Rubbish lorry dropped a bin on my car but its insurer won’t pay out

ON MAY 16 last year, a refuse lorry emptying industrial bins lost control of one of them. It hit my car.

We contacted the firm, which eventually put us in touch with its insurance company, Davies Managed Systems.

On November 4, I received a letter from the insurer to go ahead with the repairs on the basis that I would pay the garage and be reimbursed on receipt of the paid invoice. The invoice for £729.21 was sent by recorded delivery and they received it on December 1.

Despite numerous telephone calls, I still haven’t received payment. As a pensioner, I can ill afford to be out of pocket through an inefficient insurance company withholding money.

Mrs J. B., Leicestershire. HoW can it be possible to take from May last year until now for an insurance company to process and pay a claim?

Davies is the claims handler for liberty Mutual Insurance europe. They registered their interest on July 10 but did not give you the go-ahead until october 24, more than three months later.

even then, you had to foot the bill yourself in order to get the repairs carried out.

Davies has passed the buck to the waste management company, though I feel the blame falls equally, as the delay in getting the claim processed and your car repaired appears to fall squarely at Davies’s door.

a statement from Davies Managed Systems says: ‘We have been in regular contact with Mrs b about her third-party claim as well as our client. The loss fell within their policy excess.

‘This means they were responsible for paying the cost of Mrs b’s claim.

‘as soon as we became aware of the final value of the claim, we requested these funds, which unfortunately took longer than expected.

‘They have now settled and we are very happy to say that a cheque for £729.21 was issued on February 12.’

In all, it was almost nine months between the incident and you getting your money.

I wonder if they are that lackadaisical about chasing money that is owed to them? IN DECEMBER 2013, I purchased a mobile phone for my husband and was offered a free upgrade for my own mobile.

I started to have issues with my phone and returned it to the Vodafone store on three separate occasions. Staff did not seem to know what they were doing, but eventually managed to rectify the problem.

On November 23, 2014, my husband was rushed to hospital with pneumonia. He died two days later. During this period, I needed to contact friends and relatives, but my phone started switching itself on and off and it deleted all my contacts.

Three days later, I visited Vodafone’s Harlow store, but was told it was not policy to replace phones that were out of warranty.

I asked if I could have a courtesy phone until I could back up my photos on my existing phone, which included several of my late husband. They said they did not have one available.

The service I have received from Vodafone is deplorable.

N. F., Essex. Deplorable service for you and an equally deplorable response from Vodafone’s press office, I’m afraid.

Most companies would take account of your particular circumstances. Your phone did not work during an enormously stressful period when your husband had just died.

Yet Vodafone’s store was, according to you, less than helpful.

Vodafone has offered a £20 goodwill gesture towards the cost of you purchasing a new phone.

This is beyond insulting. Vodafone had a turnover of more than £38 billion last year — and all it chose to offer you after dismissing your problems when you were enduring severe personal anguish was twenty quid.

Vodafone’s press office sent me a statement saying: ‘ It is essential that our engineers are given the opportunity to investigate a fault.

‘ We do not provide courtesy phones, although this is available if the customer has insurance.’

It further said that although backing up photographs is a customer’s responsibility, ‘ our retail store advisers can and do help and routinely transfer photographs and other content from one handset to another for our customers: we would expect this courtesy to be extended to Mrs F too.’. Well, it appears they didn’t. I pressed Vodafone to no avail. Instead, I received a further statement: ‘While we are sorry to hear about Mrs F’s bereavement and have offered to contribute to a replacement phone while her own is being repaired, we have no other plans.’

I suggest you make your own alternative plans and move to a new mobile provider. I HAD a stroke in 1971 caused by the contraceptive pill, but have had no problems since and haven’t taken the Pill for 44 years.

My travel insurer, Co-Op, told me in the Nineties that I no longer needed to declare it. So when I switched to Staysure I didn’t notify them of the stroke.

But as our holiday got closer, I thought it best to tell them, and the insurance increased by £80. I feel penalised for a one-off illness that happened decades ago.

Is this fair?

L. S, Gateshead. You did the right thing by telling Staysure about your stroke.

It is frustrating that your fee increased so much, but had you not informed Staysure about your previous illness, you would have risked being left high and dry if you needed care abroad.

In those circumstances, bills can run into the thousands, and the stress of covering it can sting much more.

When you come to renew your travel insurance, shop around to check if there’s a better deal.