Claim sorted through insurance (Admiral) - then court claim arrives

Bit of a long story but here we go.

My wife accidentally scraped the bumper of a new lexus in a car park whilst parking with our old passat, resulting in minor paint damage to the lexus' rear bumper. They exchanged details with no fuss. The guy with the lexus wanted a new bumper as it was a new car so we went through insurance. We are fully comp with Admiral.

We heard nothing more about the matter as it was just sorted through insurance and forgot about it. Then on 5th Jan, we recieved a Nottingham county court claim form addressed to my wife, stating the the guy was claiming for "loss, damage and interest arising out of an accident on *date* at ***** caused by negligence of the defendant".

He was claiming damages of 1755.38, for 1746.52 worht of hire charges plus interest..! plus court fee and solicitors fee making 1940.38!

This was a bit shocking and obviously I rang Admiral straight away to ask them what to do. They assured me this sort of thing happens sometimes, and said it was because Admiral had offered the guy a courtesy car, but he refused it and said he would sort his own car out. They told us not to reply to the claim form and send it immediately to them, which we did.

Then, on 4th Feb we recieved a Judgement for Claimant letter from Nottingham County Court saying as we had not replied to the claim form, we must pay the claimant 1971.48, and that if ignored goods to that value may be removed from our home and sold!!

Obviously this was particularly alarming for my wife.

I got straight on the phone to the court and they said that a CCJ had been issued against my wife as no one had replied to the claim letter from Jan.. And that at this stage the only choice would be for us to either pay, and have a a CCJ against us, or contest it in court meaning my wife would need to go to court to get the CCJ dropped...

At this point, I'm about to explode as even though we have fully comp insurance and do everything by the book, I'm being told my wife now has a CCJ against her for 2k and that she will have no chance of getting credit in future - and must go to court to resolve it !!!


So, on the phone to Admiral next - an explanation of the situation and request for answers resulted in being put on hold for 50 minutes. They then came back and thankfully admitted that because someone had moved out of the department, some work had been "lost" and that no one from Admiral had replied. Basically, they had done nothing since recieving the claim letter from me, which they had recieved.

I appreciate Admiral were honest about it being their fault, and they have said they have passed on to their solicitors to sort out. I still think Admiral are a good company to use *but* I just hope because of this mess up my wife doesn't end up having to go to court to get rid of the CCJ. Especially since we are relocating in a couple of months.

I am assuming that the CCJ can be removed because Admiral have admitted that they should have handled it and failed to reply on my behalf.... My wife is quite upset about it and that's the worst thing.

So, a word of warning, if you ever recieve anything similar, check that your insurance company actually bothers to reply.

Anyone ever experienced anything similar?



I will update with how this turns out.

 

Shocking.

Is there a chance you missed a court letter? That is the only thing that could stand against you.

The rest of it stinks. Get Admiral to admit liabilty in writing, conduct everything else in writing and leverage their admittance throughout.

 

I don't see how we could have missed a letter. I think they only send one and there is 14 days to reply. Obviously only one person can reply and in this case it should have been our insurance company on our behalf.

Thanks for the tip, I asked them on the phone yesterday to note on the file about how they admitted it was their fault for not replying, as I had made a note. I have the details of the person I spoke to. I think I should send them another letter with this information in writing as well in case they try to deny it later on.

Shocking it certainly is. It's a nightmare mate and my wife was in tears yesterday. I'm thinking I ought to be asking for compensation from Admiral, especially if this situation gets any worse.

 

Recorded delivery

Though I detest compensation culture when it's abused, I think you have a strong basis to ask for something here as they have failed in their duties to act on your behalf. If you are unsure and want to turn the game up a notch, talk to the FSA. They'll be all ears. Make it clear to Admiral that's where you stand - they sort it or the FSA get a Complaint. All FSA-registered firms have complaints registers; there's no hiding.

 

I also hate compensation culture, it's what has caused this mess in the first place with the guy trying to claim riduculous hire charges as damages.

I'll be quite happy as long as it gets properly resolved with minimal inconveniece to us. I am writing the letter to them now and will certainly mention that I will be in touch with the FSA if it is not handled properly!

Cheers

Rich

 

If the nature of the prang is as I read it, I make that a day or 2 off the road, into the bodyshop, back bumper sprayed & fitted. Not an immobile car FFS.

 

Definitely! Were talking a minor scuff (I have pics) resulting in a CCJ against a person for 2k. This guy is making life hard for everybody by being a c***.

This has also made me more aware of what could happen if your insurance isn't in order - declare your mods people, once the law gets involved it's messy. Wouldn't want to have to deal with this without correct insurance.

 

This whole thing needs flipping round back on the claimant. Cite that the claimant has been unreasonable in his demands and has not endeavoured at all to mitigate the loss, inflating it as far as he can.

It'll be whiplash next

Put a pic of the bumper in with your letter to Admiral and make it damn clear they're dealing with a mickey taker.

 

not really chris. the claimant's car was damaged, his insurance entitles him to be put back into the position he was in before the incident happened and part of that was the hire car.

chances are the claim arose because the value of the hire claim could not be agreed, admiral should have sorted this before it because necessary to issue the claim.

provided the OP posted the claim form to admiral promptly (i cannot count the number of times we received a claim form days after judgement was already claimed), admiral's solicitors have no excuse for allowing the default judgement.

ive not done it for a long time, but i would ask if you could speak to the solicitor's case handler directly. ask how thye can have the judgement lifted (im sure if you pay it within X time it can be lifted, id even pay it myself and get the insurer to reimburse me because a CCJ really changes things).

then i would ask admiral to reinstate your NCB in light of their poor handling.

due to their poor file handling they have had to pay the full hire claim, plus costs, plus interest, plus the possible additional costs in having your CCJ removed.

you will have to pay costs to check the CCJ register to ensure its no longer recorded too

 

Hi Matt82 yeah I will ask to speak Admiral's legal team if possible on Monday. We sent the claim form to Admiral the day after we recieved it. We didn't even hear anything from Admiral about any problem with the claim going through last year, but it did go through and get put on the database as I had to pay an increase to my other insurance policy I have on my mk2, which is with a different company. We just assumed the claim was all done and dusted.

Unfortunately there's no way on this earth we could afford to pay 2k at the moment. Finding money to run the cars at all is tough at the minute, and I'm about to borrow money from my parents to pay a rent deposit for relocating. I wouldn't like to imagine how long it might take to get the money back if we payed it ourselves. It just all seems a bit ridiculous.

I think that's a good idea to ask Admiral to reinstate the no claims as compensation, although my only concern at the minute is to get this CCJ cleared.

My wife is due to visit her folks back in South Korea in a few months so I hope this doesn't cause any problems with leaving the country..?

I'll post an update sometime next week.

Rich

 

the CCJ is an absolute must. admiral will outsource the work to a "board" of solicitors, just ask to speak to the solicitors, ideally the file handler working on your file or their manager if its been taken out the file handers hands.

you want reassurance that they are having the judgement settled and you want to know what steps are being taken to have it removed from the register. you want to be kept uptodate of when the steps are being taken as its a massive failing on their part that youre lumbered with this CCJ in the first place.

remember, you paid admiral for this service. youve admitted liability, left it in their hands (which is what youre paying them to do).

hopefully it pans out ok

chances are it was delayed being

 

This sounds exactly like what I'm currently going through.

Pulling onto a slip road near the house I saw a guy parked on the left put his car into reverse and start moving backwards, so I stopped half turned into the road rather than move towards him as he was reversing. He kept reversing so I beeped him and he didn't stop, just reversed straight into my n/s corner. Then admitted he wasn't looking as he was too busy looking at the kerb, then apologised to me.

I didn't claim anything, just informed my insurer, as I didn't want my car written off and it was only a small ding to the wing and a scratch on the bumper that was mostly his paint. His bumper half fell off and had a long scratch down his rear quarter. I took photos afterwards of the damage to both cars etc, but there were no witnesses. I only have a scrape on the far outside of my bumper and no where else - which I would have thought shows who was moving and who was stationary. I haven't even tried to repair it!

He hasn't replied to my insurance company's request for his claim form and I've received a court summon (ccj?) for over 2k for 1000 damages, 800 hire charges plus solicitors and court fees. I mean 800 hire charges?! What did he have? A Porsche for a month?!

Looks like he's gone to some online no win no fee claims company and saying that I drove into him This was almost a year ago now.

I forwarded all the correspondance to my insurance co, but your story is just reminding me to chase them up to make sure they're doing their job.



Rich, I hope Admiral back-down and accept liability for their mistake - which it is.

 

Hi WillG, if you recieved a court claim form, that's the one that you're insurance company needs to reply to within 14 days. They may well have sorted it for you if you haven't heard anything, but it's worth checking. If you've recieved a 'judgement for claiminst (in default)' letter, that is a CCJ against you.

Admiral admitted they had not dealt with it properly on the phone to me, and I've sent them a letter stating what was said etc. I'll speak to them tomorrow and try to get hold of the legal team as well.

Having read about CCJ's on the government website, it says that if there's a very good reason, you can apply for the judge to 'set aside judgement', which means the CCj goes away and they re-issue the claim form. This would give the defendant (my insurance co in this case on my behalf) another chance to deal with it properly.

fingers crossed!!!

 

Sounds like he rammed you deliberately as part of an insurance scam. You're probably not the only one. Have you informed your insurance, and have you got his details still?

 

Yeah I phoned my insurers 2 minutes after it happened and have been phoning them every so often to find out what's happening with it.

I've still got pictures, his details and now because of this new angle he's trying I have his address - a brand new house - the estate isn't even on google maps as it was a building site when their photos were taken!

 

CCJ's are easily removed and all record of them wiped - for situations like these.

ball ache and not fun but can be done so don't stress about this part of it

 

Thanks RIP-MK3, after doing a bit of research I realised it's not as bad as the actual letter makes out and can be removed.

Admiral have said today that they have asked their legal team to apply to set the judgement aside, and that they will be fighting the claim as they don't want to pay those charges. Hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be cleared off.

The claims team advisor I spoke to said they don't know why the legal team hadn't recieved information about it all. I reminded him that the lady on Friday told me it was because someone had moved out of the department and they hadn't dealt with it...

I had to promt them again to do this step but at least it's happening now.

 

This is why I really like Adrian Flux, they sent me a letter back to acknowledge receipt every time I sent them a court document.

Top service.

 

Quick update:

Admiral passed this on to their legal team to handle. I rang the legal firm directly on Monday to find out what the progress was and they said that the other legal firm has accepted the ruling be set aside. So now I just need to wait for written confirmation and get Admiral to pay to check my wife's credit record is definitely clear!

Hassle

 

Good news.

Any upside recompense for your undue stress?