Car Accident Need Advice

[rebeccalongson]

I have Fully Comprensive Insurance on my Car. I had to take my car for a service, therefore I needed to borrow my friends car, which was insured by him which meant I was covered by my insuance to drive this car.

I was on my way back from work driving my friends car. I was approaching a junction and the car infront had to stop causing me to stop. When it was her time to go she edged off and I edged off as the road was clear, when suddenly she slammed her brakes on, therefore so did i but it caused me to clip the back of her car causing a minor dent on her tailgate. Fair enough I ran into the back of her, but she was fine, we both exchanged details and agreed to sort it out later and carried on the day as normal.

When I got home i informed my insurance and they noted it down.

I spoke to the ladies husband later on that week and he said that he needed a new tailgate at the cost of £900 and he took my insurance details to sort it out that way. Fair enough.

Two months later, this was yesterday, I received a phone call from my insurance company (RAC), stating that the other people are claiming that there car is a write off, due to a high speed impact to the left hand side of the vehicle caused by me, cause i was speeding and they said that the car had to be towed away from the scene. This is a complete lie, i was totally gobsmacked!!!

I was driving no faster than ten mph and only clipped her tailgate causing a small dent to the boot lid. And the car didnt have to be towed away, she drove it away fine, no problems.

Where do I stand in this situation, I need to fight my corner as they are telling complete lies.

[craigwalton]

I take it you have already filled out a claim form???

The Insurance Company should send out an investigator to look at the other parties vehicle, take statements from the other person, investigate the crash locus, etc.

I would tell your claims department she is exagerating the claim, and strongly suggest they send someone out.

You haven't mentioned the car you hit - if the car is worth no more than approx £1500 then they would class it as a write off though.....

[mikey]

Has your own vehicle been repaired, if not send in photographs of the damage to your vehicle or the estimate to your insurance company. If you have minor damage then its unlikely to cause heavy damage to the TP vehicle. Also, the £900 does seem a bit steep for a small prang, a new bumper possibly about £300-£450 depending on vehicle but labour cost etc would be fairly small. Is this person also claiming for whiplash do you know?

[Bookworm]

Easy to prove they lied: Get them to show proof of the tow.

Message for everyone who drives: ALWAYS have a disposable camera in your glove compartment. (if your mobile phone doesn't have integrated camera, so many do these days).

[Teddybear]

Evening

First of all this sounds like a typical low velocity impact case. Secondly it sounds like a fraudulent claim. Stress to your insurers that they need to defend this action, however they may like to take the view that it would not be economical to fight it. These people need engineering evidence to claim for anything so unless they can pick holes in this evidence they are stuck. They can get their own engineers out and get their own approved repairers to deal directly with the Claimants if need be.

Personally I would take photographs of the accident location, do a sketch plan to accompany it together with a statement of exactly what happened, without feeling just factual and send it to RAC with a covering letter citing that it was clearly a low velocity impact and you believe that the claimant's are making a fraudulent claim. Ask if they have been provided with a copy of the claimant's engineering evidence and suggest they obtain the claimant's GP notes to see if there are any entries around that date of them having been in a road traffic accident. If it was that high speed they would be claiming for personal injury as well.

Might be useful to get RAC to compare your repair details with their repair estimate, if the areas of damage and degree of damage don't tally up then RAC have a stronger chance.

All the best

Teddybear xx

[bbperk]

I dont know how old this thread is as I have just registered but I thought I would do a bit of searching as I am also looking for some advice. My wife also hit the car in front about 2 weeks ago. She got out of the car as did the 3rd party and as there was no damage both exchanged details and both decided to leave. My wife had 2nd thoughts so she decided to take photos of the cars as we had a deposable camera in the glove box. Suddenly the third party got back into their car and miractulously got whiplash. Police were called as were paramedics and fire dept. They decided to take off 3rd party roof off to avaid 3rd further damage to neck until my wife said 3rd party had been out of car and actually taken a drink of water my wife offered. They then simply got her into the amblance and that was the last we heard until yesterday (Tuesday 8th 2007) a letter from 3rd party solicitors confirming claim for whiplash and they will be seeking medical advise. This is now ongoing so I am doing my best to photograph 3rd party going about daily routines with no problems. So it would be wise to not only photograph the incident but also everything around the scene including anyone in the location. I dont know how far insurance companies go to prove fraud but I think there is too much of this going on which is effecting not only our no claims but also our premiums.