Reply to: Ball Park Figure please

[BoredBloke]

Bloody hell! I consider myself quite lucky then!

[Pondlife]

Once worked with a contractor who in a period of six weeks, lost his camera and glasses, had his house broken into twice (the second time they took his TV away in his OWN car) and had is agency go bust owing 2 months invoices.

Remained remarkably cheerful though given the circumstances.

[BoredBloke]

On Friday morning, still pissed off that I had to be down south to work (usually work from home on a friday) I managed to plonk my fat @rse on my galsses. Snap goes a £300 pair of glasses.

Took them down to vision express who fixed them for me for nowt - paid the insurance when I bought them.

Drove the 'bus' home - that was rubbish. I got a 2007 Zafera (sp?) hire car and I'd much rather than my 2001 Mondeo!

Called the home insurance lot and it looks like I'm covered. I suspect I'll get back like for like, which means the laptop I get will be as crap as my old one was - It was good in it's day, but it's day was 2 years ago!

Glad this week is over. Who knows, next week maybe the house will burn down!

[pickle]

[QUOTE=TonyEnglish]Pickle - How did you choose your car insurance? QUOTE]

I dont have car (I live in central london). But i might one day - hence the question.

hth

[BoredBloke]

Pickle - How did you choose your car insurance?

Price was one of the factors, but I assumed (wrongly as it turned out) that by being fully comp with one of the big players would be better than being fully comp with some little tin pot company. My gripe now has moved on from losing all my kit. My gripe is now with the garage THEY picked. I was faced with a no win situation. I could either let them do the repair at THEIR garage or I could get it done at home by one of my choosing. Had I picked the 2nd option and the car was stolen, then my insurance company would not have covered me for its loss. So they pick a garage and the garage keep my car at the back of the queue and fix it when they can get around to it.

If I ran an insurance comapny I would make the garages tender for any work, based on the fact that they will be getting a certain volume of work from me. I would make part of the tender process a SLA based on the severity of the damage concerned. At the moment I'm paying per day to hire a car simply because some scrote decided to pick my car to break into and the garage have only said that it 'should' be ready next Thursday.

[Bagpuss]

You generally gets what ya pay for.

Yeah with car insurance, the more you pay the worse the company

[pickle]

Remember - Never ever use directline

Just a thought.
How come you chose to use them in the first place? Was it the "de-da-la-le-de-le-da-de-da-de-der" whizzy phone advert that sucked you, or were they just the cheapest quote?

You generally gets what ya pay for.

[BoredBloke]

this is getting stupid now. The car has been at the garage since Tuesday. They are expecting to have it back to me by next Thursday. So to check and fix the central locking and do a small amount of bodywork they are going to take 10 days. My car hire runs out on that day and Thursday is the last working day before the easter bank holiday - so if it's not back by then I have no car over the easter weekend

Also - my fob has been broken for a while and so I have been using the low tech approach of actually using the key to lock/unlock the car. I asked the garage to get a price for a replacement fob. They have quoted me £140 + vat for the bit which does the central locking. Just checked with my local Ford dealer and they charge £40 quid for this. Theiving feckers!

I'm going to drive round there tonight and see if anything has been done with my car and if they have not started by Monday I'll be having serious words with my insurance company.

Remember - Never ever use directline

[BoredBloke]

Cash converters - Was planning on that also.

[Bagpuss]

The 'how did they know it was there' has been a question I've been thinking about. My car was covered in sh1t due to the endless motorway driving. My stuff was in the boot and was placed there before leaving work. The car is the saloon type with the boot as opposed to a hatchback, so no way of seeing what was in there.

What would they use to see if there was anything in there as everything was switched off.

Really pised at the insurance company though. Why bother having a clause to cover £100 worth of goods. If they nicked something that small I wouldn't make a claim. But the chances are they are going to nick something a whole lot greater in value and the £100 just takes the pis5. Why not explicitly state that no contents of the car are covered. This seems to be one of those things where everybody seems to get caught out once by it.

Check the local cashconverters that's where the ones nicked from the bloke at work turned up

[milanbenes]

Tone,

keep us informed of the progress this is better than east enders

You ever thought of going on a reality tv show ?

Milan.

[BoredBloke]

The 'how did they know it was there' has been a question I've been thinking about. My car was covered in sh1t due to the endless motorway driving. My stuff was in the boot and was placed there before leaving work. The car is the saloon type with the boot as opposed to a hatchback, so no way of seeing what was in there.

What would they use to see if there was anything in there as everything was switched off.

Really pised at the insurance company though. Why bother having a clause to cover £100 worth of goods. If they nicked something that small I wouldn't make a claim. But the chances are they are going to nick something a whole lot greater in value and the £100 just takes the pis5. Why not explicitly state that no contents of the car are covered. This seems to be one of those things where everybody seems to get caught out once by it.

[Bagpuss]

Bad luck mate, I've had similar experience with the Police. But, a lot of insurance policies will allow a few hundred quid outside the home, should be worth a call.

A bloke at work had his computer equipment stolen from his boot , apparently they use electronic equipment to detect it. It's a pain, but you have to carry stuff with you these days.

Might be worth getting hold of this stuff for your replacements http://www.smartwater.com/

[BoredBloke]

This all gets better.

rang plod to enquire why I had not had the promised call regarding the crime number. The guy on the phone told me that they had a backlog to put onto th system and should have mine in a day or two. I told him that I needed it for my insurance company as I was unable to lock the car in its current state. he then shouted at me telling me that there was only so much he could do with the two members of staff he had - dispite the fact I could hear him laughing and joking when he 'went to check'

Then called the insurance company. As was pointed out earlier, they only cover £100. So anybody out there driving with a load of CD's might want to consider this. I was told that the light business use is only for transporting people i.e. something they told me to take out, which would cover me for carrying kit, which I have paid for and which is useless to me. Then I was told that I had to get the car secured and that they would arrange a pickup. I told them that I was 200 miles from home and needed to be mobile - but my policy does not have the £15 optional extra hire car payment on it. In addition to that I don't have my driving license with me either - so they took the car, leaving me 200 miles from home with no transport. If I refused their pick up and the car was later stolen, I would not be able to claim becuase the car was not secured. Catch 22 - either let them take the car with no idea when I can expect to see it back, or run the risk that some scrote doesn't spot an unlocked car on the street and nicks off with it. I have complained and they have ofered me a 1 litre Corsa. That'll be fun on my commute.

Banking on the house insurance covering things - As I work from home a lot I asked for my kit to be covered - not sure about if it's covered in transport though.

The bag is a big one - I bought it when I was working in the US because I had to travel with 2 laptops. The downside of a big bag is that when it goes missing you lose a lot more. The bag alone was £100 which direct line offer.

Never ever using direct line again though.

[milanbenes]

that list sounds like the contents of the argos catalogue, Tone you sure there's nothing else to add to the list ?

Milan.