Insurance letter what are they after?

terry999

Hi

I hit a pothole which caused about £240 amount of damage.

I contacted local council they passed me on to their insurance firm.

The last letter from their insurance company said they admit liability in relation to breach of statutory duty. but reserve position on causation and contributory negligence.

They want to know if I reported the damage to my insurance company if not why not?

I didn't want to make a claim because I have an excess amount and also no claims bonus.

What should I answer here..

Thanks

SteveFromAccounts

You should report all incidents to your insurer that could give rise to a claim - so yes, you should have told them. Having an incident (such as) hitting a pothole could, in theory, result in you claiming, losing your bonus etc. and therefore constitutes a material fact (such as changing job, your address, number of miles travelled per year). Even if you consider it not your fault, unfortunately.

Not sure what you should respond, as their insurers should treat this incident separately.

Hope this is helpful

System

terry999 wrote: »

Hi

I hit a pothole which caused about £240 amount of damage.

I contacted local council they passed me on to their insurance firm.

The last letter from their insurance company said they admit liability in relation to breach of statutory duty. but reserve position on causation and contributory negligence.

They want to know if I reported the damage to my insurance company if not why not?

I didn't want to make a claim because I have an excess amount and also no claims bonus.

What should I answer here..

Thanks

I'm not sure that the two sentences in the letter are related in any way.

The sentence "... they admit liability in relation to breach of statutory duty but reserve position on causation and contributory negligence" may be related to the council having a duty to keep the road in a good state of repair, but if the pothole was caused by one of the utility companies or other third party digging up the road and not repairing the hole to the council's specifications, then the insurer may be saying that they will want to share responsibility for the payout with another insurer for that third party.

The sentence "They want to know if I reported the damage to my insurance company if not why not?" could be just to inform you that you should have informed your own insurance company of the incident. Or, if they have asked you a question and want you to reply to the letter with a "Yes or No" response and give them your own insurance company name, then I'm not sure what their motives could be, unless they want to check that you are not making the same claim via your own policy, to prevent you from receiving more than one payout for the incident - maybe ?

terry999

Thanks

A little confused as to what to reply.

JDC14

"Causation" is part of law terminology and is basically their loophole.

They can claim that it wasn't a chain of events caused by them that led to the pothole and it'll be difficult to prove otherwise. Try and find dates from them from when they road last had any maintenance work which would involve resurfacing any part of that road. If it's been a long time you could probably claim causation is irrelevant and put it down to wear and tear, in a civil case it may be considered reasonable by a judge that, that level of damage could be caused by general, lawful use. However, they can say general utility workers or road users caused the damage by not using the road lawfully or complying with standards set, therefore the council have done everything they reasonably can to prevent potholes and the damage to your car.