Advice needed

leicester27

Hi,
About two and half months ago I received a letter from my insurance company claiming that I had been involved in an accident two months prior. This was the first I had known about it, I wrote back to my insurance company stating I had not been involved in any accident as far as I was aware, please provide me details of the accident. I am still waiting, I have been contacting my insurance company who say that the claim is still open and they are still waiting to hear back from the other party about the accident and the other party have not closed the claim. I am now in the position that my no claims has been knocked back, my insurance is due for renewal and I am being asked to pay an extra £200 for a new policy for something I don't believe is my fault. I talk to my insurance company and all they say is that the claim is open and the claim can officially stay open for six years. The only details, I have is a name of the person who put in the claim, no other details. Is there anything I can do to force my insurance company to act more quickly or any way to find out about this accident.

I wouldn’t mind paying the excess or the extra insurance if it was my fault that’s why I have my insurance but it really is ticking me off that anyone can just put a claim in months latter and then fail to respond in this way leaving me hundreds off pounds out of pocket.

My insurance company have said that they will refund the difference if I am not at fault, but I have two problems with this firstly I like to shop around for the best deal and for a policy that suits me and secondly I am not happy with the way my company has dealt with me but it seems they have me other a barrel.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Astaroth

Unfortunately there is little advice that can be given on the situation you have found yourself in.

Your insurers will have received a letter which is little more than 1 line saying that they are holding you liable for an accident involving the other insurers/ solicitors client and asking them to confirm that liability will not be an issue.

Your insurers have done the correct thing in registering the claim and then contacting yourself for comments. Once they received your statement saying that you know nothing of the incident they will have contacted the TPI/ TPSol saying the same and ask them to provide additional details including things such as full accident circumstances, full description of your vehicle, statements from any independant witnesses confirming your involvement/ the circumstances etc.

There is now little more they can do other than wait/ chase the other party for their response. It may well be the case that the other parties representatives have had to go back to their client too for this extra information which all adds up to a fair amount of time even if everyone is swift in responding and the relevant claims departments have no backlogs.

Any claim that is open will count against a policy at renewal in terms of both NCD and premium. Some insurers will at their own risk choose to waive this impact but this is limited to cases like your car being hit in the rear whilst stationary and the TP have accepted liability but the claim is still open as settlement hasnt been received.

As they have said, once the claim is resolved in your favour any impact will be removed. This is very simple to be done if you remain with the same policy but becomes more difficult if you do switch insurers or even take out a new policy with the same insurers.

The law of limitations give 6 years from the date of knowing for any claim for non-injury losses (and 3 years for injury cases). Whilst it is possible for these cases to go on for a very long time (it may be the TPI/ TPSols want to get a police report which is only available once all prosecutions have been completed which can easily be 6 months plus) it is rare for them to last more than a couple of months.

leicester27

Hi,
In case this happens to someone else, I thought I would leave an update on the outcome. My insurance company finally closed the claim after 10 months. Essentially after 5 months of repeatedly asking my insurance company about the claim the other person making the claim against me replied and supplied information on the accident and also stated that I had given my details at the scene which was impossible since I had no accident. I of coarse confirmed I did no such thing. I waited for a reply and after another five months the case was closed since the other person claiming the accident could not be traced. This has left me bewildered, basically anyone can make a claim against you and leave you in limbo, mean while you are assumed to be guilty without prove for up to 6 years. While this was going on I had to remain with the same insurance company so that when the case was settled it would be easier to have a refund. My renewal premiums went up by £250, my no claims bonus was affected. This is now in the process of being refunded to me, but has meant that I could not shop around for a better policy. I also have a claim showing up on my policy. Either someone has given my details falsely or more than likely I feel the claimant was trying to make a fraudulent claim, assuming I would have just said yes to the accident and they would have a payday at my expense.

Anyway thanks for your helpful replies

mattymoo

Leicester27 - the thing to do is look at it from the other perspective. We have lots of queries here where people have been involved in accidents where someone else is at fault but the other person does not report it to their insurers. This results in them being unable to advance the claim, have their vehicle repaired etc. Your insurer behaved correctly but an unfortunate side effect of this is the limbo you describe.

Rather than it being a fraudulent claim I suspect one of two things may have happened.
1) Somebody gave your name and address at the scene of the accident. Any enemies?

2) Somebody has cloned your vehicle registration plate. When the other side look up the reg no on the Motor Insurers Database (via the police) they obtain your details.

3) Somebody wrote down a registration plate incorrectly.

The easiest bit of info would have been time, date and location of the accident. If this had been the other side of the country to you then somebody may have realised there was a mistake earlier.