Car Insurance WHIPLASH Claim

omg_3

My son's car was hit by a van. The van driver has admited to the insurance that it was his fault (the van drivers) My son has been to the doctor who said he has whiplash. How does he persue a claim please?

li'l_p

Get in touch with a solicitor.

If the accident was not your son's fault they will pursue it as a 'non-fault' claim. He won't have to pay anything as the solicitor will claim all of their costs from the other guy's insurance company. The solicitors will, or should, take care of everything. You will only have to fill in forms initially, they will do the rest.

He may need to notify his own insurers for reporting purposes only, however make it clear that he does not wish to make a claim and that he will appoint his own solicitor. Your solicitor will be able to tell you anyway.

The solicitors will arrange for your son to attend a medical assessment in about 6 months time, this is to assess his recovery from the time of incident. Thsi also helps to give an indication of the level of compensation that the solicitors will seek.

You will also have the vehicle assessed by an independent vehicle assessor (like the Company I work for) who will assess the damage and provide a report regarding the vehicle value and assessed repair costs.

Other than the above the solicitors will take care of everything. I have had a few non-fault bumps in my time and I also work in this area too.

Hope this helps...

melbury

I was hit by another car recently, ran into the back of me when I was stationary waiting to go onto a roundabout. I decided not to claim through my insurance but to use the legal protection cover solicitors and claim direct through the other persons insurance, so I wouldn't have anything showing up on my policy, even though it is a no fault.

Trouble is it is now nearly five weeks since the accident and nothing seems to be happening. I was told that this way of claiming takes longer than just going through your own insurance, but how long? Anyone have experience of this way of claiming - advice would be appreciated.

iceicebaby

melbury wrote:

I was hit by another car recently, ran into the back of me when I was stationary waiting to go onto a roundabout. I decided not to claim through my insurance but to use the legal protection cover solicitors and claim direct through the other persons insurance, so I wouldn't have anything showing up on my policy, even though it is a no fault.

Trouble is it is now nearly five weeks since the accident and nothing seems to be happening. I was told that this way of claiming takes longer than just going through your own insurance, but how long? Anyone have experience of this way of claiming - advice would be appreciated.

You must still declare this incident to your insurers. They need to know "Any accidents or incidents in the last 5 years regardless of blame and whether or not the subject of an insurance claim" Failiure to tell then could lead to your policy being voided as you have not disclosed all "material facts"

li'l_p

melbury wrote:

I was hit by another car recently, ran into the back of me when I was stationary waiting to go onto a roundabout. I decided not to claim through my insurance but to use the legal protection cover solicitors and claim direct through the other persons insurance, so I wouldn't have anything showing up on my policy, even though it is a no fault.

Trouble is it is now nearly five weeks since the accident and nothing seems to be happening. I was told that this way of claiming takes longer than just going through your own insurance, but how long? Anyone have experience of this way of claiming - advice would be appreciated.

Yes, unfortunately accident claims take months. It will seem like nothing's happening but basically insurance companies don't rush. Things like the vehicle assessment take place pretty quick purely because they have to mitgate your losess, i.e. ensure that the length of time you are off the road is kept to a minimum. Also, they can't send you for a medical examination until 6 months has elapsed as they can't assess your recovery time until this time.

Mum_on_a_mission_2

May I jump in with a question too? Again my solicitors seem slow to get off the ground (through Company insurers)

Does this mean nothing can be paid out for a whiplash claim before 6 months?

I was involved in a car crash beginning of Feb, and have paid out £600+ on physio already, and frankly am running out of money.

Moam

mattymoo

You could ask them to look for an interim payment to cover what is known as "special damages". This is the cost of repairs to your car, hire car costs etc. If these amounts are already known and liability is not disputed, the other side could make a payment now with injury damages (also known as general damages) to be assessed later.

They are unlikely to pay the physio costs at this stage because they do not know whether it was needed. There is absolutely no point obtaining a medical report at this stage because it is too early to give a firm prognosis, besides which, many medical experts have a 2-3 month waiting list.

Astaroth

If you have legal expenses insurance you should claim through this for your injury. Your insurers will suggest using one of their panel solicitors but you are entitled to appoint your own under the policy as long as your solicitor is willing to sign up to the terms and conditions of the policy - the advantage of using your insurers panel is that they will have processes in place for communicating with each other and if things do go wrong then you can complain to either. If things go wrong with your own solicitor it is purely down to you to sort it out with them because they were your choice and not under contract with the insurer.

Not claiming from your insurance does nothing for you other than possibly prevent having to pay the excess and claim it back. It will make the claim slower if going though LE cover - if you go through the TPI directly it may or may not affect the speed depending who the two insurers are.

You have to inform your insurers of the claim anyway even if you are not claiming off your policy so basically you have paid them to handle claims for you but then not used that service... not very money saving

melbury

Don't really understand this, I was told by my insurance company and the garage who will undertake the repair that provided I claim direct from the other persons insurance and do not involve my own insurance company, then there is no need to declare anything. My own insurance company were informed of the incident but are not actually doing anything. I may or may not change insurance companies when my renewal is due, but as stated above, it is my understanding that I do not need to declare anything because I haven't done anything wrong or made any form of claim from them.

Astaroth

Well, you have already declared it to your own insurers so no problem on that front. If you switch insurers you must answer their questions fully and honestly, as you will see from the quote by iceicebaby most insurers do ask about ANY accident and therefore you declare it as a non-fault accident.

Insurers dont like having to deal with non-fault accidents as whilst they get the money they pay out for the repairs etc back they cannot claim back the cost in handling the claim (postage, staff costs, buildings, telephone costs etc) and some insurers do push you to claiming direct from the other party or your LE cover as to avoid them having to pay out on these irrecoverable elements.... other insurers however see it as an opportunity to show how good their service is (or not give the opposition the chance to show how good they are) to try and retain your business next year. When I first started handling claims I dealt with cases where our PH was 100% to blame and a very large proportion of our third parties asked us for quotes on their insurance when it was due as they had been so impressed with our handling of their claims

melbury

Astaroth wrote: »

Well, you have already declared it to your own insurers so no problem on that front. If you switch insurers you must answer their questions fully and honestly, as you will see from the quote by iceicebaby most insurers do ask about ANY accident and therefore you declare it as a non-fault accident.

Insurers dont like having to deal with non-fault accidents as whilst they get the money they pay out for the repairs etc back they cannot claim back the cost in handling the claim (postage, staff costs, buildings, telephone costs etc) and some insurers do push you to claiming direct from the other party or your LE cover as to avoid them having to pay out on these irrecoverable elements.... other insurers however see it as an opportunity to show how good their service is (or not give the opposition the chance to show how good they are) to try and retain your business next year. When I first started handling claims I dealt with cases where our PH was 100% to blame and a very large proportion of our third parties asked us for quotes on their insurance when it was due as they had been so impressed with our handling of their claims

So basically I have done it this way for absolutely nothing. I was given the wrong advice and I will have to state when getting renewal premiums that there has been a claim - I am totally ****** off about this. I am also a named driver on my husband's insurance policy, so presumably I have to do the same when getting his renewal quotes as well. What is the point, I might as well have let my insurance company slog it out and had everything sorted out quickly.