just spoke to Steve at Europa and we both pleased on the outcome
now Europa gave them 9 month for the other party to regularized the situation and it took another 8 month to have the case transfer to court 
just to show you how the system is slow if you want to proceed a court judgment to recover your cost......
ps it did cost Europa £2000 on insurance for me to be able to drive the cayman for two month plus all the grief i gave to her 
...............................
good new's is they are taking delivery of the new cayman in december and selling the old one 
Hello interested readers and fellow car enthusiasts,
I've just revisited this thread after a long while and after speaking to Fabrice, and I've noticed a couple of comments that may require some explanation.
Firstly, we're delighted that the correct result was achieved in the end and that the insurers capitulated without further costs becoming involved, that Fabrice got the desired result and that our considerable costs incurred (part of which Fabrice has hinted at) to date have been recovered after 18 months of waiting. Sadly, we gave the insurers every opportunity to resolve this in an amicable manner without resorting to litigation and the obvious negative financial impact upon them for doing so. I was confident all along that we would be able to get a result for Fabrice and hoped it would be through negotiation not litigation. Thanks in part to the investigative work carried out by Fabrice in the early stages of the claim, the evidence was quite compelling, but allegations were made and there were suggestions about Fabrice integrity as a claimant.....they wouldn't listen to reason and the explanation of the make up of a fibreglass sportscar and how if a car was compromised through an accident, the cost of repair would far outweigh the expected cost of damage to a more mainstream car. IN short they doubted their client caused the damaged being claimed by Fabrice to his car. This therefore was always going to take a while, nevertheless we gave them every opportunity in which to make good but ultimately the decision had to be made to litigate. A disposal hearing was requested (at which neither Fabrice nor the defendant would actually have had to appear) at Salford as this was local to the Solicitor and is a court where the Solicitors are familiar with the workings of the Judges and have, I would say, a greater chance of getting the right result. One other thing is that Fabrice solicitor would himself have been the one to represent Fabrice in court, not a Barrister instructed by them, due to the familiarity with the case ergo nobody better placed to deal with the matter and to help in keeping the costs down. These are a couple of reasons why we recommend them to our clients, results are all important and the way the Solicitors work helps to get those results...they know their stuff.
Regarding the hire car, strangely it costs less for us to insure a Porsche than it does to insure one of our Elise' which I'm sure you would agree is more akin to the VX than the Boxster/Cayman. Rest assured in Fabrice case the charge made for the hire car was that for an Elise/VX as opposed to that for a Cayman. We would have negotiated down the actual charge made with the insurer if they were willing to act quickly in the matter, sadly they chose instead to doubt the integrity of Fabrice and delayed the matter until a few hours before the court would have heard the case.
Insurers act very strangely at times and you really have to be involved daily with them to get to understand their workings. Thankfully not all companies are as obstructive as the insurer in this case and I hope that as a result of this case both the insurer and the defendant herself will have learned a very valuable lesson, but somehow I doubt it. The way the insurers will look at it is that they've kept the total cost of Fabrice claim in their account for 18 months giving them 18 months to hopefully make investment profit upon it.
If anybody has any questions they would like to ask me about the case I'm more than happy to provide answers wherever possible/allowed but obviously reserve the right not to reply or to refuse to reply if comments made could prove prejudicial to the outcome of any case. Insurance companies do monitor forum threads and comments made online have been used against claimants in the past...
All the very best
Steve
(Europa)
p.s. I passed a silver Y plate, VX on the M6 on Tuesday on the hard shoulder, looked like the driver pulled over to let the engine cool down as there was a lack of activity within the cockpit. If you're on here and reading this I hope you got home OK.
Edited by anniesdad, 06 November 2009 - 02:07 PM.
