Warranties of what?

[gingerbeer]

Two days into our holiday in France,our 3litre Ducato suffered a engine water pump failure on a Peage.After sressful conversations with police,tow truck driver and RAC,we were towed into a nearby town to fortunately a main Fiat dealer who also repaired large motorhomes.As it was end of working day,the van was lcked up in the workshop compound and my wife and I were taken by taxi to a hotel 18kms away.A substantial estimate was also given.The engine would have to be removed to access the pump.After 3 working days the van was bck in service with an excellent job done.On arriving back in the uk ,the invoice for the repair was sent to the warranty company and after no response after a week.I contacted them to be told that they would not recognise the claim as I had not contacted them to authorise the repair inspite of me pleading mitigating circumstances.Any others with this experience?

[colin]

What mitigating circumstances? You where given an estimate, you then contact the company to get autherisation.

I'm sure some one better qualified than me will answer, but the next stage might be to ask company what material differance contacting them would have made to bill.

[sshortcircuit]

It would appear that you have put yourself right in it Ginger. Without even looking at your warranty there will be a clause that contact with them must be made before any repair is authorised, after all its their money you are spending. They may have their own network of repairers that they deal with and also would have tried to negotiate a better deal with the original estimate. Looks like you may well have to bite the bullet, but somebody may suggest otherwise???

[lennyhb]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Like others have said I think you have shot yourself in the foot, should have called Fiat Camping Car Assist although you would have had to pay to get the van off the Autoroute & then reclaim the amount, they would have logged the breakdown & organised the repair. All you can do now is plead with Fiat customer services, I would have thought Fiat would have paid up as it was a Fiat dealer who did the repairs.

 

Edit:

Just read you post again has the Fiat warranty run out & you are talking about an insurance backed warranty cover, if that's the case I don't think you will have any luck. If it is by an insurance company you could try the insurance ombudsman.

 

 

[Randonneur]

We have an Insurance Backed Warranty on our van and they insist that they be contacted with the estimate prior to the work being done. We had the same warranty on our previous van and we did have a problem with the sensors in the automatic gearbox, the Fiat Agent faxed the estimate to the Company and got the OK and the work was done with no expense to ourselves.

[Brian Kirby]

Two things you haven't said. First, what do the conditions of the warranty say about authorising repairs? Second, what prevented you from contacting the warrantor before authorising the repairs yourself?

[gingerbeer]

Just to clarify Brian trawling through the policy they`ve got me there as it states that they have to be contacted before repairs are carried out.But as my first call was to RAC Euroassist who took over all the arrangements,tow,Fiat motorhome repairer and hotel to we were transfered at short notice which was 18kms away leaving all our documents locked in the van,by first thing next day the parts had been ordered and work was in progress I suppose on thinking back was to get my van back on the road and deal with other issues later.By the way the first person I spoke to at the warranty company said there were mitigating circumstances but thatseems tohave been overull.ed

[teflon2]

Sorry to about your problem but you will also find that an authorisation number has to be obtained before work is carried out and that is your respnsibility. This is to foil the ungodly who thrive on insurance fraud unfortunately this makes victims of people who are honest. :-( John

[David Dwight]

If you had contacted Fiat Assist as they ask, they then would have taken care of everything for you.

 

Dont throw the instruction book away, until you have read it.

 

David

[colin]

I guess you will have a hard time getting money back, but it may be possible to get some. I'm guessing police told you to get van towed ASAP, RAC will have contacted tow. You need to establish that you are not trying to defruad insurance, towing I'm guessing again will be covered by RAC, repairs to van will have a cost which is established, this is not nessarily what you have been charged.

You will need to make a case that the repairs where needed wheither the company was contacted or not, and you need to agree to accept the price that company believe that they would have paid for work.

It will be a long hard job and you might not get a penny, but it may be worth a try.

[Brian Kirby]

colin - 2011-07-28 9:16 PM......................................You will need to make a case that the repairs where needed wheither the company was contacted or not, and you need to agree to accept the price that company believe that they would have paid for work.

It will be a long hard job and you might not get a penny, but it may be worth a try.

 

I agree. You have nothing to lose by pressing your case. Do you have a copy of the invoice? If you write to their disputes (or whatever) department, explaining the exact circumstances, and that your documents were locked in the van to which, by then, you had no access, you may be able to come to some agreement with them. After all, the event that caused the expense is exactly the sort of event the insurance is intended to cover so, but for that missing authorisation, they would have been contractually obliged to pay out. It does sound a punitive use of their reserved right to reject claims where prior authorisation is not first obtained. Are they also liable for the accommodation costs? If so, you have sought to mitigate their costs by acting with haste, have you not? ;-)