Recently we covered how motorists can best deal with the situation of making a car insurance claim. But what if your insurer rejects the claim, what should you do then?

It is not uncommon for insurance companies to either reject a motor insurance claim or reduce the payments they make.

There are several factors that can trigger such as event:

• Your insurer may come to the conclusion that you were largely (or even entirely) at fault if your claim is related to a theft from the vehicle or of the vehicle itself

• Your car insurance policy may contain a clause witch invalidates the claim

• It is decided the claim should be settled under another policy such as your home contents insurance (particularly in the case of theft from the vehicle)

• You provided information that was untruthful or inaccurate

• You are unable to provide receipts to backup claims of theft of items from your vehicle

• The book price of the car is considerably less than the money you’ve invested in restoration or enhancements

With any insurance policy your insurer will expect you to disclose any information that could be of importance to them. You are obliged to do this even if the details are not requested; this is known as “utmost good faith”.

Insurance companies often use this extremely wooly approach to sharing information to justify rejecting or downscaling claims. Should this situation arise with your car insurance claim there are some important points to remember:

• The small print of your policy carries a lot of weight; study it thoroughly before, during and after your claim (and ideally before taking out a policy in the first place)

• Keeping accurate records of conversations and correspondence along with receipts can make a huge difference in backing up your claim as well as the eventual success of your claim

• The payout figure announced by your insurance company is not set in stone. Rather than just accept the amount on offer you are perfectly entitled to question the payout and put forward you case for why it should be increased

If after all that you still disagree with your insurers decision to reject your claim or the payout level awarded your next step should be to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The FOS acts as an independent arbitrator to resolve conflicts between insurance companies and customers, they deal with thousands of complaints every year.

The first step in complaining to the FOS is to confirm your car insurance claim has been dealt with in full by your insurance company. You can raise your complaint with the FOS once your insurer has provided a letter or final response to your complaint or has failed to do so within eight weeks.

If you need the assistance of the Finance Ombudsman Service to help with your car insurance claim visit their website

Delays in resolving a car insurance claim can lead to massive disruption in people’s lives. Hopefully this post will help make your next claim run more smoothly. We all need help from time-to-time so please don’t be discouraged from contacting the FOS for support with your claim.

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