Please bear with me first accident in well over 10 years.

Coming out of a junction last night saw a moped with no lights at last moment, so stopped.

The moped skidded and fell over.

The rider stated if it hadn't been raining he would have stopped okay.

He said he was okay, but we exchanged telephone numbers and parted ways, and he said he would call as it only looked superficial.

I'm not sure if he wants to pursue a claim,

do I report it to my insurance now,

or wait until he contacts to see what he wants to do.

Realised today that even though there was no contact and he fell due braking sharply in the rain,

could be seen as a non contact accident.

I would expect you would both suffer severely if your relevant ins co's got wind of it.

dx

Not sure that's helpful, but having had a read of some of the thread stickies I aim to phone my insurance tomorrow, irrespective of whether the guy calls me or not. Then at least if something happens later at least they are aware of it and I can refer them to my insurance.

and still get hammered by increased premiums...

regardless to if it goes anywhere...

what are you afraid of

are you guilty

did you do something wrong?

Not sure that's helpful, but having had a read of some of the thread stickies I aim to phone my insurance tomorrow, irrespective of whether the guy calls me or not. Then at least if something happens later at least they are aware of it and I can refer them to my insurance.

If you read the terms of your policy it tells you to report all incidents, where a claim might be made. Then you have protection of the Insurance if the moped rider decided to claim.

Just make sure, it is recorded as an incident and not a claim event. At the moment you are not expecting any claim to be made.

Yes your Insurance premiums might be affected for a few years, even if no claim is ever made. This is why a lot of people don't report to Insurers, because they are unhappy paying extra premiums in these situations, when the Insurers never paid anything out in a claim. Given you pulled out of a junction and a moped rider crashed, on balance you might decide to report, as the rider may have suffered an injury not noted at the time.

I'm sure that many policies state collision.

What happened in your case was a bloke fell off his moped in sight of you.

TBH a moped ridden without lights on a wet road probably doesnt have insurance and possibly not registered to the rider either!

I wouldnt have even exchanged details but would have told him that he would get reported for riding without lights and hope that he gets done for riding without due care etc as well.

doing what appears to be the right thing always creates more trouble.

I had an increase in my premiums this year for a non-event 3 years ago that for some reason an ex-insurer has now decided to pay out on without bothering to inform me.

they also actually put on the database that it was my wife involved so doubly unhappy

Thanks for the replies.

My insurance said they normally only record collisions as claims, but as it was a moped there is higher likelihood of a claim so opened one as notification only, and will be closed if no claim comes forth.

That said if he hasn't contacted me in 3 days, then most likely he won't, but at least should there be some form of retrospective injury claim in the next 3 years I have notified my insurance.

but they will push up your premium now as they will have decided your driving style makes other people come off their mopeds

Thanks for the replies.

My insurance said they normally only record collisions as claims, but as it was a moped there is higher likelihood of a claim so opened one as notification only, and will be closed if no claim comes forth.

 

That said if he hasn't contacted me in 3 days, then most likely he won't, but at least should there be some form of retrospective injury claim in the next 3 years I have notified my insurance.

Not strictly true.

You need to clarify exactly how the incident occurrd.

For example

Were you turning out of a junction onto the major road and the moped was on the major road?

Forget the no lights on for the moment

In my experience once you tell your insurance about any possible future claim or near miss like in this case, they stick it on their database as a notification.

This will need to be declared when renewing insurance and of course will pump the price up.

The op didn't have any choice really, because if he hadn't reported this "incident" and the biker had made a claim, he would have suffered the insurance finger pointing for not reporting it.

This industry needs to be regulated as a matter of urgency.

The scale needle is leaning dangerously in favour of insurance at the moment and consumers are forced to fight them unnecessarily even when they clearly make mistakes.

One thing I never understood, everywhere in Europe you insure the car and anyone with a valid licence can drive it, in UK you have to declare who will drive it.

Surely some drivers are more at risk than others, but when my insurance tells me that they are increasing the premium because other drivers make lots of claims, where's my reward for driving carefully?

There is always a decision to be made, whether you advise Insurers of an incident.

I would say the main factor is whether a third party could have been injured.

If this is a possibility, always report to your Insurers, even if you think you had no responsibility.

Reason for this, is that a third party might describe an accident in a way that is not accurate,

but if you don't have CCTV/dashcam or independent witness statements,

then it is very difficult to dispute.

Insurers might accept the third party claim.

UK Insurers are regulated. Consumers are not educated enough and don't take enough interest until they need to make a claim.

I agree that vehicles should be Insured for third party risks, possibly as part of the vehicle tax system. Then if people want to, they can take out further Insurance to cover what they want e.g fire, vehicle damage, legal cover.

Is it more insurance company will see the side of the third party and settle rather than the insured party and fight it?

This might be my first "incident" in over a decade, but seriously considering getting a front & back dash cam, just in case.

I fitted dashcams in both my cars after my wife was hit by a guy paying attention to his dreams rather than the road.

He then declared to his insurance that he wasn't at the scene of the accident, but how did he know we were going to contact his insurance?

It took almost two years to sort out, a dashcam would have shown exactly what had happened.

Dashcams will become standard manufacturers installed features at some point. And if this happens, then you can bet Insurers will start asking for recordings for every accident event, even when it is unhelpful to their policyholder.

Interesting issue for Government and ICO to think about in regard to Data Protection.

if you had passed the white junction give way line into the road then stopped...you need to be very careful here regardless to the no lights issue