Car accident

Lennylegs

Hi

After posting on here a few days ago about my husband looking for a new car, yesterday evening he had an accident in his car.
He was edging out into the road from being parked on the right (we live on a long straight main road) he had edged the front of the car into the road and another little car was coming up the road and they collided.

On the face of it the damage to his car doesnt look bad but given the value of the car i reckon it will still be written off (worth about 350) and the other car was a cheapie too worth about the same amount and defo looks set to be written off. Hubbie immiately apologised becasue he was pulling out from the right and insurance was swapped etc.

We thought oh well he'll lose his 3years no claims he'll have to just get a cheap runaround to keep ins down etc cos its all his fault. However speaking to dad this morning he said did she slow down at all, apparently she did but only when it was too late, at the speed he inched out she would have seen him right down the road , it was 6,30 so not too dark, both sets of lights were on and his indicator was on. But she didnt slow down til the last minute when it was inevitable they would collide and first beeped her horn when she was a couple of car lengths away but hubbie wouldnt have been able to reverse that quickly. Now husband isnt trying to shirk any blame i mean that what ins co's are there to deal with it, but would they be more likely to go 50/50 with it ? She was inexperiencd and explained that when she got out of the car thats why she didnt swerve or anything. (Our road is just one of those roads where u have to keep ur eyes open and slow down for people trying to pull out - thats just the way it is and occasionally there are bumps)

Given the value of the cars of about 350-400 would the ins co's even waste time trying to apportion blame or just pay out 50/50 ? He is with Natwest. He has 3 year NCB, does he automatically lose all 3 ? Sorry we have never had any bumps before so dont know how this works. His excess is 250 so if they went 50/50 i dont think the ins co will lose much ? If im talking rubbish please feel free to correct me ! I just want to reassure hubbie who has had somewhat a restless nights sleep. After all no-one was hurt which is the most important thing.
Thankyou
L x

DavidHM

The big problem is that even if he goes 50:50 he'll still lose all his no claims. He might be able to force her to take some blame but it'd work like this (assuming you're fully comp). It's more likely to be 2/3:1/3 in her favour.

In that case, assuming of which he would be liable for 2:3, i.e., £240 + £240 for her car = £480. Her loss is £120 for your hubby's car + £120 for her own = £240.

His NCB on renewal would normally be one year.

If he pays her off with the full £360 and doesn't claim for himself, if there is no personal injury, he loses £720 including his own car. If blame is split, he can get that cost down to £480 to "buy back" the claim.

If he claims on the insurance with 100% blame he loses only his £250 excess so he's £470 ahead (assuming fully comprehensive) plus whatever the effect is on his premiums over the next four or five years: probably about 1 1/2 years' worth of extra premiums over that time. If his premium is less than £300 per year, he's likely to be better off just paying up, taking the hit on his NCB and not buying back the claim.

If it's more, he should consider offering to settle for the car outside insurance and, whilst declaring the episode to the insurer, not making a claim and preserving his discount.

What is not likely to be a useful way to spend your time is dragging out the claim by attempting to get the insurance to settle 50:50 - the other driver will probably not settle that and you'll still lose your no claims if you win. All you'd be able to do is buy back the claim for possibly the extra cost in premiums you'd have paid anyway.

Also I have to say that if the other driver had time to respond to him, your husband should have had time to see her and respond to her also.

Astaroth

He failed to give way to a correctly proceeding vehicle when joining the road from a parked possition.... 100% liable. Whilst questions like "why didnt they swerve" etc always is mentioned etc the courts in 99% of cases will say that they shouldnt have had to have swerved as the vehicle with the greater duty of care (yours) shouldnt have forced the correctly proceeding vehicle to need to take evasive action.

On the NCD side, most insurers deduct 2 years NCD for a claim that you are in any way to blame... there are some variances if you have more than 5 years NCD but not applicable in these circs.

losgiganteskid

Yes - have to agree i'm afraid fault accident. If you look at the circumstances and put them the other way round where your husband was on the main road and a third party pulled out from a parked position would your hubby expect to shoulder some of the blame ? - especially when the driver of the car pulling out apologised - which you should never do in any event. Different insurers take different aproaches to allowance or non allowance of ncb - it will tell you exactly the position in your policy document.

Lennylegs

Hi
Thanks for the replies.

He's just rung the insurance company who have confirmed that only 2 years NCD will be lost. They say they think they will try and pursue some of it as her fault since he was literally nudging the car into the road and stopping she could have easily avoided him or at least slowed a bit but anyways at the end of the day even if they don't decide on that it shouldn't matter too much because he will keep his 1st years NCD which is normally the 30% i think.

Quick Q - do they normally take the value of the car from parkers or somewhere like that or actually look at you car and decide what it was worth before the accident? As you can tell i have no experience of these matters.:o

Thank you
L x

Lennylegs

P.s forgot to add, she apologised too for not slowing down even though she had seen he was trying to nudge out slowly to see if anything was coming.
Do you never ever apologise then ? I thought it was just a case of not admitting liability ? Sorry for all the Q's.

Astaroth

You can do what ever you want at the scene of the accident re liability/ apologising etc as it all gets discredited as being high stress situation. Add to that the fact lots of people dont know the laws around liability and finally a something spoken is worth the paper it is written on unless you have an independant witness who can confirm it was stated but then read point 1 and 2 again. Admitting you were giving misleading signals etc is different but again needs someone independant to witness it otherwise it is one persons word against another

It depends on the insurer. Most insurers will view the vehicle, either in person or by their approved repairs sending images and then base the valuation on the likes of the glasses guide (parkers is generally only used for older cars that are no longer in glasses) and the preaccident condition of the vehicle/ modifications/ mileage etc.

Some insurers for old cars wont bother inspecting it and just go for an above average condition and below average mileage - if you have say a 1982 fiesta the price difference between A1 and poor condition is most likely less than the cost of an engineer visit/ pick up cost etc