Insurance claim - not Porsche related - any advice?

[AndrewSlater]

Just asking whether the service my son is receiving with regard to an insurance claim is normal or not and whether anyone has any advice.
Sadly ( or positively ) I've not had to make an insurance claim for 15+ years so I've not had any recent experience.

Two weeks ago today my son was travelling to visit his girlfriend when a deer ran out into the path of his Skoda Citigo.
On first inspection the bonnet and wing was dented, grill broken, radiator dented and headlight smashed.
Checking that the car still ran and that the radiator didn't appear to leak, he turned around and limped it back home.

Having seen the damage first hand I told him to start a claim the same day with his insurer Aviva.
We did all this online and supplied photos and answered the questions on the condition of the car.
Within a short space of time we had a response to say that the insurer felt the car was likely beyond economic repair and that Copart would pick up the vehicle for salvage.
The insurance also informed my son he was eligible for a courtesy car.
It was arranged that the car would be picked on the following Monday and that a driver was assigned.

This is where things started to go wrong.

Firstly Copart never arrived to pick the car up. After finally contacting them they admitted their booking system didn't work correctly and rearranged to pick the car up on the Wednesday - Two days lost due to no fault of ours.
At this point we questioned when we would receive a courtesy car and was told that we weren't getting one and that this was a mistake on their part and to disregard the communication that confirmed it - Not very good.
We were next told that there would be a guaranteed update within 5 working days - this never happened.
The following day we contacted Aviva and were promised that Copart would update us that day - again this never happened.
The next day we contacted Aviva again who put a Copart representative through to us - sadly they didn't seem to know what was happening with the car but claimed a colleague would get back the same day - again that didn't happen.

So plenty of mis-information and delay after delay through no fault of our own.

Today we finally hear that they have made a mistake and have now decided that the car can be repaired.
However as we live in Southampton they claim they only have one approved repair centre in out catchment area in Basingstoke and they can't accept the car for repair until late August.
Considering how many body repair shops there are in the Southampton, Portsmouth area I find it incredible that Aviva only have one covering this area.

They tell us we have no choice but to wait until their one and only repairer can accept the car, or we can sort it out ourselves but this will incur an additional £200 excess. ( My son is already being stung for an additional young drivers excess as is ).

We have raised a complaint on all these matters to try to get some sort of urgency added to the matter, but have now been told they may take 5 working days to look at the complaint.

I'm a little annoyed that we've spent over a week viewing replacement cars when we were told it was going to be written off.
I'm pleased that they feel it is repairable as it is a great low mileage car that my son has really looked after for the last five year, but surely Aviva are obliged to repair it in a timely manner.

Seems to me to be pretty shocking service - whereby they have already lost us two weeks or so time in failed promises and also mis-categorising the car as a write-off.
We have asked that they at least provide a courtesy car for the mistakes made or to waive the additional excess to take the car elsewhere.

So my question is this normal service for a claim these day?


Anyone got any useful suggestions as to what path to follow next.

Thanks for reading

Andrew

[rhd racer]

Hi Andrew

Obviously the service and poor communication has been terrible, but that aside;

- there are huge delays to the supply chain for replacement parts, the same as there are for new cars. This is partly a legacy of shut-downs during COVID, and partly electrical chip related etc
- this is delaying claims across the board. So simple repairs are held up behind more complex ones which are taking an age. Electric cars also causing some issues for repairers
- there are also lots of workforce related issues; shortages of technicians in all walks of mechanical repair

All these elements unfortunately are leading to delays, so I don’t think you are being fobbed off. The repairer in Basingstoke is more likely to be the only one with any capacity, rather than their only authorised repairer.

One of the only positives from this nightmare is that companies are under increasing pressure to do green repairs, so a number of specialists are popping up offering serviceable used parts to shorten supply issues and keep costs down whilst saving resources.

I work in insurance, not in Motor at all, but pick up industry issues from here and there. Not trying to defend their actions in any way, but I think the service is masking bigger supply problems which an agent is unlikely to share.

Hope that helps
Wayne


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[AndrewSlater]

Hi Wayne, thanks for the insight.

Since posting the approved repairer (Solus - owned by Aviva )has rung to say the information from Aviva is rubbish and that he can accept the car from Monday although Copart can only get it to him Tuesday - clearly this is much better than we were led to believe.
We asked if he was having any trouble with the supply chain and he claimed they were able to get all the parts in a reasonable time.

Hopefully this change will speed things up - fingers crossed.

What annoys me is that the information we are given seems to be constantly contradicted or changed - Rant over

[rhd racer]

Fingers crossed - best of luck with it


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[911hillclimber]

Grim to read Andrew, and we all fear such a situation. A claim will always show flaws and weaknesses, but even strengths.

My last claim was 6 years ago when i was rear-ended in a traffic queue in my wife's Toyota iQ, a perfect cherrished car.
We were with Direct Dial.
The car was with the local approved repairers in 3 days, we refused the courtesy car (though in the policy) and it was repaired in 2 weeks, on time, rear damage but we drove it home.

However, the car was repaired crabbing, the steering was off by 15 degrees and it felt it, not the same perfect car. The list of replaced parts was quite a shock, a long list.
Direct Line were not interested, it had been repaired by their approved agent, so they had done everything.

Eventually, I got a letter from them agreeing it was not my fault which I could show to another insurance company. The NCB got a hit despite this and now over 5 years on, that mill-stone is no more.

My point is, it is never 'right', it is never 'satisfactory', it is a compromise unless you are either lucky or not too fussed.

IMO i would get the car repaired (wife has a Citigo) locally, pay the £200 if such an action is better than their current offer of late August.

We saw the Toyota iQ only last week, 6 years on looking good, but i bet with an off-set steering wheel...

Good luck.

[Nine One One]

Andrew,

Why are CoPart picking the car up, when they only deal in salvage? Just make sure please this is not messages mixed up again, with the insurance company, and the next time you see the car its on their auction site!
Also make sure you have plenty of pictures of every side / angle of the car, just in case it is ‘damaged’ in transit. Better to be safe than sorry. Nice small cars and good it is being repaired, as prices have shot up recently which no doubt you are finding out, and I doubt that increase in small second hand cars would be reflected in an offer from an insurance company either.

[AndrewSlater]

Grim to read Andrew, and we all fear such a situation. A claim will always show flaws and weaknesses, but even strengths.

My last claim was 6 years ago when i was rear-ended in a traffic queue in my wife's Toyota iQ, a perfect cherrished car.
We were with Direct Dial.
The car was with the local approved repairers in 3 days, we refused the courtesy car (though in the policy) and it was repaired in 2 weeks, on time, rear damage but we drove it home.

However, the car was repaired crabbing, the steering was off by 15 degrees and it felt it, not the same perfect car. The list of replaced parts was quite a shock, a long list.
Direct Line were not interested, it had been repaired by their approved agent, so they had done everything.

Eventually, I got a letter from them agreeing it was not my fault which I could show to another insurance company. The NCB got a hit despite this and now over 5 years on, that mill-stone is no more.

My point is, it is never 'right', it is never 'satisfactory', it is a compromise unless you are either lucky or not too fussed.

IMO i would get the car repaired (wife has a Citigo) locally, pay the £200 if such an action is better than their current offer of late August.

We saw the Toyota iQ only last week, 6 years on looking good, but i bet with an off-set steering wheel...

Good luck.

Thanks Graham.
Yes his car is pretty much identical to yours being a red Monte Carlo.

We've always kept it to a high standard, fully serviced new tyres etc - so glad its not been written off as I expect he could never replace it like for like, on an insurance payout.
We recently changed all the brake discs, pads, drums and shoes, new tyres and a full service so it was in tip top condition.

I agree no repairs are every 100% right no matter what the repairers claim.
In the same way that I've never bought a brand new car that didn't have some form of defect ( but then I have a high level of attention and detail - my engineering background I'm afraid ).

The revised timescale for the repairer to start is an improvement and I'm struggling to find anyone who can take the car in any earlier so we will have to go with that.

Fingers crossed the process will be less stressful from here in.

[AndrewSlater]

Andrew,

Why are CoPart picking the car up, when they only deal in salvage? Just make sure please this is not messages mixed up again, with the insurance company, and the next time you see the car its on their auction site!
Also make sure you have plenty of pictures of every side / angle of the car, just in case it is ‘damaged’ in transit. Better to be safe than sorry. Nice small cars and good it is being repaired, as prices have shot up recently which no doubt you are finding out, and I doubt that increase in small second hand cars would be reflected in an offer from an insurance company either.

Hi Ian,

Aviva advised that they expected the car to be a write-off so they engaged Copart to collect the car - so they have had the car now for the best part of two weeks.
We did take plenty of photos of it before it went.

As for prices yes we wouldn't be able to buy an equivalent model with the same miles and condition for what we paid for it 5 years ago - which seems a little mad.
We expected a market value payout would have been a bit dismal compared to reality - which is why we didn't really want it writing off.

Hopefully they can repair it to a good standard and within a reasonable timescale now.

[Bruce M]

I hit a deer last winter. Luckily a glancing blow so limited damage.

I didn’t bother with a claim & paid out of my own pocket, because the cost was less than the excess + the inflated premiums for the next 3 yrs. note I do have fully protected NCB but that doesn’t stop the premiums increasing.

Since your son is a young driver, his next premium renewal could be painful.