Have you had a car write-off due to accident or theft?
Concerned that your insurer undervalued your vehicle in its payout to you?
If you’re looking to start a vehicle write-off reclaim, it’s important to understand the time limit rules set by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, so you don’t make your reclaim too late.
The 6 year and 3 year rule
The UK Ombudsman says:
“There are certain time-limit rules that apply to our service. One is when a complaint is referred to either the financial business or to our service more than six years after the event that’s being complained about, or if later, three years after the consumer knew or ought reasonably to have known they had cause to complain about that same issue.”[1]
- If your reclaim is taken to the ombudsman service within 6 years of your car being written-off, and your insurer telling you their valuation of your car, your reclaim should be in time.
- If your car was written-off more than 6 years ago, you should be prepared for the ombudsman service to tell you that you have complained too late. And this would mean you’re ineligible to reclaim for compensation from your insurer. It can be possible to still be in time after 6 years, but this depends on whether you’ve raised your reclaim within 3 years of when you should have known to complain about the insurer’s valuation of your vehicle.
Amelia knows a lot about the market values of cars. As soon as Amelia received the insurer’s valuation of her written-off car, she suspected it wasn’t right, but didn’t take action at the time. Amelia would need to submit her reclaim with the ombudsman service within 6 years of the write-off, otherwise her complaint would be too late under the rules.
Benjamin knows very little about cars and just assumed the insurer’s payout was correct. Benjamin took his reclaim to the ombudsman service more than 6 years after his car was written-off in an accident. Under Benjamin’s specific circumstances, the ombudsman service agreed with Benjamin when he said that he wasn’t aware he should claim until he saw an advert online about retrieving compensation. Therefore, Benjamin had an additional 3 years to submit his reclaim, from the point at which he saw the advert online, which had raised his awareness.
These are just examples, and if you start a reclaim more than 6 years after your car write-off, you should manage your expectations very carefully in terms of your chances of success. Generally, it is best to start a reclaim as soon as you become aware that your insurer’s payout may have been too low, as the records and paperwork are likely to be more readily available.
The 6 month rule
When a reclaim is made to an insurer, the insurer will investigate and say whether they treated you fairly or not, and whether or not they think compensation is due for undervaluing your written-off vehicle.
Once the insurer has completed its investigation, it will provide a ‘Final Response’ letter, outlining its findings. There is a strict rule meaning that you have to take your reclaim to the ombudsman service within 6 months of the date of the Final Response letter.
The UK Ombudsman says:
“This six-month deadline starts from the date the business sends the final response. We then use calendar months to work out the end date.
So if a business sent a final response on 7 May, you have until 7 November to refer the complaint to us.
If a business sent a final response on 30 August, you have until 28 February to complain to us – since it’s not possible to have an end date of 30 February.”[2]
Allegiant is here to help
If we are already helping you with your reclaim, we can advise you on which time limits apply to you. If we haven’t got a claim, but you would like to see if Allegiant could help you make a reclaim, click below to start.
[1] https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/case-studies/consumer-discovers-a-problem-with-his-credit-card-provider-a-few-years-later
[2] https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect/time-limits