Accident help

[ptruman]

+1 on the dashcam.

Even if it failed to get the majority of the incident (spinning car), you can (if suitably equipped) get them to show GPS position and speed (my Nextbase does this, even if you disable the on screen display, it embeds the data in the video). I'm sure the Police love this as it also means everyone is potentially recording themselves speeding and so on - but it would corroborate speed before, reacting and after, plus show results of actions. Although generally only in one direction (my wife got hit by someone on a mobile phone, from the rear, so a frontal cam would have been sod all good apart from the "What happened there" bump footage).

Granted that's hindsight, and not overly much use - however everyone appears to be ok (which is good) and cars can be fixed/replaced. Presumably you've been asked for the descriptions and to draw a diagram - and been as objective as possible.

Regardless of fault assignment at this point, insurance will go up regardless - due to the "Have you been involved in an accident, even if not at fault, in the last X years" questions.....so if it is found in your sons favour, highlight the likely increased premiums in the costs of a claim.

grober is right, as if you say "oops" or "sorry", you admit fault, which is what insurers want to avoid (paying out)....last time I had a bump it was so clearly my fault it was untrue, with no argument, so I did so at the scene....pissed off my insurer, but arguably saved much fart arsing about for all concerned!

As has been pointed out, your son had right of way, which counts for quite a bit. He took avoiding action and only (and inadvertently) caused an someone a minor injury after losing control having trying to avoid a collision. He did good, so let him know that

 

[MDC250]

Contrary to popular belief not all accidents result in a police report, or certainly not in a format as you may expect. Increasingly forces are not preparing all singing, all dancing reports and basic details such as names, vehicles, insurers etc is all that is being recorded.

If the cyclist is pursuing a claim against your son, his insurer or an enquiry agent on their behalf will normally apply to the police for whatever info the police have. Witnesses are asked whether they are happy to have details released and if they say no that’s an end to it, nobody will get hold of their details or certainly not from the police. Very frustrating when a witness can corroborate but you can’t get hold of them.

 

[st13phil]

Increasingly forces are not preparing all singing, all dancing reports and basic details such as names, vehicles, insurers etc is all that is being recorded.

Is that the case even when personal injury has occurred? Or when an allegation that an offence has been committed? They always used to be the triggers for a more thorough investigation

 

[st13phil]

I feel for the OP's son. He took evasive action that avoided almost certain serious injury to the occupants of the car that pulled out on him and as a result lost control of his vehicle leading to - thankfully - a minor collision with an innocent party.

If the insurers are dragging their feet, it may be worth a call to them and gently suggesting that if they don't get the matter settled pronto, you'll be engaging an accident management company to take on your interests. While I'm firmly of the view that these firms are mostly ambulance chasing vultures, their astronomical charges do tend to concentrate the mind of the insurers...

 

[Deleted member 6183]

Surely there's another dynamic at play here- that of insurance companies trying to minimise their losses/ maximise their profits . IRRC policy holders involved in an accident are actively advised not to admit culpability at the scene of any accident they are involved in, whatever they may actually feel at the time. My guess is that the old gent, on reporting the accident to his insurance company will have been told in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut/ not admit liability-- hence the change in his attitude. Now whether this "advice" from the insurance company forms part of the terms and conditions of the policy and failing to comply would render the policy null and void or at the very least the insurance company very unco-operative remains unclear to me- perhaps someone can confirm? And while this may appear to be morally reprehensible nobody likes hikes to their car insurance premiums either, so we reap what we sow?

While there's some legitimacy in the sentiment of your post the picture isn't as glum as you paint it.

Insurers build valid claims into their business model and their profits are calculated with this is mind. They will, however, want to minimise the cost of the claim if possible and the simplest method is to share the cost with a third party's insurer.

I use the term 'valid claims' because there will always be a resistance towards fraudulent ones.#

Insurance companies like to boast about the percentage of claims which are paid because it's a powerful marketing tool for them, the percentages might be higher than you think. Don't forget that you only hear about the misery online and rarely the relatively positive outcomes (relative to how positive an insurance claim can ever be)!

 

[MDC250]

Is that the case even when personal injury has occurred? Or when an allegation that an offence has been committed? They always used to be the triggers for a more thorough investigation

Yup. If it’s a very obvious life threatening injury or fatality then chances are should still get a detailed report, but increasing numbers of forces don’t produce reports for more run of the mill collisions.

 

[Felstmiester]

Just an update on this. My son had a phone call from his insurance last week saying they want to drop the claim. They sent someone round to look at his car and said it was a right off. His insurance said no one else has come forward so it will only be my son claiming ( that is if he claims) and for what his exess is and what the car is worth he will end up owing them money. They also said the fella on the bike is unknown and has not contacted anyone.

My son said he would have a chat with me and get back to them. Due to this and his car being in a bad way we went and brought another car for him yesterday ( a zetec s fiesta ) he called his insurance to swap it over and was told that his policy will not insure this car unless he’s over 21. We then went through the having to cancel this policy as we’ve already brought the car and was told it couldn’t be done as there was a claim pending on the system and he’d have to pay over £1000 to cancel. We’ve got to ring back on Monday as it was a sat and claims dept wasn’t there to deal with it. So now the new cars on a temp weeks insurance and we’re waiting to see if we’re going to get fubar’d on Monday. Great!!!

 

[brucemillar]

Hard as this is (it is hard). Try to keep calm. Explain your predicament, that is NOT of your sons making. Tell them what you want /need to happen. Ask them to come back to you, as you “prefer not to involve the Ombudsman at this point, but are being pushed in that direction”

They do not want the Ombudsman involved. It costs them money!!!

Good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[markjay]

I think the proper way to go about it should have been from the start for you to notify-only your own insurer but make no claim, and then make a claim against the other party's insurer - it is still not too late to do that - you do have his insurance policy details?

This would have been the normal course of events.

So you may well be advised to drop the current claim againts your own policy and make a new claim against the other driver's policy.

You will see that things start moving much much faster - they will make every effort to contact you and deal with your claim as soon as possible.

The other party's insurer may try and decline your claim based on their own insured driver's account of events, but you will be in a far better bargaining position than you are with you own insurer now.

(For reasons which I will explain in a separate post).

 

[markjay]

When you make a claim on your own policy, your insurer's liability is limited to the T&C of your policy, and not simply to the actual damage and costs you incur.

For this reason, your own insurer might not be in a rush to settle your claim, or they might decline it in the first instance, and on occasion they will be willing to drag it on while negotiating the payout - they have nothing to lose.

The other party's insurer however, has no contract with you. For this reason you are entitled to full restoration including any reasonable costs you incurred as result of their client's fault (e.g. taxis, accommodation, rental car, postage, etc etc). There are no contractual restrictions on what you can claim, as long as it's the result of the insured event.

They will have no interest in prolonging the matter, and allowing you to incur even further costs while they deliberate the issue and which they will be liable for, and more crucially for them - allowing you to be contacted by one of these accident management firms who perfected the extracting of expenses payouts from insurers to an art form.

And this is even before a law firm steps-in and suggests to you that you might be eligible for a personal injury payout....

It does not mean that the other party's insurer will automatically accept that their client is at fault, but they will move swiftly to ascertain if this is the case, and will not take the risk of simply rejecting your claim off-hand, instead they will want to be convinced that their client is not at fault before doing so.

Ultimately, whatever their client tells them, now that the police are involved (you should metion to them that you are awaiting a police report) they will not take the risk of accpeting their client's version at face velue before seeing the police report. So an off-hand rejection by the other party's insurer in unlikely in these circumstances.

In short, the exposure of the other party's insurer (if their client is at fault) can be very high, and they will therefore take the matter very seriously and will want to ensure that they get to the bottom of this and do so quickly.

 

[StephenSJason]

We had all this bollocks last year. Same situation really, except a girl pulled out on my Mrs from the left without looking. Like your son she had options which were:

1. Smash straight into the side/back of her.
2. Mount the curb on the left which is a series of strange islands, rip off the suspension and still hit her.
3. Try to mount a solid, 1ft concrete lane divider on the right and kill people incoming.

My Mrs took the best of the three, which was to pull it right as much as possible, slam on and brace, impact was inevitable. The impact was offside rear of the offender to the nearside front of my Mrs car. The right side of my Mrs car was chewed from riding the lane divider, the inside chewed from 146 airbags going off and the near side front destroyed including suspension. The offender’s car was destroyed offside rear with a bent axle.

The car automatically called 999 and they were there in minutes, fair play. The offender stopped, admitted blame to us, the ambulance crew and police which went in the report. The potential witnesses on the opposite side of the road didn’t stop! Cun..!

All done and dusted? No. The little scrote went home and reversed her story like your “friend” has done, and it was in dispute for ages. We went back to the scene and took photo evidence of the skid marks, drew diagrams, pointed out the road layout and traffic measures. That seemed to help but only after the police report came out where it was document it was her fault, the other insurers stepped down and admitted blame. This all took about a year and it was painful.

Our excess has now been refunded but we await full payout for all the expenses incurred for alternate transport. Yes, I forgot to say that as it was in disputed, we had no hire car.

I don’t know what happened to the girl who pulled out. Would her insurance sue her for this debacle? She lied and has cost them thousands in the process.

 

[MDC250]

I don’t know what happened to the girl who pulled out. Would her insurance sue her for this debacle? She lied and has cost them thousands in the process.

Nope they wouldn’t.

The big issue with motor insurance it seems to me is it’s so expensive to start with people will generally bury heads and try and deny. There is no incentive to just tell the truth. The farcical thing in a claim situation is that nobody wins. Even with a non fault accident your premium gets loaded.

Should be a law requiring you to stop and give details as a witness; the amount of times witnesses decline to release details within a police report (when they bother to complete a report) is tragic.

 

[oldguy57]

Having spent decades in the insurance game a few points to add. Insurers tend nowadays to settle claims as soon as possible if they can- they have largely realised that delaying claims only escalates costs. ( Ms Oldguy's claim for a total loss took 2 days to settle. Sons none fault total loss claim was settled same day by TP Insurers) . My view where liability is disputed is always to claim initially off your own Insurers and leave them to recover from TP Insurers where appropriate.Both sides will do their own accident investigation. Your Insurers will usually recover the excess at the same time. Always get Legal Assistance cover when buying vehicle insurance - a cheap way of recovering any further uninsured costs. No the Police won't give you a full report - only supplied to solicitors etc. Witnesses will have to appear in court in the event of legal action. Policy requirement that you do not admit liability to a third party, although I doubt that in the heat of the moment of an accident this would prejudice anyone's position under their policy. Always but always put your evidence in a clear concise manner to your Insurers in writing on any aspect in dispute. You're wasting your time calling customer services. Emails can also be fobbed off. Finally as pointed out above most involved in an accident are not qualified to say who was at fault either under the law or as far as insurance is concerned.

 

[Felstmiester]

To be honest guys. If it means my sons ncb isn’t going to be effected I would rather just drop it and move on. The car he had wasn’t worth enough to worry about anyway.

Bizzare thing for me is the insurance have not asked for any info whatsoever. In the past I’ve dreaded having to draw diagrams of events for car insurance claims but they haven’t once asked for any details. It’s not a small back street broker he’s with either. He’s insured with Hastings.

 

[shyam27]

To be honest guys. If it means my sons ncb isn’t going to be effected I would rather just drop it and move on. The car he had wasn’t worth enough to worry about anyway.

Bizzare thing for me is the insurance have not asked for any info whatsoever. In the past I’ve dreaded having to draw diagrams of events for car insurance claims but they haven’t once asked for any details. It’s not a small back street broker he’s with either. He’s insured with Hastings.

I agree, on the long term when he renews, his difference on what he will be paying for insurance for next 5 years will weigh much more than the money he gets back on claiming on the wrote off car. I'd just break the car for parts and have the shell weighed in for scrap metal. Also worth considering selling it complete for cheap as it's unrecorded and there wont be a category mark on the car.

Fiesta Zetec S probably not the best car to choose to replace on his policy following this incident. Correspondences will all be on record with them whether he made a claim or not. Just get 1 year NCD and then change insurance company when renewal comes.

Have him drive a little banger 1.0 micra or something until renewal comes, then get NCD certificate and insure the Fiesta Zetec S.

 

[Quackers]

I've been in these kinds of situations more than once.
I have come to the conclusion that it is much better to just brake and hit the offending vehicle (fight the reflex to swerve).
Obviously it's not quite that easy but at least no innocents get carted - which might be worth all the effort.