Blanket coverage

My husband and I were in bed on Feb 2nd 2009, the day of the really heavy snow, with our car parked in front of our house. We heard a commotion outside and when we looked out a foreign lorry driver in a Juggernaut had got stuck in our road, tried to back out and hit the boot of our car. We had numerous witnesses and the police arrived, confirmed the lorry driver had insurance, took all details etc. We informed our insurance company and they told us to send a £400 pound excess. We said no way was it our fault and we did not have £400 to spare. My neighbours who were witnesses duly got forms etc to fill in about the accident, which they did promptly. We got a letter from our insurer a few days later and they had put our insurance up by £3 a month and reduced our protected no claims bonus from 9 to 7 years even though we were blameless. At this moment in time we are still waiting for our car to be taken to be repaired (needs a new boot), but all we are told is that because we are dealing with foreign insurance it takes so much longer. We feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall. Is there anything we can do?

Asked on 22 August 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Not much. You could attempt to get a Small Claims Track County Court judgement against the driver of the foreign truck. But enforcing it on the driver, his employer or his insurer will be very difficult and probably impossible. UK laws are totally inadequate to cover this situation. Once again we are let down by UK and the EC lawmakers, always eager to penalise and impose financial penalties on us. But rarely willing to help us.
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