Car loan issue !

[jj69]

Hi All..
Wonder if anybody can assist with the following.
Took out a HP agreement with Advantage finance about four months ago, purchased car which was subsequently written off about two weeks later in an accident.
Insurance company say I was not covered ( took out insurance that same morning before setting off to work , insurance company claim policy was on that date but not that time due to policy not coming into force ) but this is another story while I am still disputing it.
I have paid Advantage finance their monthly payments without problem but they are phoning every couple of days wanting an update on the insurance.
Called today and I discussed the situation with one of their plebs who stated ' unless I give them a confirmed update withing two weeks they may look at going to court and obtaining a CCJ as I should have had proper insurance in place, and obviously they dont want to do this and would rahter work with me ' . Now this has riled me to say the least and will be firing off a complaint letter , my question is can they take me to court as the car has been scrapped ? I continue to make the payments regarding the loan and have not defaulted !

[SA Gold]

Re: Car loan issue !

Hi All..
Wonder if anybody can assist with the following.
Took out a HP agreement with Advantage finance about four months ago, purchased car which was subsequently written off about two weeks later in an accident.
Insurance company say I was not covered ( took out insurance that same morning before setting off to work , insurance company claim policy was on that date but not that time due to policy not coming into force ) but this is another story while I am still disputing it.
I have paid Advantage finance their monthly payments without problem but they are phoning every couple of days wanting an update on the insurance.
Called today and I discussed the situation with one of their plebs who stated ' unless I give them a confirmed update withing two weeks they may look at going to court and obtaining a CCJ as I should have had proper insurance in place, and obviously they dont want to do this and would rahter work with me ' . Now this has riled me to say the least and will be firing off a complaint letter , my question is can they take me to court as the car has been scrapped ? I continue to make the payments regarding the loan and have not defaulted !

Hi,
Did you receive a certificate of insurance with the date and time on?
Assuming you were covered at the time of accident, it would depend on the insurer and their terms i guess. I have heard of people having to dispute the amount offered with write-offs of new vehicles because they often have different opinions on what the vehicle is worth.
Good luck and let us know what happens!

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

Hi,
Did you receive a certificate of insurance with the date and time on?
Assuming you were covered at the time of accident, it would depend on the insurer and their terms i guess. I have heard of people having to dispute the amount offered with write-offs of new vehicles because they often have different opinions on what the vehicle is worth.
Good luck and let us know what happens!

Yes eventually but it is showing as a start time about an hour and thirty mins later than what I applied for online so I did online and paid by card at 7.00am they say did not start till 9.15am ..and they have checked with their IT dept etc when payment was processed so they say I am not covered and wont payout which is why finance company are getting tetchy..can the finance company take me to court as their goods are damaged ?

[SaltnVinegar]

Re: Car loan issue !

Hi All..
Wonder if anybody can assist with the following.
Took out a HP agreement with Advantage finance about four months ago, purchased car which was subsequently written off about two weeks later in an accident.
Insurance company say I was not covered ( took out insurance that same morning before setting off to work , insurance company claim policy was on that date but not that time due to policy not coming into force ) but this is another story while I am still disputing it.
I have paid Advantage finance their monthly payments without problem but they are phoning every couple of days wanting an update on the insurance.
Called today and I discussed the situation with one of their plebs who stated ' unless I give them a confirmed update withing two weeks they may look at going to court and obtaining a CCJ as I should have had proper insurance in place, and obviously they dont want to do this and would rahter work with me ' . Now this has riled me to say the least and will be firing off a complaint letter , my question is can they take me to court as the car has been scrapped ? I continue to make the payments regarding the loan and have not defaulted !

Simple answer is - yes they can take you to court.

Generally cars on HP are required to be insured and its a usual requirement for them to be comprehensive insurance also. Simple reason for this is that the finance company own the vehicle.

I would suggest that you write to them stating there is currently a dispute with the insurance company, and that you will be continuing repayments in the meantime. I think if they took you to court on this basis it would be completely unreasonable.

So the issue to resolve here is your insurance.

What I don't understand at the moment is you say you bought a car on HP and then wrote the car off two weeks after purchase, but you insured the car on the day of the accident?

How was the car insured the previous 2 weeks?

What time did you call the insurance company to insure the car?

What time do the insurance company claim the policy was valid from?

Have you asked the insurance company for a transcript of the phone call (training and quality purposes remember)?

The above questions will be the same the finance company will be asking themselves (and you) so you need to get these sorted first.

Best
SnV

[SA Gold]

Re: Car loan issue !

Yes eventually but it is showing as a start time about an hour and thirty mins later than what I applied for online so I did online and paid by card at 7.00am they say did not start till 9.15am ..and they have checked with their IT dept etc when payment was processed so they say I am not covered and wont payout which is why finance company are getting tetchy..can the finance company take me to court as their goods are damaged ?

Ah. I would say they will stick to whatever it states on the certificate of insurance. I'm not sure if the time of payment will hold any weight here. The last time i took a policy out online it said the start time is midnight - i also created the policy early morning. It didn't matter in my case because i wasn't collecting the car until the next day.

[SaltnVinegar]

Re: Car loan issue !

Yes eventually but it is showing as a start time about an hour and thirty mins later than what I applied for online so I did online and paid by card at 7.00am they say did not start till 9.15am ..and they have checked with their IT dept etc when payment was processed so they say I am not covered and wont payout which is why finance company are getting tetchy..can the finance company take me to court as their goods are damaged ?

Answers to some questions on my previous post

Did you get an email confirmation or anything like that after you made the online payment.

Generally your policy 'should' be effective from the point you made that payment, so if you have something that demonstrates that payment was made and you had good reason the policy was in force, then I think you will have a stronger argument.

I suspect this is going to have to go to the Insurance Ombudsman Service to get this resolved........

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

Simple answer is - yes they can take you to court.

Generally cars on HP are required to be insured and its a usual requirement for them to be comprehensive insurance also. Simple reason for this is that the finance company own the vehicle.

I would suggest that you write to them stating there is currently a dispute with the insurance company, and that you will be continuing repayments in the meantime. I think if they took you to court on this basis it would be completely unreasonable.

So the issue to resolve here is your insurance.

What I don't understand at the moment is you say you bought a car on HP and then wrote the car off two weeks after purchase, but you insured the car on the day of the accident?

How was the car insured the previous 2 weeks?

What time did you call the insurance company to insure the car?

What time do the insurance company claim the policy was valid from?

Have you asked the insurance company for a transcript of the phone call (training and quality purposes remember)?

The above questions will be the same the finance company will be asking themselves (and you) so you need to get these sorted first.

Best
SnV

Hmm thought it may be a yes on this..

Ok I took out the policy online, before this I had courtesy cover from the car dealer which expired at midnight the previous night, I was not planning to use the car but needed to get my wife to work so signed up for monthy DD and made a one off payment , got a conformation email saying car details /policy number/policy start date ( that same day ) and policy end date but no time !!

So I did this at around 6.50am accident happend at 8.30am

There was no phone conversation as done on that morning but insurers say time is set at 9.12am which is when the card was processed , no way could I have done that then as I was in hospital getting injuries checked.
Insurers did say they would investigate and came back saying the time stamp is correct , so told them I would take to ombudsman.
I guess I could ask for a copy of the processed payment from them.

I spoke to one solicitor who said what might have happened is they do the policies in batches and may have left it till later to process but insurance claim card payment was done at 12.

I intend to keep paying off my HP but I expect Advantage to perhaps go to court as their call tatctics are starting to get aggressive.
This is why I was going to fire off a line of letters so I could show a judge I was cooperating.

If the ombudsman side with insurance company what else can I do it's sheer bad luck that I had an accident the same day I took out policy ( and the insurance company + investigation dept have already looked into this )

[SA Gold]

Re: Car loan issue !

got a conformation email saying car details /policy number/policy start date ( that same day ) and policy end date but no time !!

Well hopefully that will go in your favor. One of the benefits of online transactions is being able to do things at any time. If they are happy to confirm your policy is in effect a few minutes after you submitted the form, it's not your fault the card payment wasn't processed hours later manually - i assume.
Good luck with it!

[SaltnVinegar]

Re: Car loan issue !

Hmm thought it may be a yes on this..

Ok I took out the policy online, before this I had courtesy cover from the car dealer which expired at midnight the previous night, I was not planning to use the car but needed to get my wife to work so signed up for monthy DD and made a one off payment , got a conformation email saying car details /policy number/policy start date ( that same day ) and policy end date but no time !!

But your confirmation email will have a timestamp

So if you received the confirmation email giving the policy details, number etc at 07:30 in the morning it would not be unreasonable to assume that your policy was valid.

See what I'm saying?

In the strictest sense your insurance company will argue its the time on the insurance certificate that matters, but if there is a 2-3 hour delay in them processing documents from when you made the payment and receiving confirmation via email I think you may have a point to argue.

At the very least I would be considering going to one the national newspapers with this as it reveals a flaw in the insurance system which many people will be getting caught out by.

Best
SnV

[SA Gold]

Re: Car loan issue !

At the very least I would be considering going to one the national newspapers with this as it reveals a flaw in the insurance system which many people will be getting caught out by.
Best
SnV

I agree.
I think its time for these types of businesses to up their game.
If they want to offer products 24/7 365 on their website then great, but if they take a first payment and email to confirm the policy is in effect they should honour your claim.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Car loan issue !

am I reading this right, you got a car on finance and then crashed it before even getting it home and insured?

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

am I reading this right, you got a car on finance and then crashed it before even getting it home and insured?

Lol now dont go down that route...I purchased the car a fortnight before and the dealer gave me 14 days courtesy cover that took me up to the night before , I needed to get insurance but as I was not driving the next day I could have got it then but had to rush it through on the morning...

I looked at other companies before and did not want to get caught out by the 12.00 rule as I know that some policies do not come into force until then.
So with the insurer I used ( well known big company with TV ads etc ) I knew you would get instant cover and got a print off confirming this but with no time...

According to insurer they process the policy as soon as payment is confirmed which they insist was done online at 9.12am on the same day but as stated I was in hospital then so not possible...

I think I need to pester insurer and get some proof of this as all was done over the phone , except for one letter stating that all investigations were completed and insurer was sticking to it's guns not to pay.

I understand the comments on here if a insurer is saying instant cover it should be but !!

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

But your confirmation email will have a timestamp

So if you received the confirmation email giving the policy details, number etc at 07:30 in the morning it would not be unreasonable to assume that your policy was valid.

See what I'm saying?

In the strictest sense your insurance company will argue its the time on the insurance certificate that matters, but if there is a 2-3 hour delay in them processing documents from when you made the payment and receiving confirmation via email I think you may have a point to argue.

At the very least I would be considering going to one the national newspapers with this as it reveals a flaw in the insurance system which many people will be getting caught out by.

Best
SnV

No did not get conformation email until later about 9.30am ..it took them 12 days to send my documents out , which was fantastic as the police attneded scene and of course the MIB was not updated and therefore I was showing as uninsured , so had a producer for seven days from accident that of course went over until I eventually got my docs which the police signed off.. ( there is still the possiblity of court action pending for late producer and a charge of careless driving but heard nothing yet ) oh I was breathlysed and passed with zero reading plus first accident in 17 years of driving so not like I am a serial car detroyer !!

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

No did not get conformation email until later about 9.30am ..it took them 12 days to send my documents out , which was fantastic as the police attneded scene and of course the MIB was not updated and therefore I was showing as uninsured , so had a producer for seven days from accident that of course went over until I eventually got my docs which the police signed off.. ( there is still the possiblity of court action pending for late producer and a charge of careless driving but heard nothing yet ) oh I was breathlysed and passed with zero reading plus first accident in 17 years of driving so not like I am a serial car detroyer !!

or car destroyer even !

[jj69]

Re: Car loan issue !

I agree.
I think its time for these types of businesses to up their game.
If they want to offer products 24/7 365 on their website then great, but if they take a first payment and email to confirm the policy is in effect they should honour your claim.

All in all they have been crap and would never use again..passed from pillar to post between indian call centres and various departments mix up's in picking up the car then telling me I have to have the car returned as they were refusing to pay out...not impressed !