Hello everyone! This looks like an informitive site so I think you could offer me some sound advice, hopefully!

The Scenario;

Back in November 08 I reversed into a neighbours car whilst manoevering out of roadside space. Being the person I am I waited for my neighbour to view what had happened, whilst I acknowledged I was at fault I explained that I would rather pay for the damage directly as I was driving a company vehicle & felt that my job was at risk as I'd only recently been involved in another motor accident (no other party was involved), my neighbour was quite happy with this & I asked him to provide me with some quotes for the cost of repair. These seemed to take him a while to compile & whilst he informed me that the costs were in excess of £1000 he did not actually supply me with the quotes. I asked if someone I knew in the motor trade could look & he agreed. My motor trade friend told me that the work could be carried out for around £700 & the neighbour seemed ok about this. A week later I called him to get the exact date of registration for his car to ensure the correct parts could be ordered & he informed me he was going through his insurance company & thereafter flatly refused to answer my calls.

His insurance company, Norwich Union wrote to me asking for my insurance company details, I explained that I wanted to pay directly to avoid my company knowing about the accident to which they happily agreed. They sent me a bill showing all the costs involved, unfortunately the bill was in excess of £1100 but I felt I had no choice.

In December my company made me redundant anyway! However I then recieved a letter from a firm of solicitors demanding that I pay my neighbours insurance policy excess of a further £420 as his car had been declared a write off which the paperwork had originally shown.

The latest letter states they are starting legal proceedings & I need to inform my insurance company? I no longer drive the car involved in the accident, I am no longer employed by my old company & therefore I have no insurance company. My argument is that his policy excess could have been loer had he negotiated with his insurer, why should I have to pay his excess as well as the original claim? I now have no job, a tiny job seekers allowance & certainly no money to pay this demand. I have spoken to his solicitors who are not interested in talking to me other than to suggest I get "legal advice". Where do I stand? Surely the point of an excess is clear? If you can claim policy excesses back all the time why do they actually exist?

I would be incredibly grateful for some advice about this, ideally before the legal proceedings involve a court appearance, what is the worst that could happen? Am I better off paying this?

Kind regards,

DB

This is a perfect, if tragic, example of why I keep pleading to people NOT to settle privately. Firstly, you were legally obliged to notify your insurer of the incident even if you did not intend to claim yourself. However, you have not.

Is this your company's insurance? You could have agreed to pay them the cost back. I don't know of the legal issues re. sacking you for having to many accidents, maybe someone else can inform on that bit.

If you had notified your insurer, they would have dealt with all of this for you. That is what you pay them for. I know of no other service that people pay for but seem so bloody reluctant to refuse to use when needed.

They are asking you to pay the excess as you are responsible for the third party's losses, which includes uninsured losses (the excess). Again, your insurer would have sorted this out.

The best thing you can do now is inform your insurer and hope that they do not refuse to handle it due to your actions. They should accept the third party's reasonable costs.

I'm sorry if what I have said sounds harsh, but you have done everything that you should not do, and you are potentially left with paying nearly £2000 for the sake, possibly, of a hundred or so quid increase in your premiums.

This should be made a sticky as a warning.

I have to agree with you Gyzmo, 100%

27 years in insurance - until last week when made redundant - Hey Ho!

I understand what you are saying however my job was important to me & my family. The fact I chose notto go through the insurance was agreed by both parties. Why has his insurance company not asked me for the excess? He was insured through Norwich Union so why have they not tried to recoup the excess? Was he trying to gain extra money? I noted that his correspondence address is in Northamptonshire yet he appears to reside in Surrey where the accident took place?! Are Norwich Union avoiding the attempt to extract the excess due to a questionable claim?

In answer to one of the statements, I cannot inform "my" insurance company as I no longer am insured by them, it was a company vehicle & a company policy & I havw not worked for them since Jan 19th.

Please, I genuinely invite your thoughts & comments,

Kind regards,

DB

Were you insured at the time of the accident? That is the relevant time period. It does not matter if you are not insured now.

The solicitors are claiming uninsured losses on behalf of the insurer, that is quite normal. If there was anything suspicious about the claim NU would investigate.

As for agreeing to settle privately, like I said, it is a legal responsibility to notify your insurer. Agreeing not to do something that you should do is not a justifiable excuse.

Find out who your insurer was at the time of the incident and notify them. You are digging a deeper hole for yourself otherwise.

Damnedboy,

AIUI you were insured driving a company vehicle and you chose not to inform your employers or their insurers. You have created a bit of a pickle for yourself.

You now have nothing to lose and little option other than to make a late report to your employers. You might get away with saying that because you felt under threat for your job you mistakenly attempted to deal with the matter yourself.

I would push this to the wire and if I got no satisfaction would issue a MCOL claim against my former employers and their insurers for the full amount paid out.