…since the crash. So where are we at? Well, health wise I’m not bad. My bruises are mostly gone, same with the aches, pains and general stiffness but I still have odd lump in my stomach but they’re going. Unfortunately the rest of the process hasn’t been so quick or particularly pleasant. I’m still without a car of my own, and will most likely be for a couple of months. So I’ve nabbed Kate’s car until I get one since I need it to travel to work (which is 15 miles from home).

I’ve found it to be a very drawn out process (unfortunately going on honeymoon hasn’t helped since that gave the impression I wasn’t bothered) and when you’re looking for an insurance company you don’t tend to look for one on the grounds of how quickly they can get you back on the road when your car is written off, but a balance between cover and cost. 

But anyway, it took nearly two weeks to decide that the car was to be written off and this was because the cost of repairs (yes, they calculated it) was very close to the value they use as the limit for writing it off. Given I had a new car the logic is pretty simple. If the repair cost is more than 60% of the list price of car then it’s written off and then one of two things happen. A cheque for X amount is written or a new car replacement is given (the latter being some fancy option on my insurance policy), but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

In my case the car’s list price was about £17.8k whilst the repair cost was estimated to be £10.9k (yep, 10,900 pounds). 60% of the list price is £10.7k, so there was just £200 in it and insurers don’t like spending more than they have too, so I can kind of see why it took so long, but I had to keep calling the various parties involved to get updates since no one appeared to be talking to each other. In the process I heard a scary story of there just been a couple of quid in favour of repairing and that’s exactly what happened. Personally I’d have refused to take the car back (and I would have done in this case if they’d repaired it).

There have been further complications because it’s a company car, which means I’m not the legal owner of it and this caused lots of confusion to begin with. It also means the company I work for is involved, as well as a hire and finance company (who are the legal owners of the car). I’ll not go into too much detail because it’s complicated, but essentially it took another couple of weeks to sort out what they wanted to do. Plus my work will be out of pocket since we’ll need to get another car.

I’m also pretty pissed that the other party hasn’t admitted liability (their insurers are doing their own investigation into it). Their logic on this was that the diesel (or whatever was on the road) caused them to lose control of the car and crash into me so technically it wasn’t their fault. The police don’t see it that way and neither did the witness. If they had admitted liability straight away then I’d have had a hire car until I got a new car… and unfortunately until they do I’ll incur various expenses that perhaps I’ll be able claim back. 

And speaking of claiming… that means solicitors. Hmmm yes. Don’t get me started. I was assigned one by the insurers to start a personal injury claim (hey, everyones doing it) and spoke to them last week to just keep them up to date with progress and they couldn’t give a monkeys. Great! I’ve also been given a date for an independent medical exam in November but by then whatever injuries I have will have gone (hopefully?). Plus the fact the surgery is a good 10 miles from home in a place I’ve not been before… and if I didn’t have Kate’s car how would I (easily) get there?

What’s annoyed me most though is the amount of time and effort I’ve wasted having to sort this mess out by speaking to various asshats and incompetents given I haven’t done anything wrong! Plus it’s caused disruption at work. Fortunately, work has been incredibly good about it all and on the plus side, I’m slowly getting it all sorted!