Hi all

Wondered if anyone could help or offer some advice as I am in quite a stressful situation at the moment and this forum has been very helpful in the past.

I was recently involved in an accident on the 5th April 2017, I am technically at fault as I went into the rear of someone at around 15-20mph, put Pedestrians went to cross a zebra crossing and the car on approach slammed his brakes early in realization of this and that forced the car in front of me to slam his and I was unable to break in time leading me to go into the back of this vehicle.

Aside from me asking if we can handle the incident privately he still decided to claim through insurance after agreeing with my verbally to handle it privately.

My insurance (Insure Your Motor) has an excess of 3k,

they will not ask me for whatever the estimation is below that and ask me to pay as I am at fault most likely...

I am worried as I simply cannot afford any of these payments in my current situation and just wanted to find out what the following steps were.

Do they get debt collectors to try and retrieve this...

Is there any way feasibly right that I can somehow not have to pay such a ridiculous excess or is there any way I'd be able to get my way out of the debt collectors at a later stage?

I had no other choice but to go with these insurers with 3k Compulsory excess as every other price at the time was above the £300 figure a month and this one was £247 monthly.

Any help or advice would be appreciated

Apologies for the essay

Kind Regards

So this excess applies to all claims, even liability to third parties ?

If this is true, i am surprised it complies with requirements under Road Traffic Acts. Perhaps the Insurers pay out to the third party the amount due and they come after you for up to £3k. It would be same as any other debt. Debt collection letters requesting payment and then eventually they would go for a CCJ, which they would seek to enforce.

The other issue is that if you did not enter into a repayment arrangement with the Insurers, is that they would most likely cancel your policy. This would make getting future Insurance difficult and much more expensive. Probably best to seek full information of the loss the Insurers want you to pay and seek to enter into a repayment arrangement over a necessary period, which might be several years.

just remember debt collectors ARE NOT BAILIFFS

and have

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS

whatever the debt is

dx

Yea all liability including third party damages which they will come after for in the coming weeks, Dependant on what the estimated damage comes in at from the third party which after assessing it myself and asking around should come in at 1000-1500.

So they will ask me for this amount and said I can retain my no claims if i pay it off.

Would there be no way out of the debt collectors as I'm sure extra fees would be added which would go against regulations etc would it not? Allowing me to somehow argue my way out ?

I simply cannot afford that amount right now

Thanks for the reply I really do appreciate it by the way

Kind Regards

just remember debt collectors ARE NOT BAILIFFS

and have

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS

whatever the debt is

 

 

dx

So you reckon I'd be able to fight myself out of it as I have experience of getting out of debt collectors before ?

Regards

you simply ignore them

I think you misunderstand what will happen. It will be a claim against your policy, affecting your no claims discount.

Your Insurers will pay the third party and it will be a debt your Insurers chase you for.

You could of course ignore them, but the consequences might make it worse.

Cancelled Insurance on your record and a CCJ.

What you don't know yet is whether the third party intends on making a personal injury claim.

So you can't really just opt to pay the third party and ask your Insurers to stop being involved.

This could be a £10k claim with personal injury included.

After speaking to my claims handler it is only a claim for car hire & damage to his vehicle

What do you think my next step should be?

Speak to the claims handler about your concerns. I don't think they will remove your claim in regard to no claims discount, if you managed to settle the third parties claim direct with them.

The third party has 3 years to register a personal injury claim, so there is still a risk, even if currently the third party has not indicated an injury.

Personally, i think you let the Insurers settle the claim and agree a repayment over a period of time, provided no interest or charges added.

Ok, I appreciate the advice

Just wanted to know if it did reach debt collection point if they'd be a way I could get out of it as I have done in the past

Regards

I was recently involved in an accident on the 5th April 2017, I am technically at fault as I went into the rear of someone at around 15-20mph, put Pedestrians went to cross a zebra crossing and the car on approach slammed his brakes early in realization of this and that forced the car in front of me to slam his and I was unable to break in time leading me to go into the back of this vehicle.

So, perhaps the front car MIGHT have been able to get across the zebra safely (& legally).

Even so, the car in front of you would almost certainly have had to stop (but may have braked later than they actually did).

You'd still have had to brake (so perhaps with one car length's space extra available, but you may have seen the braking later ......)

So, if you hit them at 15-20, do you think you would have avoided the collision if the front car hadn't had braked, and how is you hitting the car in front only "technically" your fault?

Are you saying that you had left adequate space to allow for your reaction time and braking time?

If not : how is this not your fault?

If so : how come you still hit them?

Technically as I rear ended someone and that usually goes down as a fault but In my opinion people are never driving at entirely safe distances they should be driving at because that's just not how most function anymore, Everyone's rushing etc, But yes, End of the day its my fault as I SHOULD have retained a safe distance.

I'm just looking for solutions or the best possible way to get through this situation as my financial situation right now does not permit me to pay anything back in the slightest...

Regards

If your Insurer is XS Direct, they explain how they collect the excess and how they approach the matter if you cannot afford to pay the excess.

Your broker / agent is duty bound to make very clear any significant exclusions / excesses etc to you before you purchase cover, I have seen a few cases where the XS Direct £3000 excess was not made clear that it applies to third party claims. If this is genuinely the case with you then we may be able to help you with a complaint against your broker / agent

Yes it is XS Direct & that is genuinely the case, I had no idea it applied to third party claims as well, I simply thought if I wanted to claim for my own vehicle it applied which makes more sense to me...

What should be my next steps ?

Appreciate the reply as well

Thank you

How did you buy the cover, was it online via a comparison site or did you ring them?

Yes It was online via a comparison site (Compare The Market) & it was followed by a call from them to ask me some details.

What do you think?

Do you still have access to the quote and if so does it make it clear that the excess applies to third party claims.

Does the paper work they sent you make it clear the excess applies to third party claims

Did they point out to you on the phone that the £3k excess applies to third party claims

Unfortunately I do not still have access to it via the quote on the comparison site

And the paperwork states £3000 all sections excess for all drivers, But that's not clarifying at all for a new driver who pretty much needs to see "applies to third party claims"

I do not recall the phone conversation at all either I'm afraid

There are posters on here that will be better at advising you on whether or not the policy was miss sold to you or not.

It may help them if you could post up the relevant paperwork you have eg the "Summary of Cover" / "Key Facts" and any other paper work you have that refers to the excess

Jayden

Dacouc highlights what your next step is, which is to get hold of information, which might help to prove miss selling.

You can get the information from the comparison site about the quote you had via them. Just contact their customer services.

In regard to your Insurers, suggest you send them a subject access request for copies of everything. If you spoke to them, you can also ask them for a copy of the recording of the call, if they still have it. In the request make sure you specifically list what you want to see, otherwise they will just print off their computer data.

Just to make it clear to you, if you have been miss sold the policy and you complain to the Ombudsman, if the Ombudsman (FOS) agree then they will force the broker / agent to put you in the same financial position you would have been if you had not been if the policy had not been miss sold.

This is likely to mean that the £3000 excess applying to claims against you from third parties would not be applied.

It is therefore worth you looking into the matter.

I have seen a lot of people on various forums in a similar position to you, a decision by the Ombudsman on this matter could be very helpful to so many people.

I am of the opinion that this type of policy should not be sold via a comparison site where people in effect are only concerned at purchasing the cheapest policy of which one with a £3k excess for third party claims is frequently going to be the cheapest. It is incredibly important that such sales make it very very clear to a consumer what their excess is and in what circumstances they will pay it

Agree. But Jayden do not rush into making the FOS complaint. Obtain all of the information first and if you find that you were never told explicitly that the excess applied to third party claims, then make the FOS complaint.

The FOS have changed their processes over the last year or so, in order to speed up the complaint process. If you rush into a complaint without the evidence needed to support your complaint, you are likely to be fobbed off quickly. They won't spend months looking into something, based on you just being unhappy, when you don't have much to justify the complaint.

Agreed, the OP needs to get his ducks in a row first.

But I struggle to see how this policy was "missold." It's become a bit of a buzzword when really the OP took a gamble on a cheap policy which didn't end well for him.

More of a poor choice and buyers remorse by the OP than any miselling from what I've read so far.

First off I'd honestly like to thank everyone for the time taken to give me this information and these replies, It is very much appreciated.

I will attach any documents I received when I took the quote out that mention excess to see what you guys think and meanwhile I will try and get hold of the telephone call as well at the time in addition to the actual quote I received via the comparison site.

Here's a link for every PDF I could find on the matter of excess that they emailed me after I took the quote out:

http://imgur.com/a/3Wju9

Please let me know your thoughts as when I looked at it, It's not made clear to new drivers that they'd have to pay third party claims as they'd assume this is covered from the huge monthly fee's they already pay but it would make sense you'd have to pay for claims on your own vehicle...

I think your only chance is to make an argument under unfair trading law and to get specific advice. When you buy Insurance online, you can normally go to the Insurers site to read the policy wording. Failing that, you have a 14 day cooling off period after receiving the documents to study the terms and to reject the policy. This is what the policy says on page 5.

All Sections Excess –

no alteration to protection provided

Under the Road Traffic Act, a person may not use a car in a public place unless there is an approved Policy of insurance in force. The Underwriters may however insert conditions in the Policy which limit or restrict the liability of the Underwriters to the Policyholder. However, there is no reduction in the protection provided by the Underwriters to the Policyholder in relation to their liability against claims from third parties as a result of the use of the car. The excess is valid between the Underwriters and the Policyholder as long as this does not affect any person entitled to recover damages in accordance with the Road Traf c Act. Therefore, in the event of a third party claim, the Underwriters will remain liable but the Underwriters are entitled to recover up to the excess amount from the Policyholder.

The argument under unfair trading law might well be that the Insurers are by contract entering you into a future possible credit debt obligation, just by having an accident with a third party. Neither the Insurers or the comparison site provided any clear explicit upfront warning of this and you believe it to be unfair. The reason that it is unfair is that most people buying Insurance would believe they had full excess free cover against third party claims and if this Insurance was totally different there should be a clearer upfront warning.

So you think there is no point in attempting an FOS complaint ?

Its a lot to take in, How would I go about arguing this case ?

I spoke with my claims handler earlier just to receive an update on what was happening and was told they had not received a bill yet but have been told that a hire car was taken out for around 3 weeks which is just absurd so they told me to expect a pretty big bill and that's before the third party damages bill comes in...

Obviously I am panicking as I don't want to be taken to court over this when none of this was made clear to a new driver at the start