Admiral have given me money back !

[Yusee]

Buy the cheapest and never use the b@strds.

[monkeyhanger]

Buy the cheapest and never use the b@strds.

You can only be assured of not needing to use them if you're never in an accident. If you're in an accident that wasn't your fault, I'd go with a claims company personally, the insurance companies I've been with when making a claim for a non-fault accident have never fought my corner. The 4 I've had in the last 14 years have been slam-dunk non fault cases. The worst I had to deal with was being with Elephant (Admiral) when my parked up 2 week old MK5 Golf got clattered by a bus. The bus company admitted liability immediately once confirming that gheir nus had damage corresponding to that on my car (the driver did a hit and run). Elephant were a PITA throughout and their legal team were useless. The icing on the cake was when my renewal came through - £400 up to £800, for a confirmed non-fault claim.

Another was a rear shunt into me while I was at a standsrill at the end of a slip road to a busy roundabout. The other side were Admiral insured. Pics and dashcam footage to confirm my account of events, still took forever to admit liability because their client was non-responsive (why should you care about his account when you have dashcam footage?).

Avoid Admiral group like the plague!

[Yusee]

Your first incident is a good example of why I want as little to do with these people as possible. They are not interested in fault, they are interested in risk. In the end you’ll pay for it.
And usually minor repairs can be done at a fraction of the cost incurred when insurers get involved.
For me, they’re only to protect against big value claims/ write off and third party.

[monkeyhanger]

Your first incident is a good example of why I want as little to do with these people as possible. They are not interested in fault, they are interested in risk. In the end you’ll pay for it.
And usually minor repairs can be done at a fraction of the cost incurred when insurers get involved.
For me, they’re only to protect against big value claims/ write off and third party.

A bus hitting a 2 week old car and leaving it 12 feet from where I parked it, after having pushed it into the car parked just in front of mine. It was a big claim. I was most disappointed that the car wasn't written off.

The real issue is that the bus company held their hands up straight away and it was still a ball ache to get Admiral to do anything for me, even having paid for their legal protection. The legal protection team strung out the repair as long as possible (7 weeks) because they supplied me with a lesser Golf at a rental rate of £650 a week costed to the other party! It was about £7k in repairs and £4800 in car hire. The repair was piss poor too, at a main dealership group's bodyshop. Admiral made a fortune out of the other side and still tried to screw me at renewal. Avoid.

[Watts]

That makes me feel more favourably towards DL! Of the two accidents I had, the second when someone ran into the back of me was really straightforward, no bother at all. The first, when a foreign lorry side swiped me, was a bit of a pain. They treated it initially as a 50/50 so I had to cough up my excess and they seemed to be messing about but in fairness, after just over 3 years later, I got a cheque for my excess back, £300! So I would consider going back to them. Another positive aspect with them is they don't charge for policy changes which came in handy a few times.

[RM]

Admiral were superb for me in a non-fault accident. A daft tw** driving his wifes Renault Zoe tried to overtake on a road that was merging into a single lane, failed miserably and dragged his toy car down the side of mine. He blamed me, he then got a rollocking from his wife who was in the passenger seat (which was a joy to watch), but he still insisted I was at fault.

Admiral were having none of it, I sent them photos of the incident and the road, the lady assisting me spent some time on the phone looking at Google Maps together so she could see the road layout, and that was that. They assured me it they believed it wasn't my fault, they fought my corner, and the third parties insurance company ultimately agreed and paid out.

The only criticism I have if anything is I had to ask for an update a couple of times, they could have been more proactive with their comms, but since I had nothing to do nor worry about that's a small point.