Stolen caravan contents

[Lucellie]

Hello from a returned oldie! I would welcome an opinion on this.
Briefly:
Caravan insured but contents not.
RTA and both car and caravan totalled. I had to be taken home from scene. Police had vehicles removed by the Recovery company of their choice and let me know next day where my vehicles were. I contacted them and explained that I was disabled and could not recover contents at once.t
Third party admitted all liability, so my claim, including contents of caravan is against HIS insurers.
The Recovery company, without informing me, sent the caravan away for scrappage, allegedly containing all my belongings(!).
I went at once to the scrapyard and found the caravan emptied of all contents worth about £1,100. The scrapyard proprietor said it had been stripped when he picked it up.
This means that I cannot claim my £1,100 from the guilty third party because the goods were not lost in the accident but we're stolen later.
I cannot claim from my insurers, as the contents were not insured. Or can I, for giving the OK to scrap my caravan without telling me? Or can I do anything else? I am 90% certain that the Recovery staff took everything.

 

[Damian]

I think you will have to accept that you have lost whatever was in the van.
I am guessing that the Insurance company settled with you that the van was a write off and that you would be compensated?
If that is the case then the van became their property and that to save wasting money on storage, and presumably because of the severity of the damage, they sent the van to scrap.

As far as the contents are concerned, you cannot prove that the salvagers , or anyone else, has taken your items and on that premise, there is the problem of where to turn.

No one on this forum can answer your specific situation, you need to talk to a lawyer.

Depending on whether you have household contents insurance, some if not all may possibly be claimed from them, if you had specified that you wanted items covered when out of the home, and specified what the items were.

 

[Lucellie]

Thank you Moderator, I suspected that that was the case. However I do think that 1. once the engineer had advised Recovery that the van was to be scrapped, they should have let me know and given me a deadline for picking up my things, and 2. by the same token, my insurers should have told me that the van was to be scrapped so that I could have found a way to retrieve my goods. After all the van was my property until I I accepted their offer for it, and I had not yet done so. I suppose that moral responsibility does not have anything to do with the legal kind!

 

[otherclive]

We had a similar thing with my wife's car which was involved in an accident. It was recovered to the insurers approved repair centre but they declared its write off as soon as they received it. We got over there the following morning but the car had been moved over to a savage yard in Bristol. So we didn't get the opportunity to get our few bits and pieces out of it. But unlike a caravan contents our loss was quite trivial. If such thin should happen again then I would immediately contact the place where it had been taken to and ask them not to do anything until we, or our representatives, had been over. But of course after an accident its not the first thing that enters your mind.

Hope that you can get it sorted on your insurance.

 

[Thingy]

I am with everyone else on this one. If your items werent insured, I am afraid the insurance copmany will not take responsibility, why should they. The only thing that springs to mind, and its a tiny glimmer of hope, is whether you took out the clause for uninsured losses and whether there may be a anything there.

I feel that any claim would have to be made against the Recovery Company in respect of them failing to take reasonable care of your possessions, but it is one hell of a long shot.

 

[Raywood]

The legal position is complex but basically the caravan should not have been sent for scrap before you were given a chance to remove the contents. The scrapage decision was made by the in surer and they should have informed you. The problem though is was the contents in there when the caravan was picked up by the scrap dealer. You were not given the chance to find out and the loss could have been in the storage yard.
My suggestion is that you write to both the insurer and the storage yard and make a formal claim. The claim against the insurer is simply that they were aware or should have realised that the caravan would have valuable contents and advised you before disposing of it. The storage yard if the scrap contractor is right either removed the contents or failed to protect them. As far as the scrap contractor is concerned I do not see there is any claim against him whether he took the contents or not. He was given the remains to dispose of and did that and had no reason to believe the contents were not included given the modest value.
I suspect you will struggle to get them to pay but a small claims summons might do the trick.
If you are a member of either of the clubs their Legal Help Line would help with more advice and you might also have cover for advice and even a solicitor under your household contents policy or your motor policy or even the caravan one. I would check these.

 

[Mel]

This may be scant hope, but your Home contents insurance may cover your belongings when away from home. This would probably only apply to home belongings carried in the van or car and not caravan specific contents like gas bottles and awnings. Worth checking what your home contents insurance says.
Good luck
Mel