Unable to make a claim following a non-fault accident due to death of driver

parker09

This is a bit of a long story but please bear with me and read it, hopefully someone will know how to help me!

I park my car in a car park behind my flats. About a month ago I was at work and my car was at home and I arrived home to find that my rear bumper had been scraped and I had a note from the Police asking me to call as my car had been involved in an accident.

I called, they explained that someone had been taken ill and hit mine and two other cars and had been taken to hospital (and has since died of a heart attack). I was then told I had to go to the station, complete a form and they would send the insurance details to me.

This letter came, I contacted a 'vehicle accident management' site (run by a friend of a friend) who have now informed me that because the man had not had any illnesses listed with his insurers (i.e. heart disease) he was not at fault because he could not have predicted that he would have a heart attack and so I am not able to claim off his insurance. I would have to claim off mine or pay privately!

This is extremely confusing to me. Especially as I wasn't even there when it happened so as far as I am concerned it was 100% his fault (in terms of having an accident, I sympathise with the causes of the accident) so why shoul I have to have my insurance premiums increased?!

Just wondered if anyone had any comments?

DUTR

Why can you not claim against part of his estate? It doesn't seem right that the liability ceases , what does your legal expenses dept have to say on the matter?

Anihilator

DUTR wrote: »

Why can you not claim against part of his estate? It doesn't seem right that the liability ceases , what does your legal expenses dept have to say on the matter?

Because the other party is correct

In order to be lliable there would have to be shown to be a breach of duty of care. Unless the other driver/insurer knew of the illness etc and the crash/incident was forseeable no liability exists and the OP will have to claim through their own insurer.

Astaroth

To be able to claim off anyone else for an accident you must be able to prove negligence (ie that he did something a reasonable person wouldnt, or failed to do something a reasonable person would). If you can prove this then you can claim off of him (or estate) and his insurers will provide indemnity.

In a straight forward accident, you brake, the person behind goes into you then you say they were negligent by failing to leave a sufficient breaking distance given the road conditions and speed.

A sudden illness though.... in what way do you think he was negligent? If you can demonstrate that he had a history of heart issues and had reported being sick before getting in the car then you may stand a chance to say it wasnt reasonable for him to keep on driving. If he was feeling perfectly fine, no history and suddenly dropped dead at the wheel then it is simply bad luck not negligence.

All that aside, the police a criminal law experts (I use the term fairly losely) and are not in any way trained in civil law and so really shouldnt be giving advice. You could speak to your insurers, seeing as you have to tell them about the incident anyway, and ask their opinion on the chances of making a recovery - make sure you speak to the technical department and not just the first people who answer the phone who tend to be little more than data entry but often believe they know as much as specialist solicitors :S