Claim on my car insurance or sue

phillipe_2

My vehicle was struck by a delivery truck recently whilst parked. The driver admitted it and details were exchanged. I have asked the company directly for the cost of repairs (£300) and they are umming and erring.
If I claim through my insurance I may lose my no claims and it may affect future premiums even though I was not to blame.
It occured to me that I could claim via the small claims procedure in court, which would not affect my insurance or leave me out of pocket.
Any reason why not??

vaio

None at all, just follow the normal procedure re letter before action etc.

You will have to declare the incident to your insurance company in any event. So will load you even for no fault accidents, some don't so as always shop around come renewal time

Mark_Hewitt

You don't claim through your insurance, you claim through theirs.

fatpiggy

I got hit by a driver (he drove out of a side road into me) who didn't want to go through the insurance, but then wouldn't accept the quote I sent him so I contacted my insurance and they sorted it out. My no-claims was unaffected and the final bill (through their recommended garage) was considerably higher than the quote I got, so serves him right!

Mark_Hewitt

Same happened to me, hit from behind from a BMW driver who thought repairs to a Fiesta wouldn't cost much. But he was wrong, when he found out it was over £1,000 worth of damage he started saying I had reversed into him.

Never accept an offer to keep insurance out of it, you'll lose out in the long run.

cyclonebri1

If you are sure you are in the right, go the insurance route every time, :T:T:T

Premier_2

phillipe wrote: »

...If I claim through my insurance I may lose my no claims ...

If you secure full recovery, it shouldn't affect your no claims.

Let your insurance pursue it, it's what you pay them for (assuming you are fully comp)

Indout96

It will depend on how much your policy is. If you put in a claim to your insurers they will have your car repaired less any excess you have which you have to pay out. They will reduce your bonus from that point. They will then try and claim this back from the third party insurer. If they are make a recovery inc your excess then they will re-instate your bonus. If they are unable to make a recovery you will not get the bonus back.
If your renewal fall between the claim and any recovery you will pay the higher price and when (if) recovered you will get a refund. If you have protected bonus you will not loose it as such but you will probably find that your premium will be loaded, you will only keep the protected bonus if you stay with the same company, if you try and move it will be with reduced bonus.

My wife was hit from behind by a taxi driver 4 months ago, we had 6 independant witnesses and he was insured however as he will not complete a claim form his insurance company will not deal with the claim from our insurance company. they are still fighting it but from experiance (I worked as a broker for several years) they will soon drop it as it will cost more to persue than the claim is worth. At the moment we are down £400 excess + on renewal although the protected bonus is in place the premium rose 45% some of which will be inflation some is loading for the accident.

les78

I would chase the company up, send them a written quotation for the repairs from a trustworthy garage. If they refuse to pay for it then go down the insurance route. As said before, you claim on their insurance not yours, so your insurance premiums should not go up when its time for renewal.

dacouch

Indout96 wrote: »

It will depend on how much your policy is. If you put in a claim to your insurers they will have your car repaired less any excess you have which you have to pay out. They will reduce your bonus from that point. They will then try and claim this back from the third party insurer. If they are make a recovery inc your excess then they will re-instate your bonus. If they are unable to make a recovery you will not get the bonus back.
If your renewal fall between the claim and any recovery you will pay the higher price and when (if) recovered you will get a refund. If you have protected bonus you will not loose it as such but you will probably find that your premium will be loaded, you will only keep the protected bonus if you stay with the same company, if you try and move it will be with reduced bonus.

My wife was hit from behind by a taxi driver 4 months ago, we had 6 independant witnesses and he was insured however as he will not complete a claim form his insurance company will not deal with the claim from our insurance company. they are still fighting it but from experiance (I worked as a broker for several years) they will soon drop it as it will cost more to persue than the claim is worth. At the moment we are down £400 excess + on renewal although the protected bonus is in place the premium rose 45% some of which will be inflation some is loading for the accident.

There is a wonderful piece of European Law that is fairly recent, it basically makes the Insurers jointly liable. So in cases such as your case where the driver does not fill in a claim form you can now take action against the Insurers. It's fairly new and a lot of Insurance staff are either not aware of it or will not advise you of it. Try giving the other Insurer a ring and advising them they are now jointly liable and ask for their proposals to settle your uninsured losses. If they do not play ball try sending them an official letter outlining why the accident was their and their clients fault and that should you not receive satisfaction within a 21 days you next action will be the county court.

Volcano

Keeping the insurance out of it only works when you both come to a quick agreement and someone pays up promptly. Any quibbling at all by anyone involved should set the alarm bells ringing and you should go down the insurance route.