My wife's car was sideswiped last January by a van driver pulling across the road without looking clearly, resulting in a bent offside door, b post and scraped rear wing She was naturally shaken and not having ever been involved in an accident before got only a few details with no witness details recorded. I contacted my insurance company - Norwich Union - who arranged for the body repairs to be done, loan car provided, although I had to pay the excess while the issue of liability was discussed. I had taken out one of those legal assistance policies with the RAC and so handed it all to them. They took over and kept me informed from time to time of the progress or lack of it. Initially the company that had hired the van said it was not their fault, then they tried to walk away and eventually the RAC said they were going to institute formal recovery proceedings. This flushed them out and I received their cheque, plus interest, and paid it in today. So well done RAC, a bit slow perhaps but then the interest compensated for that, and most importantly the no claims bonus is maintained. I had always seen these policies as just another way of padding the margin, but they did a very good job for us, took all the hassle away and got the best possible result. I will certainly make sure I have one in future as failure to recover the costs and loss of no claims bonus would pay for this many times over. I will enjoy my modest glass of purely medicinal red wine even more this evening.
MGs
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Glad to hear your wife wasn't injured MGs. I think your right when you suggest that these legal assistance policies are worthwhile. Many insurance companies claim -like mine- that you get £xxx,xxx legal cover thrown in, but quite frankly, I don?t think its worth the paper its written on.
Luckily, when my car was involved in an accident (struck whilst parked), the name of a local legal firm who specializes in this form of incident was recommended to me. The legal firm operates outside of my insurance company, so they have little or nothing to do with the whole thing. They act as your representative throughout the 'case'. They pursued for everything under the sun, including loss of earnings, and personal injury claims (none of which I needed). They also insisted that the cars full book price was used as write off yardstick, not the lowest price in glasses guide, which is what the insurance companies usually use.
This meant that the car was repaired (not written off), during which time I had use of a hire car. All of this (repair, hire car, insurance upgrade to cover hire car and legal expenses) were then recovered from the third parties insurance policy by the legal firm. Initially, the third parties insurance firm failed to pay up 'within reasonable time' and thus court proceeding were issued, which saw the matter end quite quickly afterwards.
Also, this left my no-claims bonus unaffected. I would recommend the Legal firm to anyone, as it took a lot of the hard work out of pursuing claims, as they do all the leg work for you, after you've sighed a few forms and passed details etc.
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When I was hit by a Range Rover the solicitor given to me by my insurer (Churchill) was great. They phoned me up an hour after I contacted Churchill and talked me through everything. It all went quiet for a bit, then I received a letter from my solicitor saying that the other insurance had denied liability and so they were going to issue a County Court summons against them. They did and the next day I received a cheque for the repairs to my car.
Best of all the only cost to me was an extra 17 quid the assurance cost me when I renewed my policy.
Ben
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