Personal injury claim against me!

Sarahlovespaul

Hi, I had a bump a few weeks ago. I was in really slow moving traffic, maybe about 2mph and kept breaking but still moving, I think the woman must have put her brakes on more than she was before or slammed on a bit because I started braking but went into the back of her. There was a tiny scratch on hercar barely visible, I thought it would be fine. I especially thought as I am 29 weeks pregnant she might think twice about claiming fraudulently...I was wrong! She is not claiming any damages to her car but back and shoulder pain apparantly. I can't find anything on the Internet for people who have been claimed against. My car insurance are fighting it but I was wondering if there was any time these things don't get paid out? It's so unfair. Someone crashed into the side of my car when I'd first started driving and I just claimed whatever I needed for the car.

How can she say she's injured at such low speed?

globalds

The thing is you don't know if it is fraudulent or not.

So just leave it for the insurance to sort out , that is what you pay for.

adamc260

Makes you wonder though, a 29 week pregnant woman is fine yet a non pregnant lady is suddenly hurt? What has the world come to eh!

Insurance companies make it too easy for it though, they throw money at people because it's cheaper than fighting it usually... It'll screw everyone over eventually and Insurance will get so expensive they'll wish they didn't make false claims for "injury". Of course there is the chance this person COULD be genuine but... would be a small percentage of cases in my experience

marshmallow79

I work for a company that arranges physio for people in car accidents. In my professinal opinion if there was only a small sratch on her car as you stated then she has very little chance of getting a personal injury claim through (sadly she'll fake her way through therapy and companies like mine will lose out as her solicitor won't be able to cover our already paid out costs).:mad:

Quentin

Irrespective of your accusations of a fraudulent PI claim, the collision is down to you, and whatever the outcome of the claim, is a fault claim against you. So your history is "scarred" and you lose some NCD (if yours is unprotected).

Low speed collisions do cause whiplash, and you cannot be sure the damage is just the little scratch you saw. There may be other damage that is only revealed by a full inspection.

Just accept you are to blame and let your insurer sort out the claim - they will want to settle at the least expense to them.

Sarahlovespaul

Quentin wrote: »

Irrespective of your accusations of a fraudulent PI claim, the collision is down to you, and whatever the outcome of the claim, is a fault claim against you. So your history is "scarred" and you lose some NCD (if yours is unprotected).

Low speed collisions do cause whiplash, and you cannot be sure the damage is just the little scratch you saw. There may be other damage that is only revealed by a full inspection.

Just accept you are to blame and let your insurer sort out the claim - they will want to settle at the least expense to them.

She has stated there is no damage to her car, she is claiming for injury alone. I phoned my insurance company as soon as I got back and they told me no matter what i would be liable because it's from behind and you shouldn't be that close to the person which is fair enough it's just what everyone does in traffic like that. I accepted it but not for injury, it's so unfair. Surely if the bump had been that severe I would have been concerned for the baby? I'm not disputing any liability for damage, I just wanted some advice because I feel hard done by, understandably. I see where you're coming from but if my premiums go up for something that is highly unlikely to be true when we are trying to save for a house and will have 2 young children soon it's just going to be one of those things that always gets at me.

Quentin

You say it's highly unlikely to be true that your "victim" is injured, yet have no evidence, but there is plenty of evidence that low speed collisions do cause whiplash (even with no apparent damage done to the cars involved).

You just going to have to accept what the conclusion to all this is. If your premium goes up next renewal (and they all look to be!), then shop around for the best deal.

bonytony_2

Do not let them suggest you were doing anything more than the 2mph you stated, I had a similar claim made against me & the other party finally withdrew their claim but it took months from start to finish. Its very hard to get whiplash at 2mph and thats why your insurance is going to fight it, the women claiming will have to be independently checked over and thats where my gold diggers bottled it.

Crazy_Jamie

Whilst I can't necessarily offer advice here, I can tell you what is more than likely going to happen.

Liability will be conceded in your case because, injuries or not, you were negligent. This is not something that can be disputed. Your insistence that she 'slammed on' or similar doesn't tally with your other evidence that you were traveling at 2mph yet 'started braking but went into the back of her'. If the speed was as low as you suggested, you should have had no problem braking in time if you had left a sufficient gap because, to be frank, she couldn't have stopped that suddenly in traffic moving that slow. So liability will be conceded.

However, that is far from the end of the story. The case will be resisted on the grounds of causation. In other words, that your negligence did not cause this woman's injury. The case will be fought as an LVI (Low Velocity Impact) case, or quite literally that the speed of the impact was too low to cause the injuries claimed, for which there is specific procedural case law. I would go through the specific procedure involved and how this case differs from others from a procedural perspective, but I don't think you'll get anything from that.

Suffice to say that whilst it will be a low value claim, it will potentially drag on for quite a while. There are numerous hoops for your insurer to jump through to give them a chance of adequately defending this claim. Ultimately they will want to reach a point where the expert evidence in the case states that if the accident happened how you said it happened (i.e. at a speed of 2mph) then the other woman could not physically have been injured. If they do reach that point and the case proceeds to trial, you will be required to attend at trial to give evidence on how the accident happened.

Unfortunately, however, statistically the odds of your insurer successfully defending this on the grounds of LVI are very low. As good as this defence sounds on paper, it actually rarely succeeds. The more likely outcome is that there will be a settlement of the case long before it reaches a trial stage. In that way you being called to give evidence at a trial is actually the best case scenario, because that means your insurer still has a chance of defending the claim.

geri1965_2

I can't see any solution to the old problem of whether low speed impacts can cause whiplash unless medical experts are prepared to categorically state that a collision so minor could not have caused an injury. And any medical expert who would do so would very quickly find himself out of work!

Crazy_Jamie

geri1965 wrote: »

I can't see any solution to the old problem of whether low speed impacts can cause whiplash unless medical experts are prepared to categorically state that a collision so minor could not have caused an injury. And any medical expert who would do so would very quickly find himself out of work!

You say this, but it is commonplace in LVI cases for Defendant medical experts to state just that, and in the joint report it is not uncommon for the Claimant medical expert to agree, which brings the matter down to a factual dispute as to what the speed of impact was.