salvage value and he can choose to use that money to repair it or not but its on the cars record that it was deemed a write off at some point in its life severely devalueing it

Darragh29

PeakOutput wrote: »

maybe in the company you worked for in the insurance company i work for the engineer always sets the price and while there is discretion there its always the engineers price that is the starting point not the garages price

+1. depending on the insurance company obviously but 99% of them are not out to screw you and also want to pay out as little as possible

This is true. I used to do insurance assessing and as an assessor, your key role is to regulate and approve the estimate on behalf of the insurance company.

The procedure when I was doing this was:

(1) Garage examines the car and sends the assessor a detailed estimate for parts, labour, paint & primers, etc.

(2) The assessor then reviews the information sent in by the garage and inspects the car at the garage.

(3) The assessor might then review the labour element of the estimate downwards, (because a garage will usually overestimate labour anyway to cover themselves), typically costs for parts are not disturbed unless some part that it not necessary is on the estimate, usually by "mistake", or a discount expected on parts could be conveniently missing!

(4) The assessor signs off on the estimate and the garage is authorised to do the work on behalf of the insurance company on the basis of the estimate that has just been signed off on by the assessor. Often you would have a situation where you would sign off on an estimate and you'd get back to the office to have the b*llox eaten off you by a workshop manager who disagrees with your analysis of the work required. Sometimes there might be a bit of give and take, say for example recovery charges, some garages have an agreement to waive these charges when they get the repair job, but then when they are not happy with the margin on the repair job, they'll try to lamp you with a recovery charge, yakedy yakedy yak....

At the end of the day, the insurance company and on their behalf, the assessor, has control over the invoice, because if the garage doesn't like it or doesn't want to run with the assessors figures, they can ultimately end up losing valuable insurance work from the insurance company.

Finally, when the estimate is agreed, the garage go ahead and start the work and send in a final invoice to the assessor on completion. You can be sure that the final invoice is always higher than the previously agreed estimate. The rule is that IF something arises in the course of repairing the vehicle, where the estimate has to be reviewed upwards by the garage because of a cost that was not known at the time that the estimate was built, the assessor must be contacted AT THAT TIME and he/she must approve the change in the estimate. A lot of the time, this doesn't happen, instead they just go ahead and buy the part and fit it and add it to the final invoice, so when the invoice hits the assessor for reconciliation with the estimate for payment through the insurance company, the garage ultimately lose money on whatever parts that are on the invoice that were not added to the estimate...

kluivert

Typically what happens is that the car goes to a garage. The cost of the repairs are 150e but the garage puts down 1500e. Thats 150e + a fee for the garage and the rest for the guy claiming.

When times are tough people think of ways to screw money from anywhere they can.

PeakOutput

kluivert wrote: »

Typically what happens is that the car goes to a garage. The cost of the repairs are 150e but the garage puts down 1500e. Thats 150e + a fee for the garage and the rest for the guy claiming.

When times are tough people think of ways to screw money from anywhere they can.

dude that literally never happens

they just cant get away with stuff like that and havnt ben able to for years

Darragh29

kluivert wrote: »

Typically what happens is that the car goes to a garage. The cost of the repairs are 150e but the garage puts down 1500e. Thats 150e + a fee for the garage and the rest for the guy claiming.

When times are tough people think of ways to screw money from anywhere they can.

I understand insurance companies are clamping down now on all this type of carry on, lads getting 2K quotes for a scratch on a wing and getting some to sort it out for 300 quid as a nixer.

Another thing that is a sign of the times we are now living in, is if your car is burnt out, you can find yourself being suspected of organising for your car to be torched. If the insurance company see that you have your car up for sale on Carzone for the last 9 months and next thing it's a cinder parked outside your house, you can forget about them paying out in the short term...

Our man in Havana

Darragh29 wrote: »

I understand insurance companies are clamping down now on all this type of carry on, lads getting 2K quotes for a scratch on a wing and getting some to sort it out for 300 quid as a nixer.

Another thing that is a sign of the times we are now living in, is if your car is burnt out, you can find yourself being suspected of organising for your car to be torched. If the insurance company see that you have your car up for sale on Carzone for the last 9 months and next thing it's a cinder parked outside your house, you can forget about them paying out in the short term...

They would be on a sticky wicket there as they would have to prove it. The would have to make a complaint to the Gardaí, who would have to investigate and get a conviction. The claimant could easily sue an insurance company in a case like that for defamation.

I had a problem with AXA (which I would not insure a wheelbarrow with) where they refused to payout on a relatives death benefits attached to a motor policy. I actually had to serve a high court writ on them to make them cough up.

stevie87

I am new to this and not sure exactly what i have to do but I would really appreciate any help.

I was involved in a car crash two weeks ago which was my fault, nobody was hurt and my insurance company is handling the incident. Here is where it gets tricky. My car is a Toyota Yaris (2002) and in perfect condition apart from the damage resulting from the accident. My insurance company have informed me that the damage is too costly to repair and they suggest that the car be written off. However, they have offered me a figure of €4300 minus €500 for my excess policy fee. I originally paid €6500 for the car just over 12 months ago and although I am aware that the car market has decreased in value recently I really feel that they are trying to rip me off. I have searched many used car websites for similar cars in similar condition and all prices are substantially higher than that offered from my insurer. I tried to explain to my insurer that my car should be valued significantly higher because of its condition and quality but they are not budging on their offer. A few weeks ago I was offered €5000 cash for my car and when I purchased the car I paid extra to have an alarm fitted and also brand new alloys and tyres which where expensive so I really feel that they are ripping me off with their offer. What can I do ?

_Kaiser_

stevie87 wrote: »

I am new to this and not sure exactly what i have to do but I would really appreciate any help.

I was involved in a car crash two weeks ago which was my fault, nobody was hurt and my insurance company is handling the incident. Here is where it gets tricky. My car is a Toyota Yaris (2002) and in perfect condition apart from the damage resulting from the accident. My insurance company have informed me that the damage is too costly to repair and they suggest that the car be written off. However, they have offered me a figure of €4300 minus €500 for my excess policy fee. I originally paid €6500 for the car just over 12 months ago and although I am aware that the car market has decreased in value recently I really feel that they are trying to rip me off. I have searched many used car websites for similar cars in similar condition and all prices are substantially higher than that offered from my insurer. I tried to explain to my insurer that my car should be valued significantly higher because of its condition and quality but they are not budging on their offer. A few weeks ago I was offered €5000 cash for my car and when I purchased the car I paid extra to have an alarm fitted and also brand new alloys and tyres which where expensive so I really feel that they are ripping me off with their offer. What can I do ?

They've offered you the book value of the car which is always substantially less than the market value.

I had the same problem a few years back, but escalated to management till I got what I wanted. In my case I'd bought the car 6 months earlier and they wanted to give me €1500 less HOWEVER it was their client that was at fault so my argument was that it was their job to get me back on the road in the condition I was in beforehand which did nOT include a written-off car or being over a grand out of pocket.

They also took their sweet time sending out an asessor in the first week but after daily calls, escalating to team leader or above whenever the agent started telling me crap I didn't want to hear, and repeating the above over and OVER, they eventually gave in and paid me the full amount - took 3 weeks though!

So be persistent, but as the accident was your fault you may have to accept a lower figure.