[Rembo]

I was involved in an accident in April this year and the 3rd party have accepted full liability.

I was told by my insurer to recover my excess costs from the 3rd party and they agreed to pay me. However they have paid it directly to my insurer instead of me and now my insurer is playing silly and saying because I didn’t have legal protection they won’t pay me it back ? 🫠.
The 3rd party insurer have been straight and have sent me screenshots of the BACs payments to my insurer detailing repair costs, recovery cost and excess has been paid to them.

The 3rd party say my insurer requested recover cost of the excess as well as the repair cost, as they assumed my insurer would reimburse me.

Where do I stand?
Thanks in advance

[TC1474]

Having legal protection insurance has absolutely no bearing on your situation as they will have recovered their costs back from the third party, so they will not be out of pocket.

There is no obligation to have LEI, so you need to ask the insurance company what they are playing at.

You are entitled to recover your uninsured losses, and the third party have played ball and covered that cost, it is now for your insurer to return to you what is rightfully yours.

Give them 7 days to pay in your recovered losses and make it clear tat it is your intention to go to the insurance ombudsman, additionally make it clear that you will also issue proceedings as well as seeking to recover any loss of interest on the amount owed to you.

That tends to focus their minds, but unless there is something specific in your terms and conditions, they are not entitled to keep what is not theirs.

[Rembo]

Many thanks for replying. I really appreciate it.

The strange thing is that the 3rd party insurer says my insurer requested the excess payment as part of their recovery costs, but when I ask my insurer about this they hide behind legal protection insurance and say it’s up to me to pursue the 3rd party for any excess costs.

Can the insurance ombudsman advise on legal proceedings?

Thanks again.

[TC1474]

Legal protection is an insurance policy used by the insurers to pay the cost of fighting your claim, and it is THEIR responsibility to represent you and recover your uninsured losses from the third party and not for your insurance to recover the uninsured losses and then keep it for themselves.

The MIB will certainly advise you and can be found here at Welcome to MIB but you may need to get proper legal representation

[Rolebama]

FWIW: I had a spurious claim against me that I thought was taking too long to sort out. I phoned my then insurer and told them that I had spoken to the Ombudsman, who advised me to ask for a copy of the Terms and Conditions under which they deal with third party claims, so I could use this as a basis for a complaint. After months of trying to speak to a Supervisor, at this time there enough managers in the building to form a quorum. Within two hours they phoned me back and told me the claim was quashed and my NCB restored. I was amazed at how quickly they backed down at the mention of Ombudsman's advice.

[TC1474]

Originally Posted by Rolebama

I was amazed at how quickly they backed down at the mention of Ombudsman's advice.

It used to be a case (and I am not sure if it still applies) that any complaint made to the ombudsman resulted on a minimum £400 fine to the insurer regardless of whether the complaint was upheld or not, hence the suggestion that when the ombudsman became involved it used to/still does worry the insurers because the costs soon mounted up.