In February this year I was driving my girlfriends car when a woman pulled out from a parking space, point blank in front of my car. I braked sharply and there was a minimal collision resulting in some damaged paintwork. My girlfriend who waqs present at the time on the accident told the woman, who was crying and repeatedly apologising not to worry bout it as we were scrapping the car anyway. 3 weeks later received a letter from our insurance company saying this womans husband had lodged a claim against us. After consulting a solicitor provided by my insurance comany (tesco's) he told us we would be very unlikely to get anything better than a 50/50 settlement between the two companies. After a lot of complaining etc eventually my girlfriend and I begrudgingly accepted this. Next we received a letter from our solicitor saying the 3rd parties insurers had offered a 70/30 settlement in their favour. I immediately said no way. 2 weeks later I received another letter saying the 3rd parties insurers final offer was a 60/40 in their favour. I told the solicitor I wasnt prepared to accept this and to initiate court proceedings. Howevertodayt I heard my insurance company won't fund court proceedings andf have told me to either accept the 60/40 or take them to court myself.I wont accept this as 1- I wasn't at fault and 2- they have no more evidence in their favour than me. Why is my insurance company not sticking up for me in this instance? what rights do I have? Also what will happen if I do go to court- if I were to win a 50/50 settlement would someoneelse have to pay the court fee's etc? How do i take these people to court? I'm just so angry that my girlfriend and I who are 22 and 25 have lost the no claims we worked so hard to get and are consequentially paying a much higher premium already. Woould do anything to get them back! Hope someone can help me, sorry for the bad grammar, wrote this very quickly.

Hi,

First of all I'm surprized that the insurers are dealing with the husband as he was not driving. Unless it was his car and his insurance which you havn't stated.

The main issue here is were there any indipendant witnesses?

Yes it is his car and his insurance policy. No there were no independant witnesses. one man saw it but i contacted him and he told me he wasn't paying attention and only noticed when the cars colided.

Ok, it looks like you want to dispute this. I take it you filled in your claim stating that the third party pulled away in front of you which puts them at fault? So the claim they are making is in fact 'economical' with the truth!

The problem you have is convincing a judge that your version is the correct one. I assume you have had an estimate done which will detail the area of damage to your car. Also, the third party will have a similar report done on the damage to his car. It will be for the judge to decide from this evidence which car was where and who it who ect. Can you see where i'm comming from?

In the absence of any witnesses this may be difficult for you. You mention about a man was present who 'wasn't paying attention'. Did he hear any of the subsiquent conversations where the woman was 'crying and repeatedly saying sorry'? If he did, this could help your case enormously.

Before I offer you my opinion, can you post the details of your un-insured losses in this and what the third party is claiming from you?

Have the insurers taken witness evidence from you and your girlfriend and then served this on the Claimant? You have two witnesses, albeit not independent, but from what you are saying, there is only one witness for the Claimant - the driver.

I would get your girlfriend or whomever is the policyholder to call up the insurers, highlight that you have two witnesses, both of which will state that the Claimant reversed out when it was unsafe to do so and as such, you have a strong case and you would therefore be grateful if they could pass it to their panel solicitors to defend the matter in full and not to take an economic settlement of the matter.

Have the insurers taken witness evidence from you and your girlfriend and then served this on the Claimant? You have two witnesses, albeit not independent, but from what you are saying, there is only one witness for the Claimant - the driver.

 

I would get your girlfriend or whomever is the policyholder to call up the insurers, highlight that you have two witnesses, both of which will state that the Claimant reversed out when it was unsafe to do so and as such, you have a strong case and you would therefore be grateful if they could pass it to their panel solicitors to defend the matter in full and not to take an economic settlement of the matter.

Witnesses travelling with (or known to either party involved) WILL NOT be counted as independent and regardless of what they have to say their statements will carry no weight whatsoever.

The OP does NOT have a strong case if this proceeds to Court, hence why his insurers are prepared to settle.

It is not about liability, it is not about who's telling the truth, this case will come down to what is believed and if both parties maintain their version of events then without INDEPENDENT evidence or physical evidence it will be a split liability.

Mossy

Inform your insurers that you completely dispute liability, and state that you are prepared to go to court and testify about this. State that you believe that the TP's husband has put in a fraudulent claim based on his belief that there was no independent witness to dispute his claim. State that you believe that if the TP was taken to court and forced to testify under oath then she would tell the truth about what happened.

The TP was obviously remorseful about what had happened, and it seems like her husband is trying to pull a fast one. But she is the witness here, not him. He would have to ask her to lie for him under oath.

I believe that if you put pressure on them in that way then they will concede liability. Otherwise the husband is looking at being charged with fraud and the wife charged for perjury.

I don't have any uninsured losses that i'm aware of. At the time of the accident my girlfriend was happy that there was minimal damage to her car we were going to scrap anyway. the 3rd party has claimed for the damage to their car, which I as a paint sprayer and car body repairer believed to be minimal. I then subsequently put in a claim for the damage to our car. The 3rd party initially offered a 670-30 split in their favour and are now offering a 60-40 split in their favour. If I do take them to court how much will it cost? I just want a 50-50 split as I have had enough of trying to fight this and realise i probably cant prove im completely innocent. Half tempted to file a challenge to insurance law as it is such absolute nonsense that you are guilty until proven innocent. Its madness, whats to stop me driving my car into a wall, smashing the front up of the 3rd parties car, calling my insurance company to tell them about a fictional crash and claiming whiplash etc. would their insurance company tell them there's nothing they could do about it and settle50-50??

Your uninsured losses includes your excess which you may have to pay part of unless you are deemend 100% not at fault. It seems to me that the TP is 'moving the goal posts' as and when he chooses by changing the spilt. You are either totally at fault, equally at fault or not at fault. Which equates to; 100% liable, 50% liable or -100% liable. How can there be any other equation?

Advise your insurers yo are prepared to go with 50/50 split or let the TP take YOU to court. He will have just as a hard case of proving his claim as you would.

see below

It seems to me that the TP is 'moving the goal posts' as and when he chooses by changing the spilt. You are either totally at fault, equally at fault or not at fault. Which equates to; 100% liable, 50% liable or -100% liable. How can there be any other equation?

Sailor Sam, there is quite a lot of caselaw out there in which claims are settled on different splits, 60/40, 70/30, I have even seen 80/20's.

The OP is happy to accept a 50/50 split, it seems to me the TPI are pushing as they have the outlay to recover, whereas the Claimant has no losses, so they may as well go for as much as they can, in reality I agree that 50/50 is the best possible outcome, and cant see that any insurer would issue based on that, unless they have more evidence, I suggest your insurer confirm this.

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Can I ask the reason you will not accept 60/40. t is the insurer that would pay out the money and you will lose you no claims bonus regardless.

It seems like a lot of hasstle to you when you wont really be gaining anything.

Can I ask the reason you will not accept 60/40. t is the insurer that would pay out the money and you will lose you no claims bonus regardless.

 

It seems like a lot of hasstle to you when you wont really be gaining anything.

Answer is quite obvious I would of thought; the OP states he was not at fault so he considers the whole situation unfair. IF he is totally blameless, why should he loose his no claims bonus?

In order to not lose his No Claims Discount he would have to dispute all liability. If you accept even 1% liability then your insurer has to pay out on your behalf and you have made a prejudicial / fault claim.

50/50, 60/40, 70/30 makes no difference to you as a policyholder from this point of view. It makes a difference to how much your insurer has to pay.

However it will affect how much money you get if you are not comprehensively insured.