What are the chances???

[beyond the blue]

I took my ES into Bolton Lexus this morning to have the tracker fitted. I handed back the courtesy car and went to the car park to collect my car only to find an old gentleman standing around with the sales team, when l looked at my car the front wing was hanging off and bumper badly damaged. The old gentleman had ran into while trying to park his Lexus at the side of mine. Apparently he was travelling very fast the salesmen said. Lexus Bolton was very helpful and handled all the exchange of details and calming everybody down with cups of tea etc.

[Spock66]

That's a lot of damage for a car park scrape, sounds like he needs to hang his licence up.

[beyond the blue]

3 hours ago, Spock66 said:

That's a lot of damage for a car park scrape, sounds like he needs to hang his licence up.

I think he might have hit it twice by the looks of the damage to my car. I can't see how scraping it with the side of his car can cause the dent to mine. The salesman said he heard the bump and told the driver to stop but he carried on trying to park at speed.

[Linas.P]

An "unintended acceleration syndrome" maybe (it isn't called syndrome - I just dubbed it that)? Lexus tried to patch it out with their laggy accelerators, but it seems no amount of software can prevent old peeps in automatic cars to mistake brake for accelerator... and it could have tremendous results with hybrids it seems... the first few meters of acceleration are very strong with electric motor toque so even parking lot scrape can happen at relatively high speed.

I don't know I am just speculating. 

That said, as bad as it looks it seems like your car is damaged far less than his when it comes to repairs (even if it seems somewhat opposite at first). He needs whole side painted and blended + potentially both new doors or loads of filler, shaping complicated bends on NX would be uneconomical, so I suspect two doors will be the way to go. In your case it seems like only the bumper needs doing (can't see if the fender is also hit, hope not). Sure - goodluck getting colour match on bumper (hard to match plastics with metals), but in other hand grey colour and it's various shades is least difficult to blend and colour match, even if the shade is not exactly right it is hard to spot and easy to miss. 

[Scotlex]

Very annoying but hopefully gets all sorted for you.

I'm never that happy parking at dealers as car parks are often full.

Good luck with the repairs.

[Linas.P]

Yeah, that is also good point - the parking lot at my dealer is so full that I often have to leave car literally on the road in front of dealer, sort of in permanent queue trying to turn it. The entrance is double and triple parked-up. It seems like they have really inadequate amount of parking for amount of business they do.  

[beyond the blue]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Yeah, that is also good point - the parking lot at my dealer is so full that I often have to leave car literally on the road in front of dealer, sort of in permanent queue trying to turn it. The entrance is double and triple parked-up. It seems like they have really inadequate amount of parking for amount of business they do.  

Yes it's very tight parking at Bolton. There have been some developments since l first posted this I'm afraid. Although l have been contacted by the other guys insurance and they have accepted blame things are not going smoothly. All sortable hopefully but not until Monday. On top of all this l cracked my head badly trying to shelter under a low roof at the dealers and expecting to get a call from the hospital on Monday to go in for a long awaited heart bypass operation. To top it off the when l was leaving the dealers the service guy said 'have a nice day', yeah right!

[Linas.P]

Don't bother with insurance, go for Claims Management Company (CMC), cut's out all BS from the situation. It was non-fault, 100% non-negotiable, this is perfect case for CMC (they actually don't take shared blame, or fault claims, but this is most straightforward as it could be).

The benefit - you name your price (they basically send damage assessor and they give you the quote which you can then negotiate with them, before insurance ever has to say in it, and because they do not care what is the price as long as it sounds somewhat realistic, they quite easily agree with it, unlike insurance which has motivation to knock it down), you use your Bodyshop (it could be Lexus if you want to, it could be just cash in hand and you continue driving car fixed with duct tape if you want) and TP (third party who is at fault) insurance has NO SAY, they just get the bill to pay and they have to pay it or they get sued. Many CMC also use tactics of hired cars - they put you into brand new equivalent cars, not some Toyota Aygo or VW Up! like insurance companies, but in your case something like new BMW 5-series or similar (I know you would not be fazed considering your ES is also nearly new, but that is not the point). What this achieves is that the hire car costs £300 EVERY DAY, yeah TP insurance can negotiate and go backwards and forward on the settlement, but every day they take costs them £300... is it worth to knock down £1000 from settlement, when that means you will be in hire car for extra 2 weeks? NO... so they settle right away, every time. It is huge leverage to your advantage. The process is really simple, in such 100% guaranteed cases CMC even do so called "pre-settlements", basically they pay you right away, you get your car repaired and they claim it back from TP insurance themselves at some point, add legal fees on top of it if needed. Also - it is guaranteed not to affect your NCD, as crazy as it is, this being non-fault can still affect your NCD (long story, but if your insurance pays you more than they can recover from TP insurance, or both you and TP uses the same insurance, they can still hold it against you, if they lose 1p in process they can hold it against your NCD), also it will not affect your excess at all (again you may think why it matters, but in some cases where TP insurance refuses to cover the costs, they may ask for excess to be paid upfront and only returned sometimes years later when claim is settled), you get matching category car to drive around (in my case I had 8 years old IS250, I got BMW330i that had 20 miles on it, not 20k, 20 delivery miles) and it is usually done within 2 weeks. As far as I know and in several time I used CMC - there is absolutelly no fee to be paid, they work on basis of claiming statutory costs that is allowed for claims management by law (it was something ~£1000) and they claim that from insurance company (because in theory they save insurance company the hassle of managing the claim). Note - they were specifically allowed to exist for the cases of "conflict of interest", where both parties are part of same insurance so basically insurance has no motivation to represent either party, but they are handy in every non-fault case.

The negatives - I suggest to buy "burner sim" card and create new e-mail just for that claim, settle it and throw the phone number and never use that e-mail again. In theory should not happen, but I had case where injury CMC got hold of my details and then pestered me for injury claim... and as absurd as it sound they may try it in here even when you were not in the car at the time crash happened. In short - data security and privacy issues. I probably also serve them request under GDPR to delete all the data about you ("right to be forgotten") as soon as claim is settled - "thank you very much for your service, but don't want to hear from you again and as claim was settled you have no reason to hold any data about me". Finally, you need to find one that is FCA regulated, not big deal, they will have their registration number, this just ensures they are "up and up" with their practices. Also just as a side note - sadly your insurance premium will go-up guaranteed, no matter what you do now, that is how it is in UK and you can't do anything now, your insurance knows you were in accident (even if in this cases you technically were not in accident yourself) and that means this is on the record now and there will be price hike next year (for this reason I probably would have tried to get it on Lexus dealer insurance, I am sure they would be really not keen on it and this is another long story why and why not and how, but the point - I would really really not want to have this recorded on my name considering I was not in the car at the moment it happened and it was on the dealer lot, there are technicalities where it may work, or may not work, perhaps here you could not do it). Going with CMC or not will make no difference here, perhaps better to use CMC as at least it will guaranteed to remain non-fault accident.

In summary - I would consider CMC for this case, the last thing I would want to be bothered here is to deal with insurance fraudsters and listen to their BS. I know CMCs can be little dirty sometimes and are generally part of the problem why insurance is so expensive and why accident repair costs increased so much, but when I am on receiving end I use fraudsters against fraudsters. CMCs vs Insurance companies is the match made in hell, really exciting to see them go at each other throats and staying out of it yourself!

[beyond the blue]

4 hours ago, Linas.P said:

 

Thanks for your in depth reply. This is exactly what l meant when l said there have been some developments. l contacted my insurance to report the incident and told them the other driver had accepted liability they offered me two choices, 1 to go down the traditional route ie; accept a small courtesy car, pay the excess and they would sort the repairs or go with their recommended CMC and pay no excess get a new Audi A6 quattro at £218 per day hire charge but that would be charged to me to be paid within 7 days of completion of hire period but my insurance would pay for it and claim it back off the faulters insurance. It all sounded good and l signed up with the CMC. One hour later l got a call from the other guys insurance offering to take charge of everything. I told them what l had decided and they put the scenario to me that they would only ever pay a maximum of £107 per day for car hire and and advised l read the small print very carefully as any shortfall would be my responsibility to the CMC company. I read the terms and conditions and it mentioned this however the shortfall would usually be met by my insurance company. I will have to admit at that point fear set in that I COULD be faced with a shortfall that l couldn't afford so l cancelled the CMC contract under the 14 day cooling of period and intend to inform my insurance on Monday that l now want to go down the traditional route. I have now read your advice and to be perfectly honest l have since read some freightening stories on line that people have been taken to court by the CMC company when it all went wrong for them..... I'm confused except for the fact that I'm 100% sure that l don't want a debt that l can't afford. I keep thinking about 'if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

[Linas.P]

Yeah... first note - this is not legal advice, just my experience and personal knowledge, so you should do your own research and ask other opinions.

2. Take a deep breath and do nothing for few days, your obligation is met, you reported the accident to the insurance as you are required per contract, that was the only thing that had deadline. There are no real deadlines anymore (there may be some at some point, but not at the moment), you don't need to rush to make any decision. Obviously, you don't want to take forever to decide as I assume you want to be able to use your car, but you don't need to decide here and now. You have plenty of time to read all T&Cs and decide the way you want to go without rush. Also you don't need to go with CMC your insurance suggested, so you can compare and find your own. Also you can go back to the same CMC if you changed your mind, so really nothing is lost yet. Basically, you should not feel like you under time constrain and you have to make decision which may be disadvantageous, just because you need to do it quick... no you don't need to decide quickly at all, that is in fact biggest fraudsters trick - create senso of urgency when there is none. And insurance being legalised fraud for sure uses it to their advantage. 

3. Why FCA registered CMC is important here, because it means they have obligations to explain the financial service they provide to you and it's conditions. I can totally believe that there are some cowboy CMCs that claim some sort of BS, have crazy terms that would not be compliance with FCA rules and then people get burned when it all goes wrong. They should explain how hire car cost is recovered and what happens if there is shortfall, they should stand for that advice, because if they mislead you, they will be responsible to cover the cost themselves. And that stands for any terms in their T&Cs, you can absolutelly clarify any point that is not clear to you, even ask for explanation in writing just in case, it is their job to explain it to you. Again just take your time here, you should not be rushed by neither your insurance, nor CMC, nor for that matter TP insurance. In fact I don't believe TP insurance should have right to contact you, because they have conflict of interest here (I don't think it is strictly speaking illegal, but sure it is unprofessional). Their advise can't be trusted and they know this. If I were contacted by them I probably refuse to talk - "sorry guys, but you are not on my side why should I trust you?!". CMC still has legal duty to let you know EVERYTHING that TP insurance tells them, so if you have CMC then you can just say to TP insurance "please talk to company managing the claim" (as you can imagine CMC would call BS on their claims and it would be end of it). CMC are "middlemen" at no point in this journey TP insurance should speak directly with you and intimidate you. And this is literally what it is they called you and intimidated you, in itself I think this is worth to contact Financial Ombudsman and say their conduct was "out of line" here.

4. TP insurance has no say in any of this, they have no legal right to limit your hire car rate, they can't even have opinion about it. If you drove Lexus LFA and the closest thing on the market that CMC can offer was McLaren 720S and it costed £1200/day, then it sucks to be them, but they will have to pay it, they are not suggesting that £107/day can cover for any car are they?! As such I can't even see how they can set any limit to hire car, can they predict what car their client is going to crash into?! This is pure BS. Now to be fair in my case insurance also refused to pay something like £328/day for that BMW I got, because they said the cost was "unreasonable" and above market rate (which it was), also one of TP insurance defences was that I needed to prove I was not able to pay for car rental myself (which is BS, they expected me to pay hire from my own pocket, because I can afford it.. why would I rent a car myself, even if I could afford it, it wasn't me who crashed into their client?!). The only thing I know - CMC then took them to court and don't know how it ended, but I certainly paid no shortfall for it. They asked me for some evidence to support their case in the court, and I provided 3 month statements from my dormant account that had like £500 in it for years and signed the statement saying I was not in position to rent the car on my own, that was end of that story. Have not heard from neither since, in fact I have never heard from TP insurance as they shouldn't ever contact you directly as previously explained.

Just little bit of expectation of timeline going trough CMC and what it should look like - crash happened, my insurance served me big bowl of fresh BS, I have hired CMC maybe 4 days later, CMC got me hire car on the same day (not exaggerating, maybe 2 hours after I signed the contract I received the call from delivery guy telling me he is outside), they got me damage assessor the next day, and then damage was estimated a day after, they suggested to write-off the car as damage estimate was £3,500 and offered maybe £3,800 for it, I then searched similar cars on AT and came back with screenshot of 10 cars I literally handpicked and said I want £6,200, or I want car to be fixed instead. They have not asked a single question and that what was sent to TP insurance - either pay £6,200 or repair it for £3,500. Insurance settled same day for repairs. And I kept the hire car for 5 more days as my car was being repaired, I think in total I had hire car for 11 days. Then something like 5 months later I got call from CMC saying they had issue recovering hire car cost from TP insurance and that they going to court and asked me if I would be happy to be basically a witness, from the tone of the call it was optional i.e. I understand it would help their case if I provide my testimony and I agreed, but at no point there was any discussion about short fall being my responsibility. 

Second time, the case was a little bit different, first CMC thought the case may be 80/20% shared responsibility, because it happened on the roundabout, so it took 10 days before I contacted another CMC who agreed it was no-fault and pre-approved the settlement. I actually wanted the car to be written-off, so they didn't even provide me with hire car, because they agreed it should be written-off and apparently when the car is "total loss" you do no qualify for hire car. Basically, you get the money - you can go and buy another car on the market. Still from the time I went with second CMC, to the time it was settled and money was in my account it took total 4 days (14 days from the accident).

So yes, my experience was good in two instances, I have paid nothing, no excess, cases were settled withing weeks, all interaction I had with my insurance was to report the crash and tell them it is "notification only and I will go with CMC", not heard anything from TP insurance ever, had to report first claim to police also, as the other driver left the scene (which by the way is excellent as then they are automatically 100% at fault, even if the lady in this case would have been at fault anyway).

I would assume TP insurance in your case realised they will get shafted badly, so gone a bit brazen really, perhaps the agent there is paid commission for ever £ he manages to knock-off (and this is no joke, so imagine where your interests sits on the priority list in his agenda). In conclusion - the TP insurance is really last people on the planet you should trust at the moment. Who you want to trust you have plenty of time to decide, so don't be urged into making mistakes.

[VFR]

From what I have read over the past few years on a number of platforms is to avoid the CMC companies like the plague.

Also read that they are one of the reasons that insurance is so expensive for so many as their extortion on prices has to be paid for …….. by us of course. 

[beyond the blue]

7 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Yeah... first note - this is not legal advice, just my experience and personal knowledge, so you should do your own research and ask other opinions.

2. Take a deep breath and do nothing for few days, your obligation is met, you reported the accident to the insurance as you are required per contract, that was the only thing that had deadline. There are no real deadlines anymore (there may be some at some point, but not at the moment), you don't need to rush to make any decision. Obviously, you don't want to take forever to decide as I assume you want to be able to use your car, but you don't need to decide here and now. You have plenty of time to read all T&Cs and decide the way you want to go without rush. Also you don't need to go with CMC your insurance suggested, so you can compare and find your own. Also you can go back to the same CMC if you changed your mind, so really nothing is lost yet. Basically, you should not feel like you under time constrain and you have to make decision which may be disadvantageous, just because you need to do it quick... no you don't need to decide quickly at all, that is in fact biggest fraudsters trick - create senso of urgency when there is none. And insurance being legalised fraud for sure uses it to their advantage. 

3. Why FCA registered CMC is important here, because it means they have obligations to explain the financial service they provide to you and it's conditions. I can totally believe that there are some cowboy CMCs that claim some sort of BS, have crazy terms that would not be compliance with FCA rules and then people get burned when it all goes wrong. They should explain how hire car cost is recovered and what happens if there is shortfall, they should stand for that advice, because if they mislead you, they will be responsible to cover the cost themselves. And that stands for any terms in their T&Cs, you can absolutelly clarify any point that is not clear to you, even ask for explanation in writing just in case, it is their job to explain it to you. Again just take your time here, you should not be rushed by neither your insurance, nor CMC, nor for that matter TP insurance. In fact I don't believe TP insurance should have right to contact you, because they have conflict of interest here (I don't think it is strictly speaking illegal, but sure it is unprofessional). Their advise can't be trusted and they know this. If I were contacted by them I probably refuse to talk - "sorry guys, but you are not on my side why should I trust you?!". CMC still has legal duty to let you know EVERYTHING that TP insurance tells them, so if you have CMC then you can just say to TP insurance "please talk to company managing the claim" (as you can imagine CMC would call BS on their claims and it would be end of it). CMC are "middlemen" at no point in this journey TP insurance should speak directly with you and intimidate you. And this is literally what it is they called you and intimidated you, in itself I think this is worth to contact Financial Ombudsman and say their conduct was "out of line" here.

4. TP insurance has no say in any of this, they have no legal right to limit your hire car rate, they can't even have opinion about it. If you drove Lexus LFA and the closest thing on the market that CMC can offer was McLaren 720S and it costed £1200/day, then it sucks to be them, but they will have to pay it, they are not suggesting that £107/day can cover for any car are they?! As such I can't even see how they can set any limit to hire car, can they predict what car their client is going to crash into?! This is pure BS. Now to be fair in my case insurance also refused to pay something like £328/day for that BMW I got, because they said the cost was "unreasonable" and above market rate (which it was), also one of TP insurance defences was that I needed to prove I was not able to pay for car rental myself (which is BS, they expected me to pay hire from my own pocket, because I can afford it.. why would I rent a car myself, even if I could afford it, it wasn't me who crashed into their client?!). The only thing I know - CMC then took them to court and don't know how it ended, but I certainly paid no shortfall for it. They asked me for some evidence to support their case in the court, and I provided 3 month statements from my dormant account that had like £500 in it for years and signed the statement saying I was not in position to rent the car on my own, that was end of that story. Have not heard from neither since, in fact I have never heard from TP insurance as they shouldn't ever contact you directly as previously explained.

Just little bit of expectation of timeline going trough CMC and what it should look like - crash happened, my insurance served me big bowl of fresh BS, I have hired CMC maybe 4 days later, CMC got me hire car on the same day (not exaggerating, maybe 2 hours after I signed the contract I received the call from delivery guy telling me he is outside), they got me damage assessor the next day, and then damage was estimated a day after, they suggested to write-off the car as damage estimate was £3,500 and offered maybe £3,800 for it, I then searched similar cars on AT and came back with screenshot of 10 cars I literally handpicked and said I want £6,200, or I want car to be fixed instead. They have not asked a single question and that what was sent to TP insurance - either pay £6,200 or repair it for £3,500. Insurance settled same day for repairs. And I kept the hire car for 5 more days as my car was being repaired, I think in total I had hire car for 11 days. Then something like 5 months later I got call from CMC saying they had issue recovering hire car cost from TP insurance and that they going to court and asked me if I would be happy to be basically a witness, from the tone of the call it was optional i.e. I understand it would help their case if I provide my testimony and I agreed, but at no point there was any discussion about short fall being my responsibility. 

Second time, the case was a little bit different, first CMC thought the case may be 80/20% shared responsibility, because it happened on the roundabout, so it took 10 days before I contacted another CMC who agreed it was no-fault and pre-approved the settlement. I actually wanted the car to be written-off, so they didn't even provide me with hire car, because they agreed it should be written-off and apparently when the car is "total loss" you do no qualify for hire car. Basically, you get the money - you can go and buy another car on the market. Still from the time I went with second CMC, to the time it was settled and money was in my account it took total 4 days (14 days from the accident).

So yes, my experience was good in two instances, I have paid nothing, no excess, cases were settled withing weeks, all interaction I had with my insurance was to report the crash and tell them it is "notification only and I will go with CMC", not heard anything from TP insurance ever, had to report first claim to police also, as the other driver left the scene (which by the way is excellent as then they are automatically 100% at fault, even if the lady in this case would have been at fault anyway).

I would assume TP insurance in your case realised they will get shafted badly, so gone a bit brazen really, perhaps the agent there is paid commission for ever £ he manages to knock-off (and this is no joke, so imagine where your interests sits on the priority list in his agenda). In conclusion - the TP insurance is really last people on the planet you should trust at the moment. Who you want to trust you have plenty of time to decide, so don't be urged into making mistakes.

Thanks again. I or should l say we as my wife is helping with this have decided to.... 1. See if my car is driveable and recover it from the Lexus car park and get it on to my drive in order to have a good look at the damage. 2. Ring our insurers tomorrow and explain why we cancelled the contract with CMC as we panicked and need clarification as to what exactly will happen, and inform them of the call we got from the TP insurers that frightened us into the cancellation. I even have the name and claim reference number of the person who called me. 3. Today we wil read thoroughly through every T&C we can find.