is this the norm after an accident ? ?

funky-footprints

I pranged my car back a month ago, basically pulling out of a junction i gave way to a lorry coming from my right, that was turning into my junction, with nothing on my left and nothing behind the lorry i pulled out, unfortunately for me or for the lady driving the car behind the lorry, i didnt see her. She was so far up the lorrys bottom that the lorry totally covered her.

anyway i accepted it my fault as i didnt see her, and she was realy nice. Im pretty pg at mo (due in less than 2 weeks now) and her main concern was that we (me & baby, and her) were both ok. she rang me that night, to check i hadnt gone into labour, and i asked was she ok, she said she was fine, and she rang me 2 nights later to check on me again, and again said she was fine, which i thought realy nice, as her car had some serious damage and i only smashed my front head light. i was only driving at about 2 miles an hour pulling out from the junction, but her little car didnt have much of a chance with my people carrier.

today i have received a letter from her solicitor, listing things i am apparantly responsible for;
failure to see thier client, failure to keep a proper look out, failure to see approach of vehicle, failure to stop at roundabout ( i was pulling away from a t-junction) failure to read give way signs, failure to take adequate care of client, exposing thier client to foreseeable injury.

she is claiming for whip lash and injuries to her back. they have sent me two letters, one for me and one for insurance company for me to forward on. I have rang my insurance company, and the girl on the end of the phone said as far as they were concenred the claim had been settled in full 100% and there were no medical conditions listed in the original claim. she said post the solicitors letter to them and they would deal with it, which i have just done.

the letter also states at the time of the accident the client was correctly placed, but she was actually in the process of overtaking the lorry as it turned into my junction, as i drove into her, so she was on the wrong side of the road too.

does this sort of thing happen ? could i end up in court ? ? sorry im a bit scared about this.thanks
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funky-footprints

i have just checked my insurance i am covered for motor legal protection for £100k. i wondered what that was for !! now understand.

thanks for replying.
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Mark7799

A similar thing happened to me about 15 years ago. I had a similar sounding letter to that which you describe (frightened me !!!!less) as I thought I had done the decent thing by admitting the accident was my fault. Passed the letter on to my insurance company and never heard anything else about it. At least the people who wrote to me were kind enough to put at the bottom something to the effect of 'we assume you have your own insurance arrangements and would suggest you pass this letter to your insurers'.

mrcow

Your insurance company will deal with it all. Don't worry, you have far more important things going on right now

Good luck with the baby! :T

peterbaker

As Al, Mark and mrcow all suggest, there's nothing at all untoward for you to worry about f-fps. Let your insurance company handle it.

The contents of the solicitor letter may or may not be signs of a bit of opportunism creeping in, but your accident was pure routine, everyday, accidental and your insurance company will manage the whole bit because when we make mistakes that's what they are there for:). Enter into no further correspondence with the lady you hit or her lawyers. Pass any letters to your own insurers without a blink. If she calls again to enquire after your health, you can keep it short & polite but don't discuss the accident or her solicitor's letter further.

Actually, she might not even be aware of that letter, anyway!! How so?

'Cos that letter might just have been a standard letter from HER legal insurers - maybe they just forgot to cross out whiplash and back injury because they get so used to claiming for it:D

Legal insurance as an add-on to the motor policy is still often a separate department/separate office and it's their job to prepare the ground for claiming all the stuff that HER standard motor insurance might not have covered, like her excess, hiring a car while hers was fixed perhaps and her whiplash & back injury (if she actually has any!) ... the legal expenses department usually get notified after all the preliminary claims admin is stabilised and some of the bills are in, so that's perhaps why you've got the 'legal' type letter at this later stage....anyway, if those things do need paying to her, now you've sent the letter to YOUR own motor insurers, your standard motor policy (Third party damage and injury section) will mop that up without bothering you further.

Although Legal Expenses cover is a pretty essential add-on extra to have thesedays for when the accident IS NOT your fault, I believe I am right in saying that your own legal expenses insurance won't get used in this case because you are not trying to claim anything yourself from the lady, and she's not claiming anything from you that your own standard motor insurance won't handle.

You'll probably just have your own modest deductible excess to pay on your own damage bill when you collect your car from the garage (if you've booked it in yet) but that's it - definitely no court - no hassle until the renewal premium and even then might not be too bad - so just chill - you're well covered now and renewal is another day!! :-)

... oh and good luck with the baby!

Peter
(ex insurance man extraordinaire!)

funky-footprints

Thankyou Peter, blimey i understood all that !!! lol !! my excess was £150.

my car has been in and repaired. The accident was at 10.30am, i had a courtesy car by 12.15pm. anyway all fixed now. I found my insurance company and the garage to be excellent ...not sure if being heavily pg helped mind !

The lady in question did say last phone call to me, she would ring after christmas time to check on me ? I did wonder if this was an opportunist claim ? ?

As you say ...the renewal excercise may not be as easy come August ! eek !
thankyou again, I realy appreciate it.
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laurz121

I've had a similar experience recently and wouldn't mind a bit of advice (its a long read sorry)

I hit a car from the back as it was turning right into a junction, i just failed to stop and hit it at roughly 4 or 5 miles an hour (if that), the only damage that he sustained was a scratched rear bumper so i'm sure you can imagine how slow the accident was.
Both me and him inspected his car, lifted the boot up and checked for any signs of the chassis being damaged and there was none, we lifted the carpet up too and it was fine, just the bumper was scratched but not cracked or damaged in any way. I checked with him how he was and he said he was absolutly fine, in his words it was a 'nothing accident' but he also said that the problem is that the bumper is expensive pearlescent paint which may cost quite a lot to respray so for my sake insurance would be best. I asked if he would be able to get a quote anyway because i'd really like to pay myself and he agreed saying that he didnt mind, whatever is cheaper for me.

Anyway he phoned up that night and asked how i was, i asked how he was and he said he was fine, he would take his car to the garage the next day to get a quote for me, he couldnt take it then because he was going out to work as a football coach.
I rang back a couple of days later and checked how he was, he was fine and would get back to me the next day when the garage had given him a quote for the respray on his bumper.

He didnt get back to me the next day or the day after so I rang him, his wife answered and explained that he was out at work coaching and she'd get him to call me back when he got in.

He didnt call back so I rang again the next day adn again he was out coaching the football.

Anyway, eventually he got in touch with me (about 10 days later) and said that he'd got the quote from the garage to repair the accident damage, it was 300 pound (give or take) and he was really sorry, he'd had the quote for a week but due to being busy with work hadnt had a chance to contact me. I said fair enough, I'll speak to you tomorrow to arrange to pay if thats ok with you? He agreed to that straight away, no problems. I asked how he was and he said fine, perfect health, he just wished the football wasnt keeping him so busy lol

So the next night I rang him and he said that 'there was a slight problem'. He had noticed that day that the bumper was broken and that all the chassis needed pulling back out as it was all bent in and the boot door couldnt close properly, there was also a squeek coming from the car he said so he wanted to deal with the insurance and put the phone down.

Obviously I informed the insurance company and explained to them everything including that the garage that he took the car to had made no mention of a damaged chassis, broken bumper or a squeek and had only quoted to repsray (surely they wouldnt repray a bumper that was broken).

Anyway, the insurance said they'd take care of it and said was it this car? and read the details off. I said yes but he didnt say it was flat grey, he said it was pearlescent and they said no, that car is definetly not pearlescent paint. At this point it became clear that he had been lying from the start to get me to go through the insurance. I told them that and they noted it.

A few days ago I got a letter through the post from his solicitor saying pretty much the same as the original poster's letter said. Claiming that he was severely injured, had damaged his back, his neck and chest amongst other things.

I have sent the letter off to my insurance company (as I was instructed to do in the letter) but i'm seriously considering not accepting responsibility for anything in his personal injury claim because I know for a fact that he hasnt missed a day's work since the accident and he has a very physical job being a coach.

Any advice?

peterbaker

laurz, I've read yours too and I would suggest it is much the same story as the OP's.

Ours not to reason why people change their tune. Sounds like your insurers have got a good hold of it now, so don't let it worry you further.

£300 cash might have sounded reasonable as a one off to avoid prejudicing your own insurance, but you have to be so careful thesedays - it seems that there are people out there who are quite capable of extorting a massive profit out of a mountain they erected after you bumped into their molehill.

You can supply any extra information you are privy to, to your insurers of course, but probably best to let them lead on it now, and to manage it all now since the extra damage has been alleged and we don't have a price for it. Again, the letter mentioning injury might well be a standard thing from his legal expenses insurers, and he might not be behind it. The pearlescent thing could be a simple misunderstanding....

Bossyboots

Legal expenses insurers do not just send out letters. They are solicitors who, although will be paid by the insurer, will be instructed by the insured. The insured is the client and is solely responsible for giving instructions to the solicitor. Legal expenses insurance covers the fees payable and will put the client in touch with the solicitor, but has no other involvement. They therefore cannot send out letters in anyone's name on the instruction of the insurance company.

The solicitors must therefore have been instructed by the "injured party" in both cases.

In the first case, I would have expected the whiplash injury to be obvious the next day. I would just say though that when I had my accident I did not tell the girl that hit me that I was injured. She was very upset, had not been driving long and this was her first car. I had to comfort her while her dad moved her car and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was in pain. Had she been obviously pregnant, I would have done the same thing. I did however tell her insurer the same day of the areas which were already giving me pain and it was they who told me to seek medical attention.

In the second case, I think he is trying it on and it is important to give the insurance company all the information that has been given here.

peterbaker

Bossyboots, we are talking about the legal expenses insurance add-on to motor insurance, not standalone'offensive' legal expenses insurance which you might buy as a means of starting legal action when wronged in other scenarios. The motor insurance add on used to be, and perhaps still is often marketed as an "Uninsured Loss Recovery" (ULR) service or something equally nefarious. This "add-on" has developed over the years but when launched as an insurance concept, was typically run by 'one-stop shop' type outfits whose staff were solicitors or paralegals. AFAIK, the ULR idea sprang up after solicitors were "freed" from advertising restrictions and pro-active 'ambulance-chasing' became permitted.

The profitability of 'ULR' came from these people interposing themselves between possibly injured parties and encouraging claims that might not otherwise have been made, and later on levying their 'professional fees' as part of the costs against the third party's insurers.

A development of the concept was prevalent in the late 80s, and 90s where hire cars were given to accident 'victims' in exchange for signed bits of paper allowing the "hire company" to persue the third party insurance company for the hire car charges (using solicitors of course!). You can't assume that a solicitor is necessarily an upright member of society any more! Many are after a fast buck just like anyone else!

I think you will find that completing the forms issued as a matter of course as "The Claim Form" by the main motor insurer is quite likely to include an "instruction" to the ULR service (which may be separate to the insurer or it might be 'in house') and which I think in turn is quite likely to result in 'offensive' standard letters being whistled out as a first action on any case where blame is on the other party or even slightly contentious. I received such a letter myself a couple of years ago from some outfit piggy-backing on the other drivers Elephant insurance policy. The other driver hadn't consciously contacted any solicitor - he just told Elephant I was to blame. But at the end of the day I got my excess back and my No Claims Bonus Protection remained fully intact. my insurers sorted it using the facts!

You may be right about specific opportunistic, 'offensive' instructions having been made by the 'innocent' other drivers in each of the two cases in this thread but I would be surprised if it is completely of their own volition. Either way, it is nothing for either of the 'at fault' drivers here to get uptight about as they have insurers acting for them who are perfectly big and ugly enough to deal with it for them.

funky-footprints

Bossyboots wrote:

In the first case, I would have expected the whiplash injury to be obvious the next day. I would just say though that when I had my accident I did not tell the girl that hit me that I was injured. She was very upset, had not been driving long and this was her first car. I had to comfort her while her dad moved her car and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was in pain. Had she been obviously pregnant, I would have done the same thing. I did however tell her insurer the same day of the areas which were already giving me pain and it was they who told me to seek medical attention.

In the second case, I think he is trying it on and it is important to give the insurance company all the information that has been given here.

My insurance company have confirmed with me that medical injuries have not been bought up previous to me calling them yesterday, They spoke with the lady i bumped into on day 2 and day 4 and have obviously have been in contact with her insurance firm, as the claim has now been settled, when i rang them yesterday to inform them of the solicitors letter, it was the first they had heard of it. so if she was in pain the next day or 4 days later, why didnt she mention it to my insurance company. I cant help but wonder if a friend has suggested she try it on !!!!

I think in the second case, I agree he is definately trying it on.