Retrospective insurance claims

muggers1_2

:question:Can anyone help, we have a small fleet insurance policy, and back in the heavy snow in January one of our sub-contractors had a non fault accident in a car park - he asked us not to put it through the insurance and that he would pay for the repair himself, as he had worked for us for some time and we treated him as a friend we didnt inform the insurance company. He told us he had done the work!

We recently had to let him go and when we got the van back the damage was still there and he had created more smaller damage, we have tried contacting him and we have been told he has moved and no one has a forwarding on address for him. Can we now make a retrospective claim for all the damage naming him as the one who caused it even through it was not reported at the time of the incident?????

Any help anyone can give us is greatly apprecaited as we want to try and sell the van as soon as possible.

Thanks x

sprouter

Your policy terms and conditions will require you to report any incident whether there was damage or not however I'd expect the insurance company to use some discretion and allow it. If the policy has been arranged through a broker, they should be arguing this on your behalf. It's quite a common occurrence (for such late notification of claims) so I would imagine they will deal with it for you.

dacouch

sprouter wrote: »

Your policy terms and conditions will require you to report any incident whether there was damage or not however I'd expect the insurance company to use some discretion and allow it. If the policy has been arranged through a broker, they should be arguing this on your behalf. It's quite a common occurrence (for such late notification of claims) so I would imagine they will deal with it for you.

I would be surprised (Although I would not discount that they won't) if they do deal with the claim, Insurers will typically ask to be notified of a claim within a "Reasonable Amount of Time". The definition of a reasonable amount of time can vary from company to company and can also depend on the circumstances eg they may agree to deal with a claim that you were initially trying to claim directly from another Insurer had no luck so decided to claim against your own Insurer.

If the Insurer do agree to deal with the claim, they may say that due to the amount of time elapsed that further damage has been done eg rust. If they do they may only pay what they feel the original cost would have been.

As you have a fleet, I assume you use a broker, if so have a word with them and see what they say. They may have a good contact with the Insurer who will put it through