Car insurance company working on court claim

rakeshunni

Hi

I've been involved in a minor accident on july 31st 2011 involving a thrid party which was a metrocab. After paying the excess my insurance company fixed my car and i thought the third party would've also claimed from my insurance as i was doing the three point turn and it's going to be my fault.

Last tuesday i received a copy of a county court claim form where i'm the defendant and the cab driver is claiming around £4k on hire/loss of earning etc. I called up my insurance company and they said they've received the originals and has passed all the docs to their solicitors who will be working on behalf of me. They are not providing me any more details on who is working on it or when i can expect them to respond to the court claim and they're saying these are all standard procedures and will not have any impact directly to me as this claim is meant for the insurance company and not to me. I'm a bit worried because if they don.t respind to the court within 14 days, i would recieve a CCJ? I don't want to respond to the court myself as my insurance company promised me their solicitors are working on it. Also i received only a copy of it and not the originals.

Is there anyway i can ring the court directly and find out if they've responded? Do i have to do anything else other than waiting on my insurance company? I'll ring them every couple of days to find out if there's any updates.

Any advice much appreciated!

Cheers!

Lum

You're not going to get a CCJ over this. It's normal for the claimant or court to send the stuff directly to you as they have no idea who you are insured with.

As for ringing the court, was the phone number on the paperwork they sent you? otherwise yellow pages or google would be the place to go looking for a phone number.

brightonman123

I personally would lodge a response, if only to say ins co / lawyers have requested they deal..

I once worked for a firm that dallied regarding responding to a (bogus, imho!) summons, and the claimant got a judgement by default.

rakeshunni

brightonman123 wrote: »

I personally would lodge a response, if only to say ins co / lawyers have requested they deal..

I once worked for a firm that dallied regarding responding to a (bogus, imho!) summons, and the claimant got a judgement by default.

Thanks for the response. Do you mean respond to the court defending the claim? I think there are just two options on the claim form - accept claim or defend claim. My insurance company told me not to do anything.

Hintza

That is why you pay insurance. Do nothing leave it up to your insurer.

brightonman123

make sure ins.co notifies you / copies you in on any defence..

rakeshunni

Finally I've got a letter from a solicitor company both via email and post saying they are working on behalf of me as instructed by my insurance company. They said they've acknowledged proceedings on my behalf and they will prepare defence.

Hopefully they will get this sorted for me and I guess I don't need to be involved in this matter anymore? They have also given me contact details so I can find updates after few weeks..

Cheers!

tixylixslr26

:mad: I had a similar issue following an accident I had in August 2011. It was my fault and I contacted the insurance company. I was very distressed when the 3rd Party insurance contacted me, and as I suffer from a mental health problem. They said they would deal with the 3rd party claim and that they would let me know when it was done. I heard nothing else until Christmas eve 2011 when I received a Summons from Bury County Court. I panicked (like a person in my position would do) and I contacted the insurance company when I received my summons. I found out it had been outsourced to an external company, Plexus. I spoke to the gentleman at Plexus who said that he would sort it out as soon as possible. He then phone me and told me it had been sourced back to Direct Line. I spoke to Direct like and, as requested, I sent the paperwork to them. I hear nothing for a month. Next thing I know I get a letter from Bury County Court at the beginning of February telling me that as I did not respond to their summons (sorry, but I did...) the case was heard at court anyway and I now have a CCJ in my name to the cost of £1,130. I contacted the Solicitors who apologised and said that as they had heard nothing from the Insurance company they decided to pursue the claim. I spoke to the Insurance company who had outsourced the claim to an external company (this was the 3rd time they had outsourced it) called Parabis, who when I finally spoke to someone said to send the CCj letter in and they would sort it. I then phoned them up last week and found out it had been sourced back to Direct Line! I spoke to Direct Line and they said they would sort it. I suffer from an Anxiety disorder and am being treated for depression anyway so as I'm sure you understand this has caused me so much stress. Why did it get to this stage in the first place? I lodged a formal complaint and they apologised and offered me £50. Feels like a Slap in the face. What do I do, because the Financial Ombudsman says I need to decide what I want from this...