Car insurance won't pay and I've been sued

Richard_Gear

or the wife has.
My wife recently had an accident in her company car and the insurance company will not pay the claim of the other driver, my wife is fully covered. That driver has now successfully sued my wife for the full amount. She still can't get anything but promises and waffle from her companies insurance company. It will of course shortly run away with itself if we don't pay personally, debt collectors and and their charges.
Any ideas in how to energise the insurance company? Is there an ombudsman or controlling body we can go to.

Any advice would be welcome

Richard

dunstonh

my wife is fully covered.

The insurance company seem to disagree. Why do they disagree?

s there an ombudsman or controlling body we can go to.

Not straight away, no. If you are dissatisfied with the service provided by the insurer you must first make a complaint to them. If at the end of that complaints process you remain deadlocked you can then refer your complaint to the financial ombudsman service. You cant go straight to the FOS (if you do , they will just send your complaint on to the insurer to deal with). The FOS are an independent adjudicator. They will look at what has gone on and why and make a ruling on that. So, its usually worth knowing the issues involved (i.e. why the claim was rejected) before going down this route.

lisyloo

Be aware going to the FOS will take time.
Your insurer has 8 weeks to deal with the claim.
The FOS may not be able to assign someone straight away.
It can take many months, which may be a problem as the other driver (quite rightly) will want to enforce the judgment.

Why haven't her insurer paid?

She could also look at taking her insurer to court.
This isn't free but it's quicker.

I think we need to know more about what the insurer has said.
Have they accepted liability?

Richard_Gear

They don't disagree that she's covered in fact they make all the right noises when we contact them. They repeatedly tell her not worry and that they will take care of it. However they haven't actually done anything. Their problem with the claim is its size which now seems irrelevent as the court has ruled in favour of the claimant.

withabix

How has it got to court? Everything should be dealt with by HER EMPLOYER and their insurer.

dunstonh

withabix wrote: »

How has it got to court? Everything should be dealt with by HER EMPLOYER and their insurer.

Yes. That bit doesnt make sense. I would have thought the employer has the liability.

Richard_Gear

While I've been siting here I've just had an email from the insurer who wants to go back to court. I'll have to contact them to find out what happens to the bill which is my main concern.

withabix

Why are you and your wife getting involved in the correspondence with the other party AT ALL?

EVERYTHING should be passed to her employer to deal with.

There should be NO financial liability for your wife.

Can you please expand on why this is happening?

PaulBear

As previously stated, you should not be involved with any of this. When you have an accident, you should NEVER accept liability as this is a condition of insurance usually. You should swop details of each others insurance companies and they sort it out together.
Having said that it all seems moot by what you have said above and you need to get legal representation ASAP to protect yourselves. Unless there is something that you are not telling us here [e.g. your wife was not driving within the conditions of the insurance] then you should be able to recover all the costs from her employer and their insurers.
This is NOT your wife's insurer it is her employers and it is their respomsibility to make sure that it is sorted out.
I say the above from 13 years as office manager at a scaffolding company with wite a few claims to sort out.

Good luck.

Richard_Gear

We not in correspondance with the other party apart from the court judgement and various other threatening letters from their solicitors all of which have been passed on to our insurer. We have sent nothing to them.
It is happening because our insurers are not happy with the size of the claim but did not defend the court case and now want to go back to court.
This leaves me with a bill for several thousands which I have no doubt will have extra charges on if it doesn't get paid by somebody, preferably not me.

dunstonh

We not in correspondance with the other party apart from the court judgement and various other threatening letters from their solicitors all of which have been passed on to our insurer.

They are not your insurer. They are the company's insurer.

This leaves me with a bill for several thousands which I have no doubt will have extra charges on if it doesn't get paid by somebody, preferably not me.

You are not liable for it though. As has been pointed out a few times.

When your wife went to court, was it not pointed out that it was a company car? Indeed, it should never even have got to court as the pre court responses should have made this clear.

You need to be honest with us. At the moment there is a lot that is not quite right from your posts. Have you been burying your head in the sand?