accident with uninsured driver

jazzy

My daughter's car was in an accident yesterday with an uninsured driver. She has fully comprehensive insurance with a protected no claims. She is in the process of getting a quote for the repair work which is expected to be around £1000+.

If she claims through her insurance she will have to pay the £300 excess charge, she is also worried that the claim will effect her no claims for future policies.

She will be seeking the £300 excess charge from the uninsured driver (probably end up going through the small claims court at more expense). But should she claim more for the possible extra charges of loosing her no claims?

Quentin

As she has protected NCD it normally will be unaffected, though some insurers offer to cover claims like this with uninsured drivers without affecting NCD (eg aviva).

If the third party has funds, then she could claim everything off him, thereby keeping her claim free record intact.

MX5huggy

Quentin wrote: »

As she has unprotected NCD it normally will be unaffected, though some insurers offer to cover claims like this with uninsured drivers without affecting NCD (eg aviva).

This does not make sense Quentin I think you meant to say "normally will be affected"

Idiophreak

MX5huggy wrote: »

This does not make sense Quentin I think you meant to say "normally will be affected"

"If you have NCD protected, normally it will be unaffected"....in this kind of accident...Sounds about right to me...Only problem is Quentin had an "un" on "protected" that shouldn't have been there...

Quentin

Yep - my first un shouldn't have been there! It's gone now.

dacouch

Which Insurer are they with ?

jazzy

dacouch wrote: »

Which Insurer are they with ?

she's with Zurich

Hammyman

I take it she took legal protection out at the time? This is a time you use it. I used it against an uninsured driver several years ago. When I pointed out that I had £10,000 of legal fees at my disposal and I was quite willing to see him lose his house, he found the money to pay for the repairs. She needs to contact Zurich and ask them to take legal action against the driver.

jazzy

Hammyman wrote: »

I take it she took legal protection out at the time? This is a time you use it. I used it against an uninsured driver several years ago. When I pointed out that I had £10,000 of legal fees at my disposal and I was quite willing to see him lose his house, he found the money to pay for the repairs. She needs to contact Zurich and ask them to take legal action against the driver.

that's a very good point.
So what you are suggesting is to get a quote for the repair work and then the legal protection chases up the money from the uninsured driver or does she carry on with the insurance claim and the legal protection chases the money to pay the insurance company?

Hammyman

jazzy wrote: »

that's a very good point.
So what you are suggesting is to get a quote for the repair work and then the legal protection chases up the money from the uninsured driver or does she carry on with the insurance claim and the legal protection chases the money to pay the insurance company?

She needs to get it fixed so carry on with the claim regardless then recoup the full costs from the third party using the legal cover. That way, in future it'll show as a "Third party responsible, costs recovered" claim.

newfoundglory

It should be fairly simple to get costs recovered through the small claims process as long as you know who the uninsured driver is (their name and and where they live)!

A word of warning, someone went into the back of my car in June and I did not get the name of the driver! Stupid I know. The insurance was held by the owner of a local takeaway and the insurance was in his name, not the name of the actual driver in question (I took the detail but this did not even cross my mind at the time). However were fully insured thankfully...

There was nothing legal protection could do in this no-fault accident. Attempts to obtain the name failed. My insurer paid for the repairs, waived my excess and are now chasing the third party insurer for the money owed. My insurer are now about to being proceedings.

So, if I had this much trouble with an insured driver just the imagine the problems with an uninsured one.