Local authority damaged my car now their insurance wont pay out?

pedro123456

Sporty, what you don’t do is just forget it, as that is what they are relying on.

1-Phone your local MP, and make an appointment to see him/her.
2-Phone the council get a “name” of the person dealing with your claim, and make an appointment to see them too.
3- Write to your “local” paper, and explain the story so far, and what your next plan of action is. i.e appointments MP & council etc.

Send a second letter, straight to the Council giving them 7 day to respond.

cogito

Either Zurich are trying it on or there is a legal precedent which supports their repudiation. If the latter, bearing in mind that Zurich will rely on this to defend their policyholder, it will be difficult to prove negligence as there is an existing court ruling. It shouldn't be hard to find out.

There have been loads of posts on here from people complaining that insurers have made unjustified payments to third parties. They can't win whatever they do, can they?

teapot25

This has happened to me last week and this morning I got the same letter saying Leicesterhire County Council refuse to accept liability as they have not breached their statutory duty and have not been negligent.
Surely their risk assessment is not sufficient as kicking up stones with a strimmer is a common occurrence when strimming at the best of times and just to check a grass verge for stones and to use a small guard attached to the equipment is not enough to prevent this kind of hazard especially when strimming long grass.

I understood risk assessments were about looking at the likelihood of these things happening and preventing them rather than just covering the backs of the fat cats at the council. Surely they should be using some kind of portable screen to prevent stones flying up and damaging cars, property or even causing injury.

I was also brought up to believe that if you were responsible for causing damage to someone else's property then you fixed it or paid for it.:mad:

cogito

teapot25 wrote: »

This has happened to me last week and this morning I got the same letter saying Leicesterhire County Council refuse to accept liability as they have not breached their statutory duty and have not been negligent.
Surely their risk assessment is not sufficient as kicking up stones with a strimmer is a common occurrence when strimming at the best of times and just to check a grass verge for stones and to use a small guard attached to the equipment is not enough to prevent this kind of hazard especially when strimming long grass.

I understood risk assessments were about looking at the likelihood of these things happening and preventing them rather than just covering the backs of the fat cats at the council. Surely they should be using some kind of portable screen to prevent stones flying up and damaging cars, property or even causing injury.

I was also brought up to believe that if you were responsible for causing damage to someone else's property then you fixed it or paid for it.:mad:

I couldn't agree more. This sort of damage is perfectly forseeable so a proper check should be made to ensure that the area to be strimmed is clear of stones and other objects which might cause damage or injury. As I suggested above, they may be relying on case law which shouldn't be too hard to check.

nexstar

Sorry for reviving an old thread but I came across this thread back in June just after my wife had a similar experience. She was driving to work past where a council worker was strimming a grassy bank and the next thing she knew the off side rear window had been smashed.

To cut a very long story short, the council referred it to Zurich who refused to pay on the basis that their client was not negligent in any way. After a marathon of letter writing we decided to put the council into the small claims court on the basis that the operator was no more than 4 metres from the road, working at 1.1 metres above the height of the road and anybody doing a risk assessment would have to conclude that there was a significant risk involved in the operation. We also found a risk assessment online from the local county council's paths department which clearly states that a 15 metre radius is required (I can't post links but the doc is at the following address if you replace the quesion marks with 'tt' - h??p://www3.hants.gov.uk/risk-assessment-brushcutting.doc

Zurich finally paid the small sum we were asking (£75 uninsured losses plus the £25 court fee) but without admitting any negligence. We have obviously accepted the payment but have since written to the council involved pointing out that they need to review their procedures as someone could get seriously hurt with their 'head in the sand' approach. They haven't replied yet but the letter was only sent recently.

The effort required for all of this has obviously never been worth the sum involved but we were convinced they were in the wrong and they were clearly just hoping we would give up without really taking on board the fact that there was a significant risk of harm to someone.

Anyway, I hope that this might help those that have hit the Zurich brick wall but believe they have a case to answer.

Graham

Sponge

I wonder what would happen if instead of a stone hitting and smashing a car window, hits a person and blinds them, or even kills them? Would they be able to wriggle out of that one?

nexstar

This was really one of the motivations to continue as we realised that a fraction of a second earlier and it would have been the driver's window which smashed and it obviously went with quite a force as I cleared up bits from all over the car. We claimed from our own windscreen policy and so were trying to be reasonable by only asking for the £75 excess not quite expecting to get stone-walled!

Even though the insurers claimed the matter was fully investigated and the council and its operatives had done everything they could, it became apparent that this was not true. It was all about saving money and not admitting any fault rather than trying to make sure that no-one gets hurt in the future.

We did also start out with the thought that, if they caused the damage then they surely must have to pay for it. However, and I'm no legal expert, it may well be that unless you can prove negligence then there is no case to answer. We might like to think that, morally, someone should pay if they damage our property but if they took reasonable steps to avoid the damage then I suspect they might be able to walk away from it. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this but, in the event, we were confident of demonstrating their negligence in this particular case.

Graham

Anihilator

Nexstar,

Heres a question. Your wife is driving along at 70mph. A Child runs out in front of her. She has taken reasonable precautions and done nothing neglient.

Why should she face criminal and civil penalties? Under your argument she would.

nexstar

Anihilator wrote: »

Nexstar,

Heres a question. Your wife is driving along at 70mph. A Child runs out in front of her. She has taken reasonable precautions and done nothing neglient.

Why should she face criminal and civil penalties? Under your argument she would.

Well, if you read what I actually said, I was saying that I felt in law there probably was no case to answer if there was no negligence involved.

However, in our case, we were in a position of being able to demonstrate negligence. For the record, in the scenario you put forward then I would put the onus on the child running into the road, unless my wife were driving at 70mph in a 30mph limit....which would change things a bit. But my wife would never do that anyway .

Graham