Advice on an open claim

scottishblondie

I had an accident in my car almost exactly a year ago which was my fault - I admitted liability and immediately reported it to my insurance company, who said they would contact the other party and deal with it ASAP. It was a low speed impact and there was little damage to my own car (cracked number plate), so I didn't make a claim for myself.

My renewal is in 3 weeks so I phoned up the claims dept. to get the details and was told the claim value was £2k (I was already shocked by this). However, after quoting back and forth and getting my current company to match another quote, I was told that I had put in the wrong value of the claim - it was actually £7k :O

It transpires that they have paid out £2k, but the claim has not been fully settled as the other party has claimed for personal injury, but has not provided any evidence. They are estimating that there could be another £5k payout in the works and are taking this into account when quoting. The other party has not been in contact since December 2010, altho my ins. have sent them 2 further letters requesting a medical report since then.

Given that it will be a year since the incident at the end of the week I'm finding it a bit ridiculous that it still hasn't been sorted out, and it is pushing my premium up. Having to declare an open claim also seems to be causing difficulty getting decent quotes elsewhere.

The guy I spoke to said they might look at closing the claim at the end of this month if there is still no contact, but he didn't sound too sure. Does anyone know if there is a time when my insurance co. is allowed to close the claim fully? Is there a point after which the other party can no longer pursue this claim?

I've never been in this situation before, neither have friends or family, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Quote

There's that word 'ridiculous' again.

The third party has a few years in which to make the claim. I think it might be three years - I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I wasn't aware that the amount of the claim would have that much impact on the premium - if I were you I would be disclosing the claim as closed with £5000 personal injury and £2000 third party damage paid. Is it really making that much difference? Incidentally, the reason that the amount of the third party claim may seem high is because your insurance has/may have paid for their damage, labour, hire car costs, loss of earnings, etc etc

The alternative is to speak to someone - a broker or a direct insurer - and asked them how they would treat the claim. The direct insurer will be able to tell you straight away, the broker act on the insurers behalf, so if they're decent then they should know as well.

I'm afraid that this is one of the problems with using the internet to get quotes for motor insurance.