I'm literally crying, so sad to see this

I would have done the same as you. Got to be pragmatic.
We had a National Trust tree write off a Puck caravan and my classic beetle. They did not accept liability so had to claim on my insurance.The beetle was one previous owner, mint and worth every penny of £7500k. They offered £3500k and it took weeks of haggling and sourcing adverts and independent expert valuations to convince them to increase the offer. My research actually demonstrated it was worth more than £7500. Even at the end they were arguing that is wasn't worth the full amount because it didn't have an MOT. It was exempt!
 
Hi Paul if it's getting you down then you did the right thing.👍 You can make a claim for your clothes etc on your house policy which should cover what the van insurance has not paid out for.( All risks bit ) Hopefully see you in a field sometime soon 😉🙂
Terry and Lisa x
 
haganap with regards to your contents As Terry said above .When we had a caravan stolen years ago the insurers didn’t want to pay the full cost of the contents but we had “away from home cover” on the house insurance and they paid out no problem. We had quite a few expensive horse related items as we were going to a 3 day show.

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haganap said:
Ok, so it's time for another update, read in conjunction with last weeks.



Well, no phone call was forthcoming so on Friday morning I rang the underwriters myself. This involved a 2.5 hour wait on hold to eventually get through and discuss it with someone that was obviously a robot but an effective type of one. I went through the claim with him and asked what was happening to my contents claim. He informed me that I was insured up to a value of 3k on my policy, took my details and then paid the money in to my account, total losses, at least 6.5k, lesson learnt, don't leave your expensive leather jackets, ski jackets and HOKA trainers in the motorhome.

I thanked him and said the problem I have is the COPART arm of your company who are telling me that the claim is to much and they need the underwriter to indemnify it. said he will do that right away and email them and to call them later. I called COPART later to be told "No one has emailed us, we spoke to someone from your underwriters but he needs to send over the correct code for us to pay out.". I asked if they could ring him back and get that and they said they would. No reply late on Friday or Saturday so come Monday afternoon I thought I had better try again. I rang COPART and asked if they had authority from my underwriters to discuss the claim amount. The answer I got back was shocking "No sir we have rejected your claim and sent it back to the underwriters as it's too expensive". I stayed calm but wandered exactly what this meant. All in all, it was just another lie on their part. I never really understood what this actually meant. Therefore I rang my underwriters again and after 2 hours of being on hold through numerous streams of endless pointless music and watching myself go from "you are number 7 in the que to next" I found myself speaking to the nice robot who was the one I spoke with on Friday.

He informed me that the reason that my claim with copart had been kicked out is because the most they would offer me for the vehicle was £93400 and I was insisting on £94000. He informed me that if I wanted £94000 of which I had paid he would have to put it back to the "underwriters engineers" who would essentially begin the process again. I informed him I felt this was really unfair and that I was actually being forced to take this payout under duress as I simply could not cope any longer and the 5 hours of being on hold over the past couple of calls had left me a broken man. I said all I want to do is be able to sleep at night without the constant agro and chasing of getting the money paid so I could safely move on to my next van. He said if I accepted the 93400 he would put it for payment today but because of the amount , it might be that it has to go in front of the Ops manager to sign off but there is no reason why they wouldn't.

At this point, many of you might think I would be mad to accept. Essentially the van cost me £600 for 1 weekend away, they can give no justification as to why they differ in the value paid to the value 3 days later.
But, if you have ever been in my position with losses from insurers, they grind you down, I am convinced that the near 11 hours I have spent on hold is set to break you. It has led me to drink, literally, prevented me from sleeping and reignited my already fragile mental health issues. Therefore for the sake of £600 I felt I had no option. I was never in it to make money, I simply wanted back what I paid. In the interest of sanity I did what I did and hopefully in 4 days the money will be in my account and I can move on. You know they grind you down, they use tactics that I'm convinced could be construed in the Hague as crimes against humanity (humor btw they don't).

In the end you are left with this great big fear, the fear that someone in an office far away is going to say "nah, not paying that" despite everything being ok, you run the risk, they start by making you question if you put a match to it yourself whilst you were sleepwalking over night to making sure it was effectively maintained. They throw all sorts of doubt in your head, they play with your mind. You then look at the posts on here "I hope your insurance play ball, I hope they pay out" etc etc and it strikes more fear in to you until you are firmly forced to say, it's £600, deal with it... So I have done.

And finally, the thing of all that gets my goat, is not once, not once through this 3.5 week process have they ever once rang me. I have rang them on every occasion for an update.

But hopefully this is now the end, new van by the end of the month and the process of making sure I can enjoy getting on the road again.

keep the faith.
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Good decision now buy your new van and try to put it behind you its only £600 in the great scheme of things as you said it a weeks holiday. Enjoy shopping for new bits an pieces and follow up the credit card aments for anything you had bought recently it is worth an email they can only say no

Looking forward to pics of your new van and be kind to yourself
 
Others may not agree, but for £600 I would have done the same. Hope you get some sleep and back to a more normal mental state. The additional stress of chasing this extra 0.6% is not worth it, life's to short.
 
Jimbohorlicks said:
So,would you use the same insurance company again?
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Wow, that's a really good question. What many of us don't know is we are with "brokers" not insurers. My broker will be /was more than useless. Simply put, they just gave me a claim number and sent me to the underwriters and washed their hands.

Your underwriters hold the key not your broker. The underwriter have been really good in fairness, other than the unbelievable call times for which I will be complaining separately. The problem has been with the underwriters outsourced departments, they have been quite useless but mainly because they have no idea what a motorhome is, looks like or how many wheels it has. A car would be a simple process.

If I wanted to hold on, a funster had given me some really good advice, I would have and no doubt they may have paid a "little bit more" but as I said they broke me when many probably wouldn't have been broken and had the time effort and inclination to deal with it. Don't want to sound brash but the total of my waiting time and what I earn would have been covered by me working instead.

No man can wait 2.5 hours on hold listening to "on hold music" it's a weapon of torture.

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I would of done exactly the same. As others have said £600 in the grand scheme of things isnt a massive deal. Im assuming you will still have your excess on top!
Ive never done it with a motorhome, I dont know why? but I always take out an independent GAP insurance on my cars.
Never had to claim, so dont know if they are any good! But they pay out the difference on what Ins give you and the purchase price, if vehicle is written off.
 
jessthedog said:
I would of done exactly the same. As others have said £600 in the grand scheme of things isnt a massive deal. Im assuming you will still have your excess on top!
Ive never done it with a motorhome, I dont know why? but I always take out an independent GAP insurance on my cars.
Never had to claim, so dont know if they are any good! But they pay out the difference on what Ins give you and the purchase price, if vehicle is written off.
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fortunately after nearly 20 years of motorhoming I had no debt in the van, We worked our way up taking out finance on our first van so we could have a motorhome and slowly upgrading each time and paying them off as we became more wealthy and the kids grew up.

It's a definite point though, can you do this regardless of finance? I always thought the purpose of insurance was to simply put you back in the same car you once had? I think motorhomes are just too difficult to value,
 
Paul

As others have said, the way it was causing you stress it is probably worth losing £600 to save your health.

They probably calculated that at £600 less than price paid that you would not go to law, even Small Claims Court.

Don't forget to cancel the policy and get a return of premium. Did they offer that? I assume not.

I am sending you a PM.

Geoff
 
Think you did exactly the right thing, peace of mind, being able to sleep at night and moving on with life is easily worth £600, even if it does stick in the throat. Best wishes for the future.
 
haganap said:
fortunately after nearly 20 years of motorhoming I had no debt in the van, We worked our way up taking out finance on our first van so we could have a motorhome and slowly upgrading each time and paying them off as we became more wealthy and the kids grew up.

It's a definite point though, can you do this regardless of finance? I always thought the purpose of insurance was to simply put you back in the same car you once had? I think motorhomes are just too difficult to value,
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No finance involved in my cars or motorhomes and cost me £30 a year on a £33k car.
Your Motorhome is 3 times the price! So obviously would be dearer.
I never did it for both my vans which were nearly half your cost at £50K! Which dosent make much sense when I look at it🤔
Its only on the very rare occasions, that these situations come up and make you think, is it worth it to get these type of insurances.

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You have done the right thing in my eyes, Paul...

Never worth making yourself ill over, you have had enough shit thrown at you already...

Onwards and upwards now.... (y):hugs:

At the end of the day it`s much the same value as a long weekend at Jasmin Camping... :wink::wink::giggler:

Good luck with your new Motorhome....
 
I had something similar years ago with a claim on a car.
A lot less money was involved.

Even though the sum was a lot less the insurance company still tried to pull a fast one.

I was desperate to buy another car but held out for a fair payout.
It came in the end but after a long wait.

The difference with my claim was we had alternative transport it only being a car.

If I was you and I really wanted to get away and enjoy down time.
I’d have accepted their offer and put it down to experience.
All be it a painful one.

Hope you get away often and enjoy your new van 👍😊
 
Paul for what its worth, I think you did the right thing, stress can kill. I know your in the medical game so I dont need to tell you that, it seems insurance companies can hold power and do what they want, it is wrong, Im assuming as the policy is a right off you have also paid a full years premium for 6 days, so its cost you a good few bob all in all...........

Good Luck with sourcing your next dream van and may you have lots of happy memories and truck lots of miles. Will it be another Carthago or have you been put off for life.
 
I agree with those who say you did the right thing.

£600 isn’t worth the aggro.

Good luck with the new van(y)
 
Well done to you, it must have been a nightmare period for you,,,good luck to you 👍👍

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Oh Paul ..... I earned my living from insurance, and now they pay my pension. My first husband had his own business doing car repairs - expert in the bodywork dept but not specialist with new tech mechanical. Some major motor insurers make things so bloody difficult for the average bloke and those trying to help him, with one notable exception. Who's that - Direct LIne.

I entirely agree 'it isn't fair' however I also know resistance is futile so also agree you did the right thing.

And - at some stage you will be able to stop spitting feathers. RRRholes.
 
To be honest although 600 quid isnt to be sniffed at i expected them to offer a lot less.. insurance companies are renowned for doing so.

That said £93400 is a lot to have to pay out for what a years premium cost i guess.

I guess what im saying is it could have been a lot worse
 
Sadly this claim will keep being brought up every time you take out insurance as invariably there is a question have you made an insurance claim in the past ? years . Once you answer yes they want details and the amount claimed . So often on Forums such as this the question asked is ' how can I pay the least ' whereas it is how a company handles a claim that should be paramount. It will be interesting how much your damaged motorhome makes on Coparts auction.
 
haganap One of my favourite posters, I just missed this thread for whatever reason for today.
I can only reiterate what others have said before.
Be sure to get your VEL back as this will lower your £600 loss a bit
Best of luck with your soon to arrive van

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haganap
For what it’s worth . . . I would definitely have done the same as you. Life is just too short . . .

Good luck with your next purchase - do hope this very rare experience doesn’t put you off what is a lovely pastime.
 
Trev45 said:
Sadly this claim will keep being brought up every time you take out insurance as invariably there is a question have you made an insurance claim in the past ? years . Once you answer yes they want details and the amount claimed . So often on Forums such as this the question asked is ' how can I pay the least ' whereas it is how a company handles a claim that should be paramount. It will be interesting how much your damaged motorhome makes on Coparts auction.
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yes you are correct of course. I fully expect a hike in all my insurance but what will be will be. I don't think me as a person is at fault but a claim is a claim. Interestingly though, I actually got a quote for the new wheels including htis and it had only gone up 50 quid.
 
I've read this post on and off and glad you are finally getting to an end point. Did you ever say which insurance company you were dealing with or have I missed it?
 
Bustup15 said:
I've read this post on and off and glad you are finally getting to an end point. Did you ever say which insurance company you were dealing with or have I missed it?
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when the money is in my account, I will reveal. Even now I still fear that it might get stolen by some Russian computer hack!!
 
Onwards and upwards. When you replace your van, If possible consider another insurance company.

Was the £600 the yearly insurance premium. A member of my family had a their car written off two weeks after picking it up. Their fault accident skidded on ice. As they had set up their insurance plan monthly, they had only paid one months insurance at the time of the right off. The settlement , which was the full value of the brand new car minus the outstanding years money for the insurance premium. As it was explained, the cost of the policy is the whole amount due at time of inception to cover the risk. Any amount outstanding at right off is due and a new policy would be required.

Good luck going forward and look forward to the grand unveiling of the new van

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