MirrorSignalSwerve
New Member
Six days.. six whole days. Of all the woes I expected from owning a P.38, I couldn't have predicted this..
Clearly the former pride & joy of an old boy who has gone to a better place, I bought a pristine 1996 2.5 DSE off a funeral director with an entreprenurial streak who deals in cars of the recently departed as a side line. Full main dealer service history, 77k and not a mark on it. I was chuffed to find it and enjoyed six whole days of owning her until a chance meeting with an Italian sports car that drove on to my side of the road for some unexplained reason and buried itself in my rear axle. I went into a perfect 180 degree turn in time to see his wheel come off as he hit roadside railings. His car looked worse than mine, but it looks like I'm going to come out of this worse off. As nice a Rangie as you could fiind for the year it is, but I doubt it will make it through the engineers examination and be suitable for repair. Probably a CAT D total loss, but we'll see.
Anyway, counting my blessings that no-one was hurt and that it was only me in the car and not the kids, I thought I'd ring my insurers - Lancaster Insurance - to get some help. I wasn't expecting much on the Saturday (lunchtime) between Christmas and New Year, but there was an answer. Luckily I'd taken out fully comp insurance, so I was expecting a recovery truck to be dispatched to the scene and a courtesy car sent out within hours... how naive of me. The buck passing began straight away. 'We can't help you, but if you ring this number...' I'll spare the details, but after being passed round from department to department and repeating my story half a dozen times, I arranged my own recovery and went home on the back of an AA truck.
I rang the insurers again as I was now at home and had all my papers to hand. I gave all my details and the story of what had happened to a very pleasant lady and I was hopeful that the friendly voice at the other end of the phone was now going to get everything sorted for me. After I had answered all of her questions, I asked what would happen now. Well, nothing. She had everything she needed and I would have to ring my insurance company to make a claim. Me: 'But you are my insurance company'. Her: 'No, we're your brokers, its all down to your insurance company - Equity Red Star - to sort out your claim'. Me: 'What do you do then as my brokers?' Her: 'We just get you a cheap quote'. Me: ' Why have we been having this discussion for the last 10 minutes then? Why have you been asking me all my details an about how the accident happened?' Her: 'For our records'. Me: 'How is that going to help me?' Her: 'You'll have to ring your insurers, they'll help'. Anyway, you get the idea. I got bugger all help.
I tried the insurers, but it was Saturday afternoon. No chance. My damaged Rangie sat outside my house on the street all weekend.
I took the philosophical view that it was an awkward time of year to have an accident and got a cab to meet the wife & kids at the panto half way through.
Monday morning, I started again, Predictably, none of the details taken for their records on Saturday were known to anyone in the Lancaster office on Monday. I repeated the tale of woe and was then directed to the insurers to repeat it all again. This could go on forever, but I'll shorten this bit and summarise it as several calls to broker - passed from one individual to another, repeating the same info over again. Slightly fewer calls to insurer who didn't have my policy details as the broker has 'delegated responsibility so we allow certain companies to conduct the administration on our behalf'. It ended up with Lancaster passing the buck to Equity and Equity saying that Lancaster needed to sort this out - me in the middle becoming more Victor Meldrew with each fob off. One call to Lancaster resulted in me being deliberately dumped to a direct line back to Equity and another call meeting with the response that 'we can't help you, we're just a call centre'.
What rubbed salt in the wound was when I spoke to some people they said they would help, but they didn't. They were impatient and terse with me, when I'd have thought that was my entitlement! They'd give me a load of excuses as to why they couldn't do anything and then when I said that I was disappointed that I was having to do so much of the ringing round myself, they would get quite cross and tell me how busy they were. I can just imagine the conversation in the office when I ended the call - a discussion on how rude I was. I honestly wasn't rude - just disappointed, but polite with it. Trouble is, they weren't focused on the customer, they were busy with being busy and had no idea or understanding of how I experienced their handling of my claim. They knew best and were argumentative. What they didn't seem to apreciate is that I'd had 5 different people telling me 5 different things from the same company. When I explained that I'd just been told something in a previous call, I would be told that I was wrong and that the facts were X not Y. I was wrong? No, it was your colleague who told me that, I'm just repeating what they told me. Frustration compounded by poor attitude.
I think the final straw was the courtesy car issue. Don't get me wrong - there's lots of suffering in the world and me not getting some transport is a pain in the arse but it's not the end of the world. The outsourced courtesy car scheme that Lancaster referred me to said they wouldn't give me a car because someone veering onto my side of the road and hitting me wasn't a straightforward issue and that as liability wasn't clear, they wouldn't risk giving me a car as I might end up with the bill. Only thinking of me, apparently.
The insurers - Equity - will only provide a courtesy car if the car is being repaired at an approved centre. As mine looks like its going to be written off, I don't qualify. I can understand the logic in this, but it doesn't help ad I'm not sure what I pay a fully comp premium for.
Also, as its this time of year, a decision on the fate of my Rangie is unlikely until next week. If I knew one way or the other, I could sort out a stop gap car to get the family around for a while. As it is, we're in limbo. All involved in insuring my car have given their excuses and washed their hands of me.
I'm ****ed off.
There, I just needed to vent my frustration. Thanks for reading if you've got this far. I expect no sympathy, a fair mount of **** taking and perhaps the thoughts from one or two fellow victims who have had similar experiences.
Anyway, Happy New Year to all.
Clearly the former pride & joy of an old boy who has gone to a better place, I bought a pristine 1996 2.5 DSE off a funeral director with an entreprenurial streak who deals in cars of the recently departed as a side line. Full main dealer service history, 77k and not a mark on it. I was chuffed to find it and enjoyed six whole days of owning her until a chance meeting with an Italian sports car that drove on to my side of the road for some unexplained reason and buried itself in my rear axle. I went into a perfect 180 degree turn in time to see his wheel come off as he hit roadside railings. His car looked worse than mine, but it looks like I'm going to come out of this worse off. As nice a Rangie as you could fiind for the year it is, but I doubt it will make it through the engineers examination and be suitable for repair. Probably a CAT D total loss, but we'll see.
Anyway, counting my blessings that no-one was hurt and that it was only me in the car and not the kids, I thought I'd ring my insurers - Lancaster Insurance - to get some help. I wasn't expecting much on the Saturday (lunchtime) between Christmas and New Year, but there was an answer. Luckily I'd taken out fully comp insurance, so I was expecting a recovery truck to be dispatched to the scene and a courtesy car sent out within hours... how naive of me. The buck passing began straight away. 'We can't help you, but if you ring this number...' I'll spare the details, but after being passed round from department to department and repeating my story half a dozen times, I arranged my own recovery and went home on the back of an AA truck.
I rang the insurers again as I was now at home and had all my papers to hand. I gave all my details and the story of what had happened to a very pleasant lady and I was hopeful that the friendly voice at the other end of the phone was now going to get everything sorted for me. After I had answered all of her questions, I asked what would happen now. Well, nothing. She had everything she needed and I would have to ring my insurance company to make a claim. Me: 'But you are my insurance company'. Her: 'No, we're your brokers, its all down to your insurance company - Equity Red Star - to sort out your claim'. Me: 'What do you do then as my brokers?' Her: 'We just get you a cheap quote'. Me: ' Why have we been having this discussion for the last 10 minutes then? Why have you been asking me all my details an about how the accident happened?' Her: 'For our records'. Me: 'How is that going to help me?' Her: 'You'll have to ring your insurers, they'll help'. Anyway, you get the idea. I got bugger all help.
I tried the insurers, but it was Saturday afternoon. No chance. My damaged Rangie sat outside my house on the street all weekend.
I took the philosophical view that it was an awkward time of year to have an accident and got a cab to meet the wife & kids at the panto half way through.
Monday morning, I started again, Predictably, none of the details taken for their records on Saturday were known to anyone in the Lancaster office on Monday. I repeated the tale of woe and was then directed to the insurers to repeat it all again. This could go on forever, but I'll shorten this bit and summarise it as several calls to broker - passed from one individual to another, repeating the same info over again. Slightly fewer calls to insurer who didn't have my policy details as the broker has 'delegated responsibility so we allow certain companies to conduct the administration on our behalf'. It ended up with Lancaster passing the buck to Equity and Equity saying that Lancaster needed to sort this out - me in the middle becoming more Victor Meldrew with each fob off. One call to Lancaster resulted in me being deliberately dumped to a direct line back to Equity and another call meeting with the response that 'we can't help you, we're just a call centre'.
What rubbed salt in the wound was when I spoke to some people they said they would help, but they didn't. They were impatient and terse with me, when I'd have thought that was my entitlement! They'd give me a load of excuses as to why they couldn't do anything and then when I said that I was disappointed that I was having to do so much of the ringing round myself, they would get quite cross and tell me how busy they were. I can just imagine the conversation in the office when I ended the call - a discussion on how rude I was. I honestly wasn't rude - just disappointed, but polite with it. Trouble is, they weren't focused on the customer, they were busy with being busy and had no idea or understanding of how I experienced their handling of my claim. They knew best and were argumentative. What they didn't seem to apreciate is that I'd had 5 different people telling me 5 different things from the same company. When I explained that I'd just been told something in a previous call, I would be told that I was wrong and that the facts were X not Y. I was wrong? No, it was your colleague who told me that, I'm just repeating what they told me. Frustration compounded by poor attitude.
I think the final straw was the courtesy car issue. Don't get me wrong - there's lots of suffering in the world and me not getting some transport is a pain in the arse but it's not the end of the world. The outsourced courtesy car scheme that Lancaster referred me to said they wouldn't give me a car because someone veering onto my side of the road and hitting me wasn't a straightforward issue and that as liability wasn't clear, they wouldn't risk giving me a car as I might end up with the bill. Only thinking of me, apparently.
The insurers - Equity - will only provide a courtesy car if the car is being repaired at an approved centre. As mine looks like its going to be written off, I don't qualify. I can understand the logic in this, but it doesn't help ad I'm not sure what I pay a fully comp premium for.
Also, as its this time of year, a decision on the fate of my Rangie is unlikely until next week. If I knew one way or the other, I could sort out a stop gap car to get the family around for a while. As it is, we're in limbo. All involved in insuring my car have given their excuses and washed their hands of me.
I'm ****ed off.
There, I just needed to vent my frustration. Thanks for reading if you've got this far. I expect no sympathy, a fair mount of **** taking and perhaps the thoughts from one or two fellow victims who have had similar experiences.
Anyway, Happy New Year to all.
