Car insurance help (who to claim off?)

[haddock_n_chips]

Ok,

i was involved in a 3 car shunt back in may 2006,

i was sat in a line of traffic (lots of cars in front of me) waiting to go around a round-a-bout,

a lady in a car pulls up behing me, i think nothing of it as i am in neutral with hand brake on, then BANG! Crikey i think what the hell was that?!

I jump out of the car and see that the womans car has been shunted from behind and subsequently she shunted my car.

The guy at the back who started the accident jumps out and starts saying 'sorry, sorry, it was all my fault i wasnt looking etc...'

so we decide to pull our cars off the road in order to allow traffic to pass, however at this point the guy at the back who started the accident decides he doesn't want to stick around and drives off!
i immediately call the police, and luckily the woman behind me got his registration number.

So i got details of the woman whose car hit mine and the police told me that would be all i need as i could claim off her.

I go away (car still driveable but badly damaged) and send all the stuff off to the insurance company.

I get a phonecall from them saying that i cannot claim off the woman behind me as 'she did not cause the accident' and therefore it was pointless trying to claim off her insurance as they simply would not pay up.

They then give me a solicitor, who is quite frankly useless and he ends up leaving the company and not telling anyone about my claim, it is only through me ringing the company and sending a snotty e-mail that they finally get in touch with me (a gap of nearly 2 months without contact)
they tell me the same thing as the insurance company, that i cannot claim off this woman, and i will have to try and trace the guy at the back. as i said before luckily the woman got his reg number so ithought all would be fine, however after finally getting hold of his details the solicitor told me he was denying involvement in the accident.
This meant that we would have to go back to the woman who hit my car to get a witness form filled in confirming his details. Now i managed to get hold of her myself (the solicitors claim they can never get hold of her) and she said that she had filled in a witness form sent to her by my solicitor weeks ago, yet my solicitor is claiming to have never recieved this form.

Also the woman is not in the country at the moment (she is australian nationality) and she was driving a hire car at the time so she really isn't that fussed about all this,

now i have asked around a few places and a lot of people are saying i shouldn't have to go through all this as i should soley be claiming off her insurance and they then subsequently claim off his insurance for her damage plus what they had to pay out for my claim. Some others agree with my solicitor and insurance company,

please can anyone help me?!! i have been waiting 8months now and the car is un-useable and slowly rotting away on my drive way

so if anyone has any idea what to do or experience in these matters please can they help!!!!!!

muchos thanks in advance to any help

WiLL.................

p.s. sorry for the long post!

[mooreda]

Who are you insured with and are you insured on a fully comprehensive basis?

[Sidewinder]

This really should be fought by your insurance company and you should not be having to chase around - it is what you pay your premiums for! Providing that you have full details of the lady behind you (your insurance company should be contacting her at her Australian address (which the car hire company should have as they should have a copy of her driving license details) and the details of the car behind her which caused the accident. Insurance convention says that your claim is with the car which hit you irrespective of why she hit you therefore the claim is against the insurer of the car which caused the damage to yours. The hire car insurers will then have to claim for the damage to their car AND the consequential damage to yours - if they can't trace the driver that caused the accident it becomes an ininsured loss to them and not you or is their responsibility to take the matter up with the Police.

Do not take no for an answer and insist that your insurers pursue the claim. Put this in writing and they are still not forthcoming ask for details of their complaints procedure and notify them that you intend to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman (here).

Good luck!

[Magicgav]

Get your insurers to send enquiry agents out to the address of the alleged third party driver.

A DVLA search and MIDIS check should reveal the address of the legal registered keeper and whether a policy of insurance was in force to cover the vehicle in question

Failing a successful outcome, get your solicitor to reguister your claim with the Morot Insurers Buruea - they have a scheme to set up to compensate victims of unteraced drivers

[haddock_n_chips]

Hi,

ok im insured with ecarinsurance and i am third party fire and theft,

the solicitor has done a dvla search on the reg of the guy at the back, and he WAS insured at the time but he just denies involvement therefore it is my word against his at the moment, that what my solicitor is saying therefore he wants the woman who hit my car to fill in this "witness" form to confirm it was definately him.

i am just confused as to why i have to claim directly off him and not the woman who hit my car

[Rob S]

My wife had a similar situation 3 years ago. A car ran into the back of one car and this car then ran into the back of her car. The driver of the car who caused the accident did a runner and was never traced. Direct Line insured her at the time and they tried the "We can't claim off the car who hit you as it wasn't their fault". Her renewal was due, and of course as the claim wasn't settled they reduced her no claims bonus. We wrote to Direct Line and pointed out that had the driver of the car behind her been keeping a safe distance from her, then her car would not have been involved in the accident. We initiated the company complaints procedure and also advised Direct Line that if they didn't play ball we would take the matter to the insurance ombudsman. They agreed to restore her no claims, but they wouldn't refund her £100 excess.

A few months later, Direct Line announced that if their policy holders were hit by uninsured drivers that they would not lose their no claims or have to pay their excess. We wrote to them, pointed out their new campaign and in view of this, would they be rpepared to reconsider their refusal to repay the excess. A few days later, a cheque for £100 arrived in the post!

With regards to the car at the back, has any contact been made with his insurer? The policy holder is required to report any accidents to them even if they don't claim, but your insurer should be intitiating a claim off of his insurers. Even if the driver has not notified them of the incident, a claim can still be made.

You need to put pressure on Ecar. Have you made a formal complaint to them about their action in this matter? You will need to do this before the ombudsman will consider a complaint.

[Sidewinder]

Just to follow up on my original post, precisely this subject came up at work today. The final car in the chain is completely irrelevant to your claim and is only a problem for the insurers of the hire car. They cannot deny damage to front and rear of their car - this would have been confirmed by the Australian lady driving as she would have reported the circumstances of the incident to them, and it would be witnessed by damage to the front and rear of their car. Your claim is solely against the car which hit you, irrespective of the cause.

Insurance companies will often try to wriggle out of the claim, and I cannot understand why your own insurer is so willing to wash their hands of the matter and have given you (on the face of it) completely bad advice.

[Jimbo44]

Hi Hadock_n_Chips

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare to me! I'm not too surprised they're trying to wriggle out of this though, most insurance companies will try almost anything if they think they might get away with it and not have to pay out.

However, try approaching the mess you're in with this logic: Irrespective of the person ultimately responsible for the damage to your car, the damage was caused by the lady in the car behind you. There's no if's, no but's about this! Her car was responsible for the damage to your car and it's her insurers your insurance company should be chasing for your uninsured losses. You say you're insured Third Party, Fire and Theft so someone other than your insurer will have to pay for the repairs to your car.

Let your insurance company worry about who they might be able to claim off, it's not your job to sort out their problems for them. Give them all the information you've got and let them sort it out.

The insurers of the car that was responsible for hitting the lady's car into yours should ultimately be picking up the whole tab but this is for the companies to sort out for themselves. In practical terms I don't think you can claim off the insurers of the car that was responsible for the whole affair as that car did not come into any contact with yours.

As far as I know most insurance companies still operate the "Knock for knock" agreements whereby they each settle their own claims.

[mooreda]

My wife who works for Churchill says legally, you stand as follows:-

Because the vehicle behind was not responsible, you can definately not claim off her insurance (of the hire company's insurance company).

As you chose only TPFT cover, it's not down to your insurance company to deal with. This is why they have only appointed your Legal representation - who I understand from your thread you are not happy with for the lack of proactiveness.

Both you and the women behind are witnesses so there should be no problem with getting the insurance company of the offending vehicle to pay for the damage. You need to be getting onto your Legal Team to join forces with the women behinds insurer, against the responsible party to make them pay up. If two independent witness statements are passed to this insurer, they will have no alternative but to deal despite their policyholder denying liability.

At the end of the day, you are not at fault because you were at the front. If you don't feel you are getting anywhere, you could speak to the MIB - Motor Insurers Bureau about them helping you against the responsible party. They're based in Milton Keynes, telephone number available on website.

[haddock_n_chips]

cheers everyone

i think what mooreda says is basically what is going to happen, unfortunately getting the witness form off the woman who hit my car is proving to be the stumbling block, she says she has sent it to my solicitor, he says h e has not recieved it.

she is now out of the country and rarely answering her phone so the solicitor cannot get hold of her,

round and round we go! eventually one day hopefully in the not too distant future i will get some sort of resolution to this!

in the mean time thank you all for your advice, i think that if i had been fully comp then there would be no problems at all, however with tpft the insurance company dont seem to care about you.....

definately going fully comp on my renewal!

Will.....

[bmw323i]

I had an accident almost identical to this years ago. Things might have changed since then. I remember a transit van behind me, which was hit from behind by a boy racer, causing the van to shunt my car. I claimed off the transit vans insurance, and his insurance claimed what was paid to me and the vans damage off the boy racers insurance.

Maybe your insurers are linked to the hire cars insurance in some way.



Emz

[watercooled]

mooreda vbmenu_register("postmenu _502741", true); is right, I work for an insurance, However I think it is terrible your solicitor is not doing much. To be honest this is the problem with people going fr the cheaper insurance companies, the service is really poor. The insurance company is more expensive then most but we work on the idea of paying out on claims ASAP then seeking recovery. If the insurance company does not pay out within the correct time, we take them straight to court.