Inspection months after accident

Alison_B

A couple of months ago, my son was involved in an accident. He was travelling home from work in heavy stop start traffic on the motorway. The car in front braked and my son braked too but tutted into the car in front. He said there was not much damage - only a paint scrape on the other persons car. Anyway, he mentioned it to his insurance and said that if it wasn't too expensive, could he pay for the repair himself and they agreed. A week later, my son received a letter from one of these ambulance chasing companies saying that the driver of the other car and his passenger were claiming for whiplash and time off work. The quote for the repair to the other car came in at just over £200 (paint and labour).

My son spoke with his insurance company and they said that now that a personal injury claim was going through, it was best to go through the insurance. My son questioned that this was only a low impact tut and they agreed but said that it was not worth them fighting this, they would just pay out.

At the beginning of this week, we received a phone call asking for someone to come out and inspect my son's car, then we received a letter saying someone wanted to come and take a statement. This has all been arranged by my son's insurance company. The man has been out to see his car today and said that he was satisfied there was no damage. He was going on from viewing my son's car to see the other persons car as apparently it has not been sorted yet. The man is coming to take his statement next week.

We spoke with the people who are wanting to come out and they said that this is just formalities, so that information is collected should they go to court. Does this sound right or is there something else going on? My son has not been able to speak with the insurance company yet as they have been closed when he gets in from work.

sarahg1969

It looks as though the insurers are taking your son's complaint that it was only a low-speed impact seriously. They'll want to inspect both vehicles, so they can assess the probably speed and severity of impact. It may be that the other people have a claims history, or that the accident management or hire company on the other side are well-known to the insurers and this has rung alarm bells.

It's nothing for your son to worry about, certainly. It just looks as though his insurers are doing a thorough job.

Gene_Hunt_2

Sounds about right, get someone out to take a statement from everyone involved at £200 a go. That way the total claim will be higher and they can easily justify to themselves next years price rise.

Alison_B

Gene_Hunt wrote: »

Sounds about right, get someone out to take a statement from everyone involved at £200 a go. That way the total claim will be higher and they can easily justify to themselves next years price rise.

Oh, don't say that.

Alison_B

My son phoned the insurance company up a couple of weeks ago to see what was happening about the claim. He has received a letter back today saying that they are sending someone out to examine the third party car.

We were told in January that my son's car and the third party car was being inspected. My son has just phoned about this and they said that the third party car was never examined and they have no recollection of it. What on earth is going on, this bump happened 6 months ago and during this time anything could have happened to the car in that time?