I am a 20-year-old student in Aberdeen and have lost my no-claims bonus, paid an excess of £100 and face an increased premium on my car insurance, through no fault of my own.
One night last December a car parked near mine burst into flames. My car suffered scorch marks and a few small light fittings were melted. My insurer, Endsleigh, paid promptly to have the paintwork repaired but was uninterested in reclaiming the cost from the insurer of the burnt-out car. Endsleigh only contacted the insurer six months later when I pressured them, and it wasn’t until August that they managed to obtain incident reports. These, apparently, failed to identify the cause of the fire.
Since the other owner was not at fault, their insurer refuses to reimburse Endsleigh. Parked cars do not combust in the middle of the night for no reason, and there was suggestion of a manufacturing defect. Endsleigh, however, has not contacted the manufacturer to see if it was a known fault. I am not well-off – I only have a car because I was given it by my grandfather, and I don’t see why I should bear the loss. Endsleigh is the insurer recommended by the National Union of Students, but has no interest in helping a student in this predicament – and took eight months to tell me it intends to do nothing. IF, Edinburgh
Given the repairs only amounted to about £800, it was cheaper for Endsleigh to absorb the cost and raise your premium than to start a lengthy investigation. It now admits that its delays have caused you “trouble and inconvenience”, and acknowledges that it only started making enquiries after you asked it to. “On being contacted by the customer we made the relevant investigations and, in this case, were unable to definitively prove that any other party had acted negligently, so the other insurance company involved rightly refused our claim,” it says.
In view of the eight months you had to wait for an answer – or, rather, the publicity about its tardiness – it is now proposing to refund you the £100 excess, restore your no-claims bonus and reduce your policy premiums to the pre-claim level.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
