Can someone please give me some advice about a claim I am making that seems to be going nowhere.
Last week I was driving down a dual carriageway when a car on the opposite carriageway spun round and ended up on their hard shoulder facing the wrong way. On the way their rear wheels skidded over the gravel on the central reservation kicking it up onto my carriageway so that it sprayed my car.
I now have various dents, scratches, broken wing mirror, etc on the bonnet, windscreen, drivers door and pillar. It is all fairly cosmetic, but very extensive and I am expecting a fairly hefty bill for repair. (My car is only a year old, so to maintain my warranty for rust, it needs to be repaird properly).
The police were in attendance and we swapped insurance details via the police officer. Luckily there was no injury on either side, and as far as I could tell, no major damage to anyone. No one else was involved.
I have made my claim through my insurance company, and it now seems that the other party have decided not made a claim. So my insurance company now say that they are unlikely to be able to recover the cost as the other insurance company don't have a record of any incident and therefore no record of responsibility being accepted. So if I want to get repairs done I will have to pay my excess, lose my no claims, etc.
Surely as we all have details of the other driver, someone should be contacting them and at least asking for their side of the story as a claim has been made against them. As I understand it, you are obliged to report any accident you are involved in to your insurance company even if you don't want to claim, as someone else might need to. The police can confirm what happened.
I'm not sure where to go from here. Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks for reading this, I'd really appreciate any suggestions.
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If their car didn't hit anything then strictly speaking they don't have an accident to report? Are they aware that you were going to be pursuing for damages?
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I didn't speak to them directly as they were in shock and the police officer did all the leg work. But he gave them our details, and as we had had to drive to the next junction, turn around and come back, they must have some idea that I had a need to claim.
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evie99
My views below, NOT advice. Recent laws means that the Insurer is treated as if they were the same as the Insured. So once you lodge your claim, they are both responsible for dealing with your claim, even though the Insurance Company may not have been told of the incident by their insured. Do as I suggest and then wait for their written response.
This is what I should do if I was in your position:
1. Unless you are claiming from your own Insurance, leave your Ins Co out of it, except to notify of incident purely for information purposes. make it clear it is NOT a claim.
2. If you have name & address of third party, write and send [recorded/signed-for and/or special delivery] a copy to the third party's Ins Co. lodging your claim and giving them 14 days to respond prior to taking your claim to the Small Claims Court. Make it clear that you hold the Ins Co responsible, as per your rights under the
www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20023061.htm
"....
the entitled party may, without prejudice to his right to issue proceedings against the insured person, issue proceedings against the insurer which issued the policy of insurance relating to the insured vehicle, and that insurer shall be directly liable to the entitled party to the extent that he is liable to the insured person. .... "
"These Regulations, giving effect to Article 3 of the Fourth Motor Insurance Directive, confer on residents of the 15 Member States a new right to issue proceedings against the insurer of the person responsible for an accident in the UK."
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if you have legal cover get that started.
we had a similar problem with a driver who backed in to my son (so i guess liability was easier to prove) they found who his insurer was via the mib and took it from there
we got all costs including his excess back.
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Many years ago a colleague suffered something similar - a whole hub assembly came off a car travelling down the opposite carriageway of the motorway. He was sat in traffic and the hub landed on the boot of his car.
The owner of the car couldn't claim as it was TPF&T, colleague claimed against them and was successful - the car owners insurance company initially said it was an Act of God!
Keep making a nuisance of yourself.
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Thanks everyone, it's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks I should be owed something here. I've got a few good suggestions here, so I'll deliberate and then take action.
Thanks for all your help.
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it most definitely IS the other car driver's responsibility and the scenario IS an accident within the Road Traffic Act...
because the RTA definition of an accident starts off with 'if owing to the presence of a motor vehicle on a road....' etc...(so as an extreme example, if your car was parked and a blind man fell over the bonnet, that's still an accident as per the definition)
do you have legal cover..either through the car policy or elsewhere, because obviously a decent solicitor would be better placed than us lot to give pertinent advice. (I've got a policy through work, that most people forget about).
don't be fobbed off by your insurance company though, they are past masters at only seeing it from their own angle i.e. their usual procedures and comfort zone... be politely insistent that they do what you've paid them to do. I can see no reason in principle why your insurance company shouldn't send the other driver a bill, recover their costs and cover your excess etc, why not?
I think jbif's advice is sound in that the other driver is liable, if he/she chooses to use their own insurance company, that's up to them, but if they don't they'd have to cough up themselves
good luck....
p.s out of sheer nosiness, what car do you drive?
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I was the other driver.
Some idiot in an Allegro overtook a mimser in a Porsche. The Allegro cut the Porsche up and he had to take evasive action. Fortnately his ceramic brakes were very very good. But, all of a sudden, I had no road left and ended up in a spin.
If I sprayed the lady with gravel, I'm very sorry. But it really wasn't my fault.
Sorry I didn't get any of the registration numbers.
Edited by GroovyMucker on 29/07/2008 at 20:09
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Evie - if you're still here - you will, I hope, realise I'm playing D's A.
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And just to deepen the d's a's plot a little further.
You want to claim against me but I have no proof your car was not in that condition prior to you stating that I sprayed gravel all over your car.
Any proof of car condition? or witness?
It does sound a lot of damage for gravel spray imo.
Broken mirror etc. ?
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Westpig - I drive a Vauxhall Astra. Does that help?!
To the devil's advocates - Yes I understand there may be other circumstances, but as the police were there, they should have all the stated facts. I need to try and get their report. That would also mean the other people would have to deny liability, but that's not happened yet and is a bridge to cross if or when it happens.
I also understand that it's only my word as to the state of my car before the incident. There's not much I can do about that, but it would be pretty convenient to stumble across a situation that would cause this damage twice, and only choose the second time to claim!! I think it's pretty easy to confirm that the damage is consistent with what happened.
Thanks everyone again. Really appreciate your time.
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