Non fault accident - uninsured losses

danncus

Hi,

Back in Nov 09 a car ran into my van in a petrol station, which then pushed mine into a third car.

i was not in the van at the time.

I am a self employed engineer

It was a normal working day. I was delayed at the scene for an hour whilst it was sorted out. there is no question of liability.

I have spent the last 2 years trying to get compensation for the following losses

my time at the scene of collision
time and mileage for getting quotes
time and cost for telephone calls
time and mileage collecting van/ hire car

my legal team seem are indifferent to all of this and do not seem to argue my case to the other party insurer (motability)

whilst i was on the phone/driving round/writing letter i was not earning

the repairer also made my pay the VAT on the repairs as i am VAT registered, but i am on the flat rate scheme so cannot reclaim. it took a long time , but have conceeded this point.

can anyone give any advice

thanks

vaio

The sums involved aren't big enough for your legal expenses team to be interested (or they are incompetent)

I'd write a letter direct to the other insurance company listing the losses and giving them 14 days to pay failing which you will issue country court proceedings.

The VAT does seem unfair, I realise that you can't claim it back on the flat rate scheme but equally you are now out of pocket so I'd say it then becomes another consequential cost associated with the claim so I'd include it in the list of costs

InsideInsurance

As a quick response, what evidence do you have to substantiate you have lost money because of the time elements of your claim? Mileage you can almost certainly forget about especially as most insurers dont require multiple quotes etc. Telephone calls, do you have your itemised phone bill to substantiate these?

Longer response on the loss of earnings..... how much are you wanting to claim? how have you calculated this number? I am also an independant consultant and therefore if I am not working I am not earning but at the same time I do not work from 8am to 7pm monday to friday and also 8 am to 2pm on saturdays without breaks or lunches to be unable to make a phone call without declining work from my clients.

The TP are not liable for general inconvenience, they are only liable for monies lost, so you cannot say that you lost 20 minutes of pay because of a phone call made in office hours unless you can show for that day you invoiced your client for 20 minutes less than normal. An argument that time not spent with clients is time spent looking for new clients is equally going to wash fairly thin and the "rate" you are charging would need to be reduced to reflect a utilisation (eg if you say you charge at £100 an hour and spend 50% of time with clients and 50% with marketing, travel, billing and other unchargable activities your actual rate would have to be based on £50 an hour)

The VAT one is an interesting one that I dont know the answer to. First of all, did the overall invoice exceed £2,000? I know with capital purchases then even flat rate people can reclaim if the total invoice exceeds £2k but I am neither sure how it works when you are only paying the VAT element and even if it was the overall invoice if vehicle repairs would be one of the sorts of things you could claim for.

lisyloo

whilst i was on the phone/driving round/writing letter i was not earning

Did you have to do all of this during working hours?
Most of us who work 9-5 would do this during lunch breaks, evenings and weekends. If we had no alternative to make a call during working hours we'd do that and make up the time.
You probably don't work 9-5 but that doesn't mean you work 24/7 either.
I don't think it's normal/resonable to claim for all the things you are asking for.

If an employed person wanted to claim for loss of earnings we'd have to experience a loss and document it i.e. have wages deducted and be able to prove it.
If you genuinely have had no alternative but to lose business then you would have to demonstrate your losses, but you can normally get quotes, make telephone calls and pick up vehicles our of normal working hours these days. You can definitely write letters out of working hours.
I amd sure elements of your case are genuine (like the VAT loss) but I'm afraid if you try to milk it (claiming you have to write letters during working hours is milking it) then I'm afraid that is a big distraction, so I would suggest you would have a better chance if you made your case look more genuine.

danncus

Lisyloo I do not have lunch hours. It was a work van. being used for work. When would you suggest i try to sort this mess out?

danncus

inside insurance & vaio,

my previous reply has vanished.

My legal team seems very poor.

all phone calls were on my mobile and part of inclusive minutes, I would estimate I lost 3 jobs by not answering my phone (i'm a locksmith) how do you prove this?
A lot of my job is admin and web design and preparing stock and tools& equipment.

any advice on how to phrase this in a letter?

thanks

InsideInsurance

You can only claim for what you actually lost rather than "potential"

Did your phone bill therefore exceed the inclusive minutes which it normally doesnt? Certainly my bills show what the actual cost for my inclusive minutes are and then at the bottom deducts them showing what a great saving I've made

You do need to consider how much time it is going to take you -v- the amount of money you are claiming. As per previous post, realistically how much net profit are you talking about for 3 lost jobs? The preparation of letters, copies of accounts etc would all be expected to be done outside of working hours and so you wouldnt be able to increase the claim, at some point you have to decide if the time to chase makes sense or not.

If you cannot give explicit having to cancel jobs etc you can only go on the general. As a starter for 10 I would look at providing the last annual return (to give an official baseline of what your business does), a copy of the last 3 months of accounts prior to the accident (to show how you've been doing recently) and a copy of the accounts for the month(s) in question impacted. If these can come from an accountant then its better but any accountancy fees wouldnt be covered so again dont pay for it if the costs dont stack up.

In the letter you would simply state that you wish to claim £X for loss of earnings due to their clients negligence. That due to X, Y & Z you were unavailable to attend clients. Then advise how you have come to that amount cross referencing average net earnings from the evidence provided etc sort of thing.

vaio

Looking at the actual accident….if it happened at 9am on Monday and took two hours before you were on your way then call logs/business records from the Monday before or the Monday after would be good evidence of lost jobs due to the accident.

Apply the same logic to the other occasions where you were prevented from working.

To those who say you should be doing this in your lunchtime/evening for free I disagree, apart from the fact that if you are having lunch/sitting at home watching TV then it’s likely the people you need to talk to are doing the same but in any event using your free time to deal with the day to day trivia of life is OK if it’s stuff you choose to do, doing it because you are forced to by the negligence of another driver is different.

If you’d handed it over to a solicitor/claims handling firm to deal with they wouldn’t be acting for free and I can’t see any reason why you should be out of pocket if you dealing with it costs you money.

As an aside, the court rules (white & green book) used to contain something to the effect that a successful unrepresented participant could recover costs for time spent preparing their case. Back in the early ‘90s I think the hourly rate was £10 per hour plus disbursements & expenses with the proviso that the total if you did it yourself couldn’t be more than it would have been if you’d paid a solicitor to do it.

InsideInsurance

As it is clearly a small track court case if you employed a solicitor they wouldnt be able to claim the costs back from the other side as legal fees are excluded from small claims court other than in exceptional circumstances. So no they wouldnt be acting for free but you as the claimant would have to pay for them. This will also be why the LE provider isnt too interested in the case as the will most likely be doing it free of charge! That said, if they arent doing their job complain to the insurance company as the fact the job is done for free is of no relevance to your contract of insurance and they have an obligation to fullfil their obligations.

You are legally required to mitigate your claim as far as possible and so if you have the choice of turning down a £600 job to make a 30 minute call or making that call during your lunch break at no loss of earnings you would have to have a damned argument to show you did mitigate your losses other than by saying you like to sit down for a sandwich at lunch to claim back the £600.

danncus

I agree with everything you say. Although it stinks! is there any way to ask for a token payment@ even £100 would be better than nothing! would ther be inteest on the VAT owed to me?

Thanks

InsideInsurance

You can send the letter with your accounts as outlined above and ask for what you feel is the right amount. If you under egg it rather than overstate you are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt. If you take the !!!! people tend to shut down completely. At the end of the day you wont know what the TPIs response is until you attempt it but they will also decide if it is worth arguing or just paying (excluding ex gratia payments of cause which are a flat no if asked for but often given rather than arguing)