insurance company not paying out

dor843088

Any help would be appreciated with this matter.

A family member was driving along the motorway and his car filled with smoke and caught fire . He narrowly escaped uninjured thankfully but now his insurance company are stating that the engine has blown and he is only entitled to the value of the car minus the engine (which basically makes the claim worthless) because the assessor said the engine blew first before the fire. He has fully comp which covers fire . He has no car now and has a family and he lives in the countryside . Im not sure how they can say what exactly happened as the car is completely destroyed on the inside. Is the burden of proof on them if they dont want to pay?
Thanks for any advice.

MarkAnthony

To be fair it sounds as if the insurance company are in the right. If the engine failed and caused the fire then the claim would be for the damaged caused by the fire alone. There is probably some negotiation room in that you might be able to get an engineers report to say widget A went and took out widget B and C which are worth €X but you're really going to be nibbling around the edges.

Make a formal complaint to the insurance company and then take it to the ombudsman if you wish to pursue a dispute, there's no need to engage in legal action per se.

dor843088

MarkAnthony wrote: »

To be fair it sounds as if the insurance company are in the right. If the engine failed and caused the fire then the claim would be for the damaged caused by the fire alone. There is probably some negotiation room in that you might be able to get an engineers report to say widget A went and took out widget B and C which are worth €X but you're really going to be nibbling around the edges.

Make a formal complaint to the insurance company and then take it to the ombudsman if you wish to pursue a dispute, there's no need to engage in legal action per se.

Thanks for the reply. So it would really boil down to what came first the engine fault or the fire ? The assessor said the two incidents are unrelated by the way (the engine and the internal fire). Which seems really odd .

MarkAnthony

dor843088 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. So it would really boil down to what came first the engine fault or the fire ? The assessor said the two incidents are unrelated by the way (the engine and the internal fire). Which seems really odd .

Oh - that's odd. I'd make a formal complaint and take it from there. Best of luck.

Pat Mustard

dor843088 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. So it would really boil down to what came first the engine fault or the fire ? The assessor said the two incidents are unrelated by the way (the engine and the internal fire). Which seems really odd .

The first thing to do is to check your policy to see what is covered.

After that has been done, you could approach a solicitor to recommend a good motor assessor to check the vehicle as soon as possible, while there is any chance of it being inspected.

We don't have the policy here and we don't have an expert report showing how the damage was caused, so there is no way of advising you here.

dor843088

Ok thanks guys, appreciated.