Accident resulting go Ccj,what should I do?

clairestar86

hi there,i'm looking for some advice as i'm sick with worry at the moment over some post i received today.
In January I was involved go a small road accident where another vehicle hit my car. I decided not to get the repairs done to my car as the damage was so minimal and therefore informed my insurers. I was asked by the insurance company to provide a diagram of the accident which I did,and have since called on average about once a month to get updates. I switched providers go April,and have had to say that I was jointly responsible for the accident as the matter wasn't yet resolved. In June I received a letter from a solicitor acting on behalf of the other party saying they were going to recoup costs for car hire that their client had to pay for. I contacted Aviva and forwarded them a copy of the letter I received. Shortly afterwards I received a County Court Summons for the sum of just over £3600 which I again contacted Aviva about and they assured of it was nothing to worry about and that the matter was in hand. I called 3 weeks later to see what progress had been made and they said they were awaiting a response. Today I've come home to find a Judgement in my post which says that I did not reply to the summons therefore if I don't pay I will have bailiffs come to collect my possessions and my credit file will be affected. Have I been extremely stupid and should I have defended the claim myself rather than leaving it to the insurers? I thought that this was the reason I paid my premium. Please,someone help me! Thanks, claire

Quentin

Get on to a manager at Aviva regarding this.

They will be able to sort this out (and get the ccj removed).

dogbot

Aviva should have responded to the summons for your. As quentin says, get onto a claims manager. I would put in a formal complaint about their handling of the case in a way that lead you to have a CCJ. (Assuming you forwarded the court summons to them?).

Beccus from aviva will hopefully pick up on the thread and might be able to offer some assitance here.

magpiecottage

Hi

Sorry to learn of your problem

I think you should make a complaint to Aviva. According to the FSA register the address is nuceo @ norwichunion.co.uk (take out the spaces - I can't get the post accepted without putting them in!)

Clearly this has caused you considerable distress - that is self-evident although the fact that you were obviously lying awake worrying about it is further evidence - why else would you have been posting at 3.23 in the morning?

I deal with complaints against financial firms. In these circumstances, I would expect an insurer to:

• Meet the claim immediately
• Have the CCJ satisfied
• Ensure all credit reference agencies records cleared your name
• Confirm, in writing, to you that the car hire cost was incurred solely as a result of its own incompetence.

You indicated that you paid for your own repairs in order to protect your NCD. You now have to tell your new insurer that you have made a claim. Unless Aviva thinks the claim against you was indefensible anyway they should meet any extra costs you incur through losing the NCD (I think the onus is now on them to show it is more likely than not that they couldn't defend it since they allowed a summary judgement against you).

I would also expect them to pay you compensation for the material distress and inconvenience they have caused you. Don't expect thousands for this as it is not THAT bad. I would probably award about £100 in these circumstances - effectively, paying for a nice night out in exchange for the horrible night in that they caused you.

[Deleted User]

Hi clairestar86

As dogbot says, I work for Aviva and will be happy to look into this for you. The nuceo address has changed (due to the name change) but if you'd like to email me directly, my address is rebecca.sibley@aviva.co.uk

I hope we can get this resolved asap for you, and I'm sorry that you've had so many problems.
Becca

mattymoo

Good advice from Magpiecottage (apart from the bit about the NCD - thats a red herring. The NCD would have been lost because of the third party claim, irrespective of the need for court action.

It really is a total !!!! up on Aviva's part. When I started out in insurance in the 80's we all had to take turns on the post sorting - usually once or twice a month you would troop up to the top floor where the mail bags were laid out and sort the mail by department.

All post would be opened unless marked Private and Confidential.

Any found to contain summons or writs (20+ a day, regional office for medium sized insurer at that time) would be put to one side and then hand delivered to the desk of the claims handler dealing with the matter.

Technology moved on to document image scanning in the mid 90's but court documents would always be pulled out of the scanning queue and passed to the claims handler for actioning.

As a claims handler dealing with litigation matters we would receive a summons, appoint a solicitor and despatch the file within the same day. The solicitor would have filed a holding defence within 3 days thereafter. This would prevent judgement being obtained by the other side until a full court hearing.

clairestar - Aviva have shown they cannot manage to handle such important documents. When you speak to them ask them for details of the solicitor they will be asking to act on your behalf and their contact details. Take two copies of the court papers you have received and then send the originals to the nominated solicitors. Keep one copy yourself and send the other to Aviva.

The solicitor will apply for judgement to be set aside - in other words, wiped from the records. They will then enter the holding defence which will probably dispute liability and quantum. It sounds like they got the judge to believe you were 100% to blame, it should be 50/50. Quantum (the value) of hire car claims is often disputed as well.

These case will be argued between the claimants solicitors and the solicitors that Aviva appoint for you. 99% of the time they never go anywhere near a courtroom again and the matter is an out of court settlement.

1 month from now apply for your credit reference files either online or in writing. A nominal fee of around £2 (iirc) applies with Experian and Equifax. Check to make sure all records of the CCJ have been removed or notated to show judgement was set aside.

Quentin

mattymoo wrote: »

1 month from now apply for your credit reference files either online or in writing. A nominal fee of around £2 (iirc) applies with Experian and Equifax. Check to make sure all records of the CCJ have been removed or notated to show judgement was set aside.

This is too soon to look at your credit files.

When you get a ccj as you have, it doesn't get registered until at least 30 days have elapsed since the date of judgement. (Defendants can avoid the stigma of ccj earned by way of a case like this by paying promptly the amount ordered, hence the 30 day period before the ccj is registered)

(In your case the judgement should end up being set aside)

mattymoo

Thanks for clarifying Quentin.

dacouch

It looks like the judgement is for Credit Hire costs, Aviva and Zurich hate paying these and normally make the other side wait and wait on purpose. It looks like in this case the other side have just issued proceedings.

clairestar86

Hi there

Thanks very much for all of your replies - I'm sorry I wasn't able to come back to my post sooner, stupid internet stopped working!

Well an update on my situation is that I spoke to Aviva the morning after my terrible night's sleep, was kept on hold for the best part of two hours, and was eventually passed to the County Court team. It was suggested initially that I hadn't made any attempt to inform them of my County Court Summons, and it was only through sheer luck that I had a copy of the email, along with the attached scanned documents that I had sent to the insurance claim handler to prove that I had.

My case was passed immediately to a solicitors, Horwich Farrelly, and there is a lady there who is now dealing with getting the judgement set aside. However, I had an email from Credit Expert on Thursday informing me that there had been an adjustment to my credit file, and guess what it was for??!!

I've called the solicitors and gone mad as I have an email from the lady there who is dealing with my case saying that it will not go on my credit file, that it will be dealt with within a week and it will all be like its never happened.

I had a phone call from the customer relations team the following week after I received the judgement, saying that they were extremely surprised that this had happened, that they were going to investigate it and that they were sorry. However, I have written a letter explaining just how unhappy I am with the service that I have received, that I am extremely worried about the detrimental affect that this will have to mine and my husband's credit record, the stress that I have been under for the past few weeks not to mention the utter unprofessionalism that they have conducted themselves.

I suggested in my letter that it would not be unreasonable of me to expect monetary compensation, and on Friday afternoon this week I received a phone call asking me how much I wanted!! Well this has flummoxed me a bit as I was kind of expecting a "we said sorry, be happy with this" kind of response from them. I said that I was going away for the weekend, and that I needed to discuss the matter with my husband before getting back to them. Well we have discussed it, and I'm really looking for a second opinion on what you think would be an appropriate response.

My dad says I should ask for the £3500 that I was taken to court for!

My husband says I shouldn't ask for anything, that they should just do something about it (I didn't find this particularly helpful!!)

So what do you think?


Incidentally, I had to make a statement with Aviva over the phone the other day about the details of the accident, and during the conversation with the lady who was taking my statement was looking at all of the information that is stored on my file. She was furious when she realised just how far this claim has gone (someone hit MY car, not the othere way round!!), only to find that the other claimant's diagram that she drew shortly after the accident in January states that we were on the island together when the accident happened, yet the county court summons states that I "negligently failed to give way to oncoming traffic on a roundabout, pulling infront of the claimant's car". Lying little mare she is!!!

Well that's my rant over, so could you all just let me know what you think?

Thanks


Claire xxx

Quentin

You need to keep your options open until this is concluded before deciding how much you feel they should pay you.

Concentrate on insisting they get the CCJ set aside and removed from all your credit records etc, and that you get this all confirmed in writing.

Only after you are satisfied your records are all as they were prior to this, and the matter is resolved to your satisfaction should you then set about your compensation claim.

If they ask again, say you want "substantial" compensation, but wish to discuss it once the matter has been resolved and will they please pursue that urgently!