Renault Clio - Claiming back excess

Honest John Back Room » Legal matters
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Tue 26 Oct 2021 08:48
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - malct

My wife who is the main driver had a accident on Saturday night when their was a cow on the main road and she swerved to miss the cow, But the cow caught the passenger side mirror and which caused damage to both doors on the passenger side.

Luckily my wife was OK and the car we are able to drive the car.

Police report made and insurance informed telling them what had happened

Luckily we had dash cam footage and reported the accident to the farmer who was sorry for what had happened and gave us his insurance details to claim from

Speaking to my own insurance company , They didn't seem bothered, Told me to take the car to one of their repairers and to pay them £300 Excess.

The way their were talking , They were not bothered about claiming off the farmers insurance

I asked about the £300 excess and about having to pay it since we were claiming from the farmer , The insurance said , That's up to you to do since i didn't have legal cover and were not at all helpful

We have full years NCD and told that it would not effect next years premium.

So basically, I guess that i will need to pay the £300 once the car is repaired which i have been told could be in a couple of months but they are replacing the passenger Mirror this week.

Can anyone give any advice on claiming back the £300 excess back

The farmer has all my details including the dash cam footage and admitted that those were their cows that had got out of the field

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 13:18
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Tester

There are more knowledgeable folk than me on here, who I hope will chip in, but my experience and expectation is that I report any accident that may lead to a claim to my own insurer (as per my contract with them). If I am given the go-ahead to get a repair done, then from experience I would certainly pay the excess to the repairer initially.

My insurer will negotiate with the other side's insurer to determine any split of liability for the accident. If it is settled as a 50:50, then I am repaid half of my excess (again, this is from experience) but if it is 100% the other party's fault then I would get all of the excess back. The only situation where I'd have to pay the full excess would be if the incident was determined to be 100% my fault.

Could you have misunderstood what is going on? Like I say, you'd certainly have to stump up the excess for starters but will (or may!) get some or all of it back later.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 14:08
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - RT

My insurer will negotiate with the other side's insurer to determine any split of liability for the accident. If it is settled as a 50:50, then I am repaid half of my excess (again, this is from experience) but if it is 100% the other party's fault then I would get all of the excess back. The only situation where I'd have to pay the full excess would be if the incident was determined to be 100% my fault.

I've never heard of that - unless the third party is shown to be 100% at fault, the full excess is retained.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 17:34
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - galileo

If the OP intended to claim from the farmer's insurance he should have made clear to his own insurer that he was NOT claiming, but merely reporting the accident (as most insurance policies require).

He only forfeits his excess if he claims on his policy, which he seems to have done, whether intentionally or through unclear communication with his insurer.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 17:45
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Tester

Getting back 50% of the excess happened to me with a claim on my policy with Privilege about 3 years ago (I just checked the correspondence in case my memory was playing tricks). Like I said in my reply to the OP, it's just my experience -- perhaps other insurers do it differently.

Edited by Tester on 26/10/2021 at 17:46

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 18:09
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Bromptonaut

Just before Xmas 2014 I was leaving a town centre car park when the barrier lowered prematurely and dinged the roofline of my Berlingo.

My own insurers dealt with the repair at which time I paid the excess to their nominated bodyshop. They subsequently recovered my excess from the council along with the cost of the Fiesta I hired locally while my car was in dock.

No effect on my no claims but I think the base premium was loaded a bit at renewal.

If this comes to a contest about liability I wonder if the driver not being able to brake to a halt and needing to swerve might go against them; too fast to stop for a hazard.

I did, 40 or so years ago, see the amount of damage cows could do to a stationery and unoccupied Peugeot 305; it never looked quite right even after repair.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 20:10
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - malct

Thanks for the replies

Regarding Braking , Honesty , If my wife had tried to brake and swerve , I am sure that she would have hit the cow on the front wing and the car would have been damaged that much , We would not have been able to drive

Regards making a claim, Its costing well over a £1000 for the repair, The body shop has replaced a new door mirror today to make the car safer to drive and it needs a brand new rear door , So i had no choice but to make a claim

Regards the speed, My wife was doing 50 MPH on a main road in a lit up village and she was just coming out of the village when she noted something on the grass verge and she thought it was someone walking a dog, so she didn't go full beam and honesty, she had 1.5 seconds to get around the cow and i think she did great with the actions she had taken, If she had panicked , She would have been directly hitting the cow full on.

What i have been told, Once my insurance has made the claim from the farmers insurance and have admitted fault, Then i write to the farmers insurance to claim back my £300

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 21:26
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Bromptonaut

I wasn't casting aspersions on your wife's account, just thinking aloud as to questions an insurer trying to wriggle of the hook might pose.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 26 Oct 2021 22:48
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - bathtub tom
Regards the speed, My wife was doing 50 MPH on a main road in a lit up village

Are you saying there were street lights in a village? If so wouldn't there also be a 30MPH limit?

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 27 Oct 2021 08:44
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - malct

Regards the Village , The village is set back from the main road with a minor road that takes you to the houses and its a 60 MPH speed limit

Basically I just need to know if anyone has managed to get back their excess from the other persons insurance , If i had taken Legal cover , I would have been able claim back via that, But i didn't buy the legal cover.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 27 Oct 2021 08:55
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - daveyjp

I've had excess back in full.

The other party's insurance threatened to take it to Court to argue liability, but when you are T boned by someone emereging from a side junction I said bring it on. They backed down and admitted full liability on their client's part and I was paid excess back.

NCB not affected, renewal was heavily loaded, but easily sorted by shopping around and moving insurance company.

Edited by daveyjp on 27/10/2021 at 08:55

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 27 Oct 2021 11:00
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Bromptonaut

Basically I just need to know if anyone has managed to get back their excess from the other persons insurance , If i had taken Legal cover , I would have been able claim back via that, But i didn't buy the legal cover.

As related above I got my excess back following a open/shut no fault claim where a car park barrier descended prematurely and damaged the roof line. Insurer was LV and I didn't have uninsured loss recovery.

I'd expect my insurer to recover excess where 100% liability was accepted, as above. If it was disputed because the other party asserted split liability then I'd expect to be on my own unless I'd paid for legal cover.

What is the farmer's insurance, and it's their call not that of their customer, saying about liability?

It was for that reason that I questioned whether speed or other factors might give then an opening to claim contributory factors re the OP's wife.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 27 Oct 2021 17:12
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - malct

Thank you for your reply , The area in question was at the last lamp post in this village CA15 6RG heading towards Carlisle

The farmers insurance is the NFU, I tend to give it a couple of weeks to allow the 2 insurance companies to speak about it and to see where its heading and who is paying

Regards the speed it was slow enough to take action, Just so lucky that my wife did react and avoided injury

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 28 Oct 2021 05:53
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - Falkirk Bairn

35 years ago I had the similar experience of a barrier in lane 2 lifting & falling on to my 3/4 week old car as I exited lane 1 around 5pm. Fortunately the damage to the car bonnet was limited as I had just been moving off and I was doing less than walking pace - T-cut & some polish took out what appeared at first to be a problem.

Later that night, a "lady of the night" was murdered on the top floor of the multi-storey. The police immediately jumped to the conclusion that the barrier damage was the murderer making a swift exit. Fortunately the NCP "incident book" had proof that the barrier damage & the murder were not related with 7/8 hour difference.

Many years later the murderer was caught and sentenced - his DNA was found at the murder site but was only identified when he was arrested for something else.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 28 Oct 2021 12:26
Renault Clio - Claiming back excess - malct

Wow , I bet you were under pressure with that murder, Luckily they caught the person But it won't bring back the lady

Reply | Report as offensive | Link

We give you the low down on how to save on insurance, little-known tricks and tips, what insurance groups mean and how to use insurance aggregators to beat insurers.

Insurance group finder and how to save on insurance