My daughter is a young driver and has a £400 excess on her 53 plate Fiesta. Another driver came in from a junction to her left on a roundabout and pranged her car. Her innocence shouldn't be difficult to prove but you know how it can be if the other party starts making things up.
She is fully comp and is going to ring her insurance company tonight (Direct Line). I think she has no claims protection but she is checking. Anyone any idea whether the insurance company is likely to pursue the other party for the excess and others costs? I can't help but think that they don't do that anymore.
Thanks for any help.
FTF
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Roundabouts is give way to the right - so she is "in the right" as she was on the roundabout. Presumably she was hit on the LHS/front corner/rear corner which backs up her case.
DL will repair the car or alternatively she tells the DL of the event and does not want to claim (at this point)- if the 3rd party is insured then claim off the 3rd party & his/her Ins Co.
If the 3rd party has no insurance go to the police with all details, car,reg,name address etc.
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The same sort of thing happened to me. Describe the incident in your letter to the Ins. Write down anything the other party said to you. Send pics. of damage. Use Google "Satellite" to print pictures, showing her route in "overview" and detail (zoom in), and where the OP came from.
In my case the Ins. recovered all costs from the OP & my NDC was not affected.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 13/08/2009 at 18:43
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>>Knock for knock.
No such thing.
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Thanks for the helpful responses.
MD - it was terminology used by an insurance company to me when they explained that they often do not pursue the other party when blame was likely to be difficult to apportion. In such cases they simply settled their own parties claim. No claims protection comes to the rescue in part, but of course any excess is still payable.
Regards.
FTF
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K for K certainly is a real term used by a certain insurer when you unfortunately have a bump with one of their corporate clients....as i found out to my NCD cost when i was completely blameless some 30 years ago...barge pole springs to mind.
One of the reasons i'm very happy to pay a little over the odds to be with a honourable insurance company now and permanently.
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GB - sounds similar to my experience. It was a while ago and can't remember the company, might have been RAC or a company they purchased. It was a mainstream name but can't remember.
FTF
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Oh i Can remember FTF, what incensed me and left the really foul taste was their snickering suggestion that if i took the huge corporate client to court and won they would reimburse my NCD.
Young hard working Dad's of working mans means are always doing that....grrr, i was desperately sad for them when they outsourced a lot of their jobs to far off lands..;).;)
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"Roundabouts is give way to the right - so she is "in the right""
It also says and give way to vehicles already on the roundabout, this is something that many people don't appear to realise judging by the way they drive.
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I had an eejit come into me on a roundabout, he was totally at fault.
I told my insurance company that they were to wait until his insurance coughed up before carrying out repairs (car still driveable).
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Mrs had a no fault with Direct Line a few years back. The repairer wouldn't release the car until she'd paid them the excess, which DL eventually recovered from the guilty party and paid back to us. Not sure if that's usual though.
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Mrs had a no fault with Direct Line a few years back. The repairer wouldn't release the car until she'd paid them the excess which DL eventually recovered from the guilty party and paid back to us. Not sure if that's usual though.
Yep - same applied to me, I just coughed up for a quiet life. Took months to get it back though, despite non-fault. Still with DL though as otherwise happy with them (touch wood)
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Are roundabouts with traffic lights added treated differently if the markings remain the same?
eg traffic lights added before giveway lines ?
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In such cases they simply settled their own parties claim. No claims protection comes to the rescue in part but of course any excess is still payable. Regards. FTF
Your no claims may be unaffected but the base premium will rise as there has been a claim and the driver is still seen by the insurer as an increased risk irrespective of who was to blame.
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............. the base premium will rise as there has been a claim and the driver is still seen by the insurer as an increased risk irrespective of who was to blame.
I've always doubted the truth of this opinion, so I've just rung my insurer (Co-operative Insurance) and enquired about my own protected NCD policy. The spokesperson said that in the event that I made a claim the base premium would not go up at the next renewal as a matter of course. Every case is judged on its merits and in roughly 50% of cases the base premium is unaffected by the claim.
Clearly it's unfair to tar all insurers with the same brush.
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If as a result of a no-fault accident, my premium goes up, should that amount be covered as part of my claim? After all, it's a consequential loss.
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Clearly it's unfair to tar all insurers with the same brush.
I agree but then again I would hardly expect any company to say something the customer doesn't really want to hear on a hypothetical question.
I wonder how many people who have had protected no claims and had an accident have found their premium has actually gone up at renewal?
Mine went up by £400 on an outstanding claim at renewal time which I eventually got back but still not nice having to find the extra to stay legal at the time.
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I would hardly expect any company to say something the customer doesn't really want to hear on a hypothetical question.
They had no reason to say anything other than the unblemished truth. I explained that the motive for my question was purely to settle an argument with a friend. I've been insured with the Co-op since 1965 and they're aware that I certainly wasn't asking a devious question with a view to considering changing insurers.
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I wonder how many people who have had protected no claims and had an accident have found their premium has actually gone up at renewal?
I can only repeat what Co-operative Insurance said. Other companies may operate differently.
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Do you mean this?
>>would not go up at the next renewal as a matter of course.
Or did they say this?
"would as a matter of course not go up at the next renewal"
If they said the former, I am not surprised. If the latter, then you are a charmed individual.
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In any event, find out how much the loading will be and claim it from the third party. Again (like the excess) your insurance company will not bother, so much better not to involve your own ins co in the first place.
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Mapmaker, you're trying to twist my customary attention to getting the correct wording. What they said was that my base premium wouldn't automatically go up if I made a claim. They consider every case on it's merits. In roughly 50% of cases the base premium is unaffected.
Edited by L'escargot on 14/08/2009 at 14:43
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My own belief (and I admit I don't have any evidence) was that 'No Claims Protection' was brought in to deal with the main issue that customers were losing their no claims bonus despite arguing 'no fault', because insurance companies were finding it too to get involved in the sometimes petty lies and arguments that emerge from relatively minor accidents.
FTF
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My own belief (and I admit I don't have any evidence) was that 'No Claims Protection' was brought in to ...........
Ring up your insurer and get it straight from the horse's mouth, and then you can stop surmising.
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Ring up your insurer and get it straight from the horse's mouth, and then you can stop surmising. >>
and make sure that as a minimum:
1. You get the person on the phone to confirm that they have got the authority to say what they are saying,
2. You tape the conversations and tell them that you are doing so,
3. Request them to send you a written confirmation of what they said, for the avoidance of any possible doubt or misunderstanding.
After that assume that they may still renege on what they said by saying that it did not form the basis of any contract you had/have with them unless it was/is written in to your Policy.
They consider every case on it's merits. In roughly 50% of cases the base premium is unaffected. >>
I am pleased that L'escargot has faith in these statements, which he has no way of proving or disproving unless the Company provide all their stats to him.
Edited by jbif on 14/08/2009 at 16:17
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I am pleased that L'escargot has faith in these statements ..........
:-D
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As expected the other party is denying it was their fault and is saying (in a text message to my daughter) that their insurance company is likely to go 50/50. My daughter is not intending to reply, however can anyone advise best course of action if as we suspected the insurance companies do take that position.
[Incidentally to update any new readers, the other driver hit the front left wing and then scraped down the nearside door and rear wing of my daughters car on a roundabout. Surely that is enough in itself isn't it.]
Any advice appreciated.
FTF
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Knock for Knock agreements no longer exist. They originated many years ago in a less competitive market and were inter-company agreements whereby participating companies agreed so settle property damage claims under their own policies without pursuing the the other parties Insurers regardless of the circumstances of the accident. These agreements, which did not affect policy holders, died out in the mid nineties with the advent of companies like Direct Line.
Nowadays rather than arguing each claim individually most Insurers now use a formula approach to settling claims where different insurers agree about the apportioning of blame under a series of standard accident conditions. From the circumstances describe I would guess that given the circumstances of the accident Insurers would apportion the blame 100% to the third party (as long as both parties agree that the circumstances were as described)
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[Incidentally to update any new readers the other driver hit the front left wing and then scraped down the nearside door and rear wing of my daughters car on a roundabout. Surely that is enough in itself isn't it.]
Accident damage is often the result of errors of judgement on the part of both drivers.
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Thanks for the replies.
In the case of the formula approach, if say it goes 25/75 in favour of my daughter, how do they deal with loss of no claims, excess, increase premium etc?
Regards.
FTF
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if say it goes 25/75 in favour of my daughter
I'm afraid she would lose her NCB unless protected and she will be liable for the excess..
Increase of premium unlikely unless this not own accident.
If she feels third party is actually 100% to blame and is able to recover her excess in full from the third party her Insurer will reinstate NCB if presented with proof of the recovery
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