Car Damage - No Win No Fee?

Equaliser123

To be honest, CAB's tend to employ unqualified people who 'look-up' the answers.

I've never been impressed with them at all on consumer issues. And as for Trading Standards....

Premier_2

Put it through your insurance - that's what you pay them for.

If they are successful, you might not have any excess to pay. Even if you do, you can claim the excess via small claims court from whoever the insurer claims the remainder; it'll be a simple (and cheaper) claim as liability would have already been established.
Also full recovery should mean there is no increase in your insurance because of this claim.

Don't forget, even if you decide to not use the insurance, it is still a claim and needs to be disclosed as such.

unholyangel

If you read the OP, they've denied liability.

Premier_2

unholyangel wrote: »

If you read the OP, they've denied liability.

As I understood it, the garage insurers have denied liability on behalf of their client - the garage.

I am suggesting the OP uses their own insurance, a claim they have suggested they are willing to help the OP with

unholyangel

Premier wrote: »

As I understood it, the garage insurers have denied liability on behalf of their client - the garage.

I am suggesting the OP uses their own insurance, a claim they have suggested they are willing to help the OP with

Ah yeah but in my experience, your insurance company will eventually roll over and play dead, thus shoving up your own premium and losing NCB (if not protected) - unless you provide evidence to the contrary.

One of my friends was rear ended while waiting (with the handbrake on) to pull onto the opposite site of the road to pass a car that had stopped at the side of the road. The other driver maintained my friend had pulled out in front of him, giving him no time to brake.

Now to me, from the angle of the crash, it was obvious that it was dead on, and had the 2nd person been telling the truth.....the collision would have happened at a angle.

So i used my lovely math skills i learned all those years ago to prove that not only was the 2nd person lying, that they had been going approx 58 mph in a 30mph zone :rotfl:

But without my 6 pages of calculations (even counting police reports, photos etc) his insurance company were going to accept the 2nd persons claims and it would have lead to my friend losing their job as it was a company vehicle.

Maybe i'm just cynical!

Premier_2

unholyangel wrote: »

Ah yeah but in my experience, your insurance company will eventually roll over and play dead, thus shoving up your own premium and losing NCB (if not protected) - unless you provide evidence to the contrary. ...

Of course they will want the co-operation of the insured, but I don't know many insurance companies that will willingly take a £2100 hit themselves ... because that is what they would be doing if they don't get the money off the other side.

unholyangel

There must be some way they work it out or they'd be at loggerheads over EVERY claim that the fault was disputed.

Premier_2

unholyangel wrote: »

There must be some way they work it out or they'd be at loggerheads over EVERY claim that the fault was disputed.

Yes, they are known as courts.

But in most cases, it's usually clear which party is at fault and so should pay without the need for the insurers to go to court.

I know we've not heard both sides here, but from what we have been told it does seem unlikely that the OP is to blame for the damage incurred ... and that presumably is the stance of the OP's insurers since they have already offered to help pursue the claim.

Crazy_Jamie

The response from the insurer is interesting. If there were numerous washes before your incident and numerous more afterwards that were incident free, and the engineer says that it is not broken, the obvious question is what exactly caused your incident? Of course the burden of proof is technically on you to show that the Defendant was negligent and/or breached statutory provisions. However, in reality the small claims court is a little bit more liberal in its approach, and I think res ipsa loquitur (an increasingly rarely used legal principle that essentially means that the facts speak for themselves) could be your friend.

I think it is worth prodding at this a little bit more. Write a letter of claim to the insurer, and within the letter directly ask for their suggestions as to what caused the incident. If they come back with a convincing argument that could absolve them of liability, then you have lost nothing. If, however, they are not convincing, I'd issue the claim.

marleyboy

Have to say I am interested in what exactly happened, what reason they gave for denying liability, was it a convertible soft top, did it crush the roof or scrape it, surely they must have an excuse to claim you are liable for it?