Hello Everyone, I need your advise, my car was clamped in April 2012 (under duress I was forced to pay £475 for the release of my car) and after my appeal was rejected by the clamping company I have filed a claim in small claims court. I have received a Notice from the court that a defence and counter claim (for £150, for time spent dealing with this case and also a day at the court) has been filed. I would like to defend the counter claim, can you please advise what options I have for defending the counter claim. Thanks in advance. Regards Bill

Hi Was wondering if anyone could advise please , My sister had someone bump into the back of her car causing about £600 worth of damage, culprit did one and my sister did not get reg she rang her insurance company and the car has now been repaired through them but they are now stating that she has lost her No Claims Bonus of 9 years because it was her second claim. The other claim they are referring to was about 3 years ago when she had her car broken into and a window was smashed to which she had Auto glass out which the insurance company treated that as malicious damage. So is this right that she will now lose he 9 years no claim bonus if it is protected. Tinks

Just curious. We have a pet insurance policy with Blueinsurance.ie. We had purchased the policy last year. The insurance company required that we pay a hefty charge if we went by monthly payment through direct debit, so we made the full premium payment for the year, April 25th to April 25th. We made a claim in mid-April, and received payment, but we did not receive a notice that our policy was up for renewal. They neither notified us by post or by email. As the transactions are all online, we would have no other way to renew but through a mechanism on their site, which I cannot find. It appears that they are conveniently not notifying us of our need to renew so that they can say we terminated the contract. Is this legal? Do they have some legal obligation to notify us of our need to renew by paying our annual premium, or are they finding a loophole that allows them to drop us as a liability.

This is a deeply distressing story of what can happen when you are let down by the NHS and then the insurance you rely on when you are critical ill. We advise anyone using this company to think very carefully and to check your critical illness policies straight away to find out if you have a policy based on "work tasks". My husband and I are desperate for help dealing with Scottish Provident and their critical illness cover. The problem is the policy is work task based for example can you walk 200 metres, can you hold a pen, speak or hear all with or without the use of aids. He was critically ill in 3 hospitals for 3 months so as you can imagine our first concern was not claiming on an insurance policy. When the claim forms were finally sent to the hospitals there was up to 4 months since the consultants had seen my husband and filled out the medical forms. As the forms only asked for CURRENT restrictions on the work tasks the hospitals said should be able to do but not seen since discharge. The only person who had all his current information was his GP who confirmed he was still unable to do at least 2 tasks which would enable a valid claim. My husband also suffered medical errors in hospital including being told he had cancer and epileptic of which it took 6 weeks to find out neither was true. This led to further complications when requesting the hospitals comment further and tell Scot Prov the forms were wrong and did not take into account his restrictions whilst in hospitals. We got answers to confirm his restriction and also who was in charge of his care. This led to an admission that the form was filled out wrong by a person not in charge of his care. This now supported what his GP had always said. Now we had the evidence we thought they would pay out but this was not the case. In Scot Prov's last letter this week turning the claim down again it Scottish Provident say that yes there is confirmation of his inability to do the tasks but they were neither measured or appraised to their requirementsand therefore this evidence is not valid. At no point did Scot Prov ask on their forms that these tasks must be measured in anyway, they are yes or no answers. Its also telling that when his GP disagreed with the original hospital forms they never rang her up to ask to asses them. Our point is how when you are not in the care of the specialist anymore due to being transferred or discharged can they asses the ability to do the tasks. They clearly stated due to his underlying medical conditions the following tasks were not possible? The next point is how can a consultant who last saw my husband 4 months ago be over ruling his GP who is looking after his current care. Everything has been nightmare dealing with this and we are desperate for help. This needs highlighting to the public We are at rock bottom. For a company who starts off a claim process that is stacked against the policyholder from day one we never had a chance. Be warned... Sorry its so long