Car insurance - Question regarding should my insurance company challenge for me

[Bottle3]

Hello,

Recently I had a wall fall on my car. It was during the high winds before Christmas. The problem is the the reason behind the wall falling is that behind it was a construction site. The builders were reclaiming the original bricks of the wall and rebuilding. This caused the structure to be unstable and fall on my car.

I have had an engineer look at the pictures taken and an unofficial report stated that in fact it was the structural damage that was at fault for the wall falling.

I have had to claim off my insurance company to have my car fixed and back on the road. The damage was almost €5k not including the excess fees I had to pay myself to the garage amounting to almost €250 including a day extra car rental as the car wasn't fixed on time and I went over the maximum covered car hire.

I was informed that if I wanted my no claims bonus back I would have to pay back the €5k to the insurance company. I will have to tackle this issue myself and go to a lawyer and claim off either the owner of the wall or the builder (who in fact is insured under the same company as I). These legal wranglings are obviously going to be very expensive and drawn out.

Can you give me guidence on how to handle this matter :
Should the insurance company have handled this claim and went through the legal aspect of this case?
If so, how do I press them insurance company to do so?
If not, what is the cheapest and most effective way to handle this matter.

Regards & Thanks,

Michael O'Grady.

 

[Ravima]

what do you mean by an 'unoffical engineers report'? If you have a written report from an engineer suggesting that the builder is at fault, whayn ot submit that in to insurance company asking them to comment on it and to pursue the builder?

 

[Guest112]

Hi Michael

In your shoes, I would employ an independant insurance consultant with ACII qualifications to tackle the insurance company on your behalf.

It will be very difficult for you on your own to get anywhere with only one insurance company involved.

You can find an assessor in the yellow pages or i can recommend one to you if you like to PM me.

 

[Bottle3]

Thanks for replying,
'unoffical engineers report' means that I had a friend ask one of his colleugues to have a look at the pictures and give me feedback. It wasn't something he could make official as it would have to go through the company for legal reasons and that would be at a cost. Please see below :
The pictures clearly indicate that the wall in question was a newly wall built using reclaimed bricks.

One reason the wall could have fell was that when using reclaimed bricks before applying the mortar
the bricks need to be soaked in water to have a more stronger bond between the brick and mortar to hold up the wall.

Another reason is that standard building practise wall ties should be place @ 450mm centres. It is clear from the
pictures the the previous wall had wall ties @ 680mm centres so to counter balance the lack of walls ties available the builder
could have used a plug bolt / rawl bolt or something similar to stablilise the wall.

These along with the strong winds that night would have all contributed to the collapse of the wall in question.

If you could recommend an assessor I would be grateful, thank you.

Regards & Thanks,

Michael.

 

[peteb]

Can you give me guidence on how to handle this matter :
Should the insurance company have handled this claim and went through the legal aspect of this case?
If so, how do I press them insurance company to do so?
If not, what is the cheapest and most effective way to handle this matter.

You have a comprehensive policy and your insurers pay out without question. However you should have instructed them that you wanted them to pursue the Third Party in relation to the matter and provided details of the construction company, etc.
Just ringing the insurance company and telling them to go after the wall-builders should be enough if they can be traced. Insurers have subrogation rights under your policy, and you could not take legal action against the builder without their permission anyway. So just ring insurers and explain the situation. Its that simple!