Unresponsive party plus useless insurance...

toby1kenobi

Hi there,

I'm having a very frustrating time with my (now ex-) car insurers. In November of 2007 a scooter driver tried to overtake me while I was turning right into the drive of my property. I was signalling, checking mirrors etc, but clearly he thought he still had time to pass and I didn't spot him before turning. As such I was prepared to accept some proportion of the blame (although it didn't really feel like my fault).

15 months after the incident, and much chasing from me, my insurers admitted that the driver didn't appear to be insured and they hadn't been able to get a response from him and the claim was closed, which was hugely unsatisfactory. They recommended I pursue the matter through the Motor Insurer's Bureau. Mere weeks after contacting them they got back to me with a letter from the other driver's insurers, apparently confirming that he had been insured, but also saying that he wasn not responding to them either! They (MIB) now say it's back to my insurers.

I have passed this information on, with yet another lengthy description of the ways in which I feel let down by them. Beyond hoping they do this decent thing, are there any other avenues open to me? I will probably complain to the Financial Ombudsman, but I'm wondering if there's anything else?

Any help/advice very much appreciated!

Toby

cogito

Issue small claims court proceedings against the scooter rider. Chances are that he won't respond and you'll get judgement by default in which case I believe his insurers will have to pay up. Other posters may be able to confirm this.

Atermis

not necessarily.

dacouch

Third Party Insurers (The other Insurer) often say they cannot deal with a claim because their Policyholder has not returned a claim form or is ignoring correspondence. Its a good excuse for them to do nothing.

The above used to be a valid excuse, however thanks to the EU 4th Directive you now have a direct right of action against the Third Party Insurer. This means instead of suing the other driver you can issue against the other Insurer. The advantages of this are that the other driver is likely to ignore your letters and court documents. If you issue a county court against them and win (If they ignore it you will get a judgement by default) the you still have to get the money out of them which is not always easy.

So the other option is to write to the Third Party Insurers detailing that they are liable for the claim and explaining why (It does not have to be a long letter), detailing how much you are claiming for and giving them 14 days to respond otherwise you will issue County Court Papers against them. This should hopefully work if not issue the county court papers against them as teh Insurers will obviously have money.

Insurers normally avoid going to court if they know they will lose as it is wasting money for them.

If you have legal expense cover on your policy you could ask them to do this for you.


http://www.miic.org.uk/public/fourth_directive.htm

FH_Brit

Are you an AA memer (or similar) - Had a very similar incident (although many yrs ago so it may now have changed) they have a legal dept that will at least help with advice if not provide a lawyer (they did for me) - Oh and by the way if he was over the centre line of the road he was in the wrong, He has the obligation to make sure it is safe to overtake not you. Unless you were doing something stupid.

Institute of Traffic Acciden Investigators
http://www.itai.org/default.asp