Yep - that's true. But what's the alternative? Make consumers pay if the Ombudsman finds against them? But then some people with valid complaints might be inclined not to take them to the Ombudsman, because they wouldn't want to pay the fee if they lost.
"Ronald Raygun" wrote
It's not a 'fine', its a 'fee' ("case fee").
But anyway - sue on what grounds? The Ombudsman is there to arbitrate disputes; if the consumer and the insurer *do* have a dispute (and the customer wouldn't be 'disgruntled' if there was no dispute, would they?), then that is exactly what the FOS is there for.
I disagree. It may be true, but true's not the same thing as right.
No, nobody should pay (except that the consumer should pay if it transpires he was deliberately abusing the system by making an unfounded complaint designed to do nothing but cost the supplier money and waste their and the FOS's time).
Indeed they would, so they shouldn't be made to pay.
They may like to call it a fee, but it isn't. It's a fine. A fee is something one pays when voluntarily availing oneself of a service. If a consumer has the right to take a supplier to the Ombudsman with an unresolved complaint, the supplier is not voluntarily seeking to have the dispute resolved, but is being compelled to be dragged through this rigmarole. So it amounts to a fine, and it is not right that someone who isn't in the wrong should pay a fine.
So I think the "fee" should be waived in cases where the supplier is found not to have been in the wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. The FOS is after all a public service staffed by people funded from taxes.
See above. A rose by any other name still hurts.
Consumers get disgruntled for all sorts of illogical reasons, mainly because they misinterpret their entitlement. The insurer refuses to pay for some reason which turns out to be valid, and they remain annoyed. Then they swear they'll "get them for this".
So if such a consumer makes a deliberate unfounded allegation, and the insurer suffers an unnecessary expense as a result, that looks like very good grounds to sue for recovery of that expense.
AIUI when the Insurance company acept that the accident is covered by the terms of the insurance, they usually instruct a loss adjuster to examine the vehicle and authorise what is and is not covered. They will let you obtain three quotes from different repairers and let the adjuster have these. They will either select one of those or choose their own preferred repair agent.
Its a case of he who pays the piper selects the tune.
Are you sure Ronald, this sounds like contratct law stuff to me. The entity entering into the contract is the Insurance company and the repair agent. The drivers contract is with the Insurance company to return the car to as near as possible to its condition before the accident.
If you want control of the repairs, you have to get the Insurance loss adjuster to declare the wreck beyond economic repair. They will then pay compensation to the driver who can then buy the wreck of the insurance company. Depending on the amount of damage, then it is possible to source second hand and other parts to effect the repair.
A friend of mine had a side impact in his three year old CRV, it was the reset cost of £5k that made the vehicle a write-off.
I disagree. It is the driver and the repairer, but in many cases the insurer will deal with the repairer as agent on behalf of the driver.
I disagree. The contract between driver and insurer is in essence a gambling contract. You bet them that you will have an accident. "£200 [that's the premium] says I will have an accident this year". They bet you that you won't. "OK, we'll take your £200 and if you do have an accident, we will pay what it costs to put right". It's an indemnity agreement. They reimburse the costs to the insured.
In most cases, however, the insured will not want to be bothered with dealing with repairers, and the insurer is only too happy to do this on the insured's behalf because they can probably get it done cheaper. This is a kind of "value added service" which adds value for both the insurer (in terms of a reduction in what it costs them) and the insured (in terms of less hassle).
A car is usually considered BER if the cost of repairs exceeds what the car was worth before the accident (or will be worth after a repair is done, if less) and then the insured will instead (be persuaded by the insurer to agree to) settle for market value, i.e. to sell the car to the insurer for its agreed market value prior to the accident. Having thus sold the car to the insurer, it doesn't really make an awful lot of sense then to buy the wreck back off the insurer (for its scrap value) in the hope of effecting a cheap repair for less than the difference between the above two values. In effect, that would imply that the car had not in fact been BER at all. It would have made more sense for the insurer to pay for the cheaper repairs instead.
Doesn't this sort of thing happen more in cases where the car has a sentimental value, and the insured is prepared to contribute *more* than the difference (between market and scrap value) to fix it up?
Not quite true. You can also appoint your own loss adjuster, you do not have to accept the one appointed by your insurance company. I have done this every time and been better off for it. In addition you loss adjuster is paid for by the insurance not by you personally.
I think there are at least 2 cases where it makes a whole lot of sence. 1 is that the damage is purely cosmetic, and it would cost a lot to put right but you are willing to drive it as it is or with some sub-optimal repairs. The insurance compensates you for the loss of a good looking car, but you get to keep a functioning way of getting from A to B. The other is if you have owned the car for many years, have looked after it and perhaps just done some big job that needs doing at some point (like the cam belt) This would mean that the actual value to you is significantly higher that the average value of that car on the open market.
The Ombudsman is an alternative to the courts. If the consumer instead took the business to small claims court, instead of to the Ombudsman, and the consumer lost, who pays for the business' legal costs ... ?
Isn't that the same?
"Ronald Raygun" wrote
Err, no, it's not - FOS is *not* funded from taxes. See here:-
"Parliament decided that the ombudsman should be funded by the businesses that we cover and that these businesses - not consumers - should meet the costs of resolving disputes."
formatting link
"Ronald Raygun" wrote
That's specifically excluded - see here:-
formatting link
[Last page (p.3).]
"can a business recover its costs from a complainant?
"No. A business cannot claim back costs from a consumer who has complained to the ombudsman service - or suggest that it might do so. Consumers have a statutory right to refer disputes to us, free of charge, if they are unhappy with the way a business has dealt with a complaint.
"If a business threatens to penalise a consumer for exercising their statutory right to refer a complaint to us, this may have regulatory consequences for the business."
The business, if it has any, which it shouldn't. [1]
No, because the fees are apparently mandatory, legal expenses would be voluntary.
[1]: In a "normal" (non-small-claim) court, I gather it is customary for the winning party's costs to be met by the losing party, though the court can order differently if it sees fit. So if a consumer lost in a normal court, he would be landed with a bill for the business's legal costs.
Small claims courts would not normally handle cases which involve legal issues complex enough to warrant significant outlays on legal representation. Such cases would be referred up to a "normal" court. So if a business defending a small claim nevertheless (in effect unnecessarily) incurred legal costs, they could not expect to recover those from an unsuccessful plaintiff. In the normal course of events, a small claim plaintiff's maximum loss would be the court fee, but I gather this fee is added to the claim if successful.
I don't think this quote covers deliberately unfounded "spite" complaints, but only genuine bona fide disputes which the Ombudsman simply happened to find against.
I agree that this is the basic principle of all insurance, but its legal and, is not recognised as such in the eyes of he law. Thats why they can sue if you dont pay the premium.
I can certainly remember an old neigbor who lovingly cared for his BMW300 for 10 years, then some fool stuck the forks from a forklift straight through the side. The insurance company wanted no part of it, he bought it from them for £20 and then spent £500 on second hand parts to restore it. He never sold it but cars in that condition at the time were going for over £1000.
There is a program on the discovery channel that does this quite often and it mostly depends on what parts can be sourced from breakers yards. Most of the cars I saw bought and repaired where put back on the market with a profit margin but after taking into account the labour costs, I doubt that it would be a very profitable business.
And yes, I am a sad git for watching this rubbish but I just had two months of stuck in a chair after my hip replacement.
I'm not quite managing to catch what you're trying to say here. Did you miss some words out? I can't parse it. "But its legal ". Or did you mean "but it's legal"? That doesn't make sense either, suggesting (through use of the word "but") that gambling normally isn't legal, but that is not the case. "Is not recognised as such" as what? as legal? as gambling?
And you can sue if they don't pay the costs. I now think you were referring to some rule about gambling debts normally being unenforcible.
Fair enough, but my point was really more about what exactly the insurer is obligating himself to do in the event of an accident. I say it is to indemnify the driver, which means to pay for the repair, not to carry out the repair.
I hope your hip wasn't sourced second hand from a knacker's yard. :-)
They wouldn't have negotiated a lower rate with the approved repairers due to the guaranteed work they would receive, would tyeh?
I think it's totally wrong for the OP to have to take his car 40+ miles to be repaired when someone local could probably do just as good a job. Just IMHO of course.
Yes, that is what I was gettng at. If it is gambling, the insurers would never be able to enforce payment as gambling is considered as a "Gentlemans agreement".
I have only had to go through the process once. The insurance company asked me to get three quotes, which I did from local repair agents. The insurance company selected one and they collected the car. I took from this that the garage took their instructions fromn the insurance company and their agent. This implies that the offer and acceptance of the contract flowed from the insurance company, I was not allowed to influence what was done. If I had, I would have chosen to replace the doors, not just to have the old ones reskinned.
Whilst the car was with the garage, I took the oportunity to have a another panel resprayed that was not damaged in the accident. The garage had to do a seperate set of paperwork and I had to pay for that seperately, the only benefit was a better rate as they had already sourced the paint.
A week later the repair was finished and I was presented with a bill from the repairer, but I was only expected to pay the £250 excess. The balance of the bill was sent to the insurers. This is only the consideration and the least important part of the contract. The question I am asking is this a pecuniary liability or the provision of a service by a thrid party.
With the residual pain, I am beginning to wonder. Seriously though, I am now waiting for my letter from St Georges. What a farce, we only lost two discs, they lost 6 laptops and they were not encrypted. This after the government issued an edict that ALL Civil Service laptops are fully encrypted. We have done this with draconian edicts being enforced on the use of portable media (its just not allowed).
Since they've tried about 5 times to try to get me to take it their approved repairer, its no surprise that they've now come back and told me that my chosen repairer is too expensive and that they're only willing to make a cash payment to me of the amount they're chosen repairer would have charged.
Spoke to my chosen repairer, and they said they insurance company had tried to get them do less work (replace door skin instead of door, cut corners on other things, and cut down their labour rate). My garage is a decent garage BTW. Fiat-approved etc (my cars a Punto).
BTW. Insurer have kindly ;-) offered to still let me use their approved repairer and fund the complete repair cost.
Any suggestions on what I can do now?
In case anyone missed it first time, this cowboy insurance company to avoid is SWIFTCOVER.
Get a statement from your garage detailing what they said above, and why the full job (no corners cut, full door replaced instead of just the skin etc.) is essential vs. what the insurance company wants to do, then speak to your insurance company again?
The insurance industry code of conduct (which all the major insurers are signed up to)states that you can take your car to any repairer as long as the costs are reasonable but the insurer does not then have to provide a courtesy car nor guarantee the repair. However most independent bodyshops will provide a car and a guarantee and will sort out authorization for repairs etc for you.
A word of warning:- do not pay for any repairs your self unless the car has been inspected and any estimate approved by an independent engineer as without an engineers report you insurer may refuse to pay at all!
If the accident was not your fault and you can claim of someone else's insurance the use an accident management company to sort it all out for you, we deal with a company called Helphire who provide a loan car and an engineers report and will arrange repairs for you at you chosen bodyshop and then claim all the costs involved from the other persons insurers.
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.