Broken and Twisted ... but not Bitter!

As hinted in my last post, this week's steep learning curve has been coming to terms with a new lady-friend, some ten years younger than the last, more sophisticated although less gymnastically capable, but hopefully less demanding and more reliable ... and I'm NOT talking about the saleslady!

Following the demise of Tina the Tigra, I questioned both the accessibility and the wisdom of getting another secondhand car.  Firstly, there was the problem of transport.  I could think of no secondhand dealer within walking distance, and only two on my regular bus-route, neither of whom fill me with confidence.  There are several main dealers in the town, but a glance at their websites told me that even their secondhand prices were beyond my resources.

The way forward seemed to be a contract on a new vehicle.  Although in many ways it's kicking the can down the road - a principle that I normally detest - it is a way out of an unacceptable situation.  In only two weeks, I realised both the frustration and the limitation of having to walk everywhere, whether directly or to get the nearest bus, which is a ten-minute walk over the railway bridge ... not to be considered lightly in the context of shopping, for example.  Church is a 20-minute walk, and to ring bells on Sunday was an impossibility to co-ordinate, it being a similar distance in the opposite direction.

So, I've been discovering the great electronic prowess of Keziah, my new VW Up! (what a name for a car! - 'Up!', not 'Keziah' - the latter was inspired by the registration letters, and means sweet smelling like cinnamon).  She also has a DAB radio, which promises cricket-filled journeys if they're cleverly planned!

The other learning associated with this transition is more of a puzzle ... and something of a caution.  I wrote the other week of the impressive speed with which the insurance company dealt with the aftermath of the accident.  It happened on Sunday; I rang my broker first thing on Monday to report it and was told to send the estimate for repair when I'd received it, which I did the next day.  That afternoon (Tuesday), the insurance company texted me to say they had been contacted by the third party's insurers and would I call them.

When I did so, and tried to explain that my brokers were handling this on my behalf, this was poo-poo'd, and I was persuaded to provide them with the estimate, which led to the prompt financial outcome later in the same week.  I heard nothing from the brokers until a week later, when they e-mailed to say they had sent the estimate to my insurers to authorise the repair!  Feeling that they were a waste of space, I sent off a caustic reply ... expecting to hear no more from them.  But this was not to be.

On Wednesday this week, came an apology from the brokers for their delay and what appeared to be a casual enquiry whether my policy excess had been deducted from the settlement, in which case they might be able to recover this from the third party's insurers.  When I replied that there had indeed been such a deduction, the brokers' response floored me.  "I'm surprised that this wasn't waived, since the third party insurer accepted liability very early into the claim."

Now, my insurer had advised me that, whoever had caused the accident, because I was the one driving onto the roundabout I would be deemed to be at fault.  Having suffered in a similar way some years ago, I reluctantly accepted this at the time as an 'insurance convention'.  Now I'm wondering just how much of these exchanges is 'insurance speak', and how much actually reveals what's going on.  I hadn't seen the other car until just before he hit me; I could have been a bit cursory in making sure nothing was coming, or he could have been coming at excessive speed (he was coming down a hill towards the roundabout).  Instinctively - as I suppose most drivers would - I felt it wasn't my fault, but I couldn't be sure.  If, as my insurer had led me to believe, there is a convention that made me at fault, why should the other insurer 'accept liability' ... unless his client had told him that he was to blame?

It's all water under the bridge now - or, more accurately, car on the scrap-heap - but it does leave me wondering just what is the relationship between insurer and broker, and how do their respective responsibilities to the client interweave?  Having accepted the Volkswagen insurance on my new car for the present, I have twelve months in which to ponder these things before I have to consider how to proceed next year.