Car Insurance Claim still not settled after over 5 years

DonnySaver

In December 2005 I was involved in a 20+ vehicle pile-up on the Motorway. My car got hit from the back and also from the side via 2 seperate cars. This also caused me to get shunted onto the car in front of me.

My car was repaired within 2 weeks of the accident but I had to stump up a £250 excess towards the claim.

Thing is, I've never been able to claim back my excess because the whole accident/claim still hasn't been settled. The last time I rang the insurance company about this they said claims like these can go on for years & years.

Has anyone else had an experience like this. Any ideas how I can actually reclaim my excess?

lisyloo

I have experienced a claim not being settled for 3 years.
That's because the other side threatened a personal injury claim but never took it to court.
However we had to wait 3 years for their time limit to expire to be certain.

Any ideas how I can actually reclaim my excess?

You can either wait until it's sorted out by the insurers or you can take the liable party directly to court.
But you'd have to decide which of the 3 cars to claim against.
You'd be better of taking legal advice on that, it does not seem straightforward to me.
So sorry, but I think you best bet is to wait although I understand that is frustrating.

alistair.long

I belive this is a joint liability so will be complicated.

Most important question is has court proceedings ever been started on this claim? If you miss the statute of limitation on property damage in the county court, I cannot remember if it is 5 or 6 years then you have no case.

In my view you need to issue a claim against both parties in a single claim and then let the judge decide, sometimes insurance companies just let it drag on.

sarahg1969

You have 6 years to start proceedings for property damage, so you'll need to think about that before December this year.

However, it's not surprising that a 20-vehicle pile-up is taking a long time to sort out!

DonnySaver

No court proceedings have ever taken place. I once got asked to attend a court hearing to act as a witness on this but that got cancelled and I never heard anything else.

Perhaps all the insurance companies involved are waiting for the 6 years to elapse so that it's all done and dusted as far as they are concerned?

alistair.long

what you can therefore do is chase your solicitors and advise them to issue court proceeding.

lisyloo

Well if you have legal insurance, they will say they won't do anything until liability is settled.
Instructing another solicitor does not seem worthwhile for £250 as you will have to pay them.

Perhaps all the insurance companies involved are waiting for the 6 years to elapse so that it's all done and dusted as far as they are concerned?

Some of them may well be happy to pay their own claims (the ones with the liable drivers) but I would have thought that the other insurers would want to recover their costs.

I would certainly be asking them for an update, as a customer it's not unreasonable to expect to be kept updated.