Hit by an uninsured driver!

JMartin

Thanks...very informative. I've sent off my uninsured losses questionnaire to the insurers today so I guess I'll have to wait until the case comes to court and hope the bloke has more money than it appears he does.

Can you confirm though...will my insurers treat this whole issue as a fault claim if they are unable to recover their losses through the courts? Hardly seems very fair if that's the case since I have two witnesses who have said I wasn't to blame.

And should I contact the police now anyway? I note from the MIB website that I should contact the police but should I do this now or only if I want to claim through MIB since I presume the police will then want to pursue a criminal case against the driver?

I guess I should be asking my insurer all of this but they have been completely useless from the start.

Astaroth

The police will decide if they want to pursue a criminal offence or not.... driving without insurance is a crime they normally pursue (easy to prove so looks good on their stats) but not always.

"Fault" as far as an insurer is concerned is them not being able to recover all their costs and therefore accidents which are your fault, hit and runs, thefts etc all are "fault" claims.

There are a few execptions, DL dont count uninsured driver accidents as fault, a number of insurers used to send letters saying at the outset that it is non-fault/ NCD wont be affected etc because they assumed there wasnt going to be an issue but then discovered that the TP was uninsured but had to honour the original letter - as you have been charged and Excess then this most likely isnt the case for you.

asea

JMartin wrote: »

Thank you both. The court action is a joint action to recover both mine and the insurers losses. They suggest that if he couldn't afford to be insured he's likely not able to afford any fine. I think I'm right in saying that the insurers losses would be recovered before mine through any payment plan that was imposed?

Asea...did you get any money from the fund? Presumably your bike was ruined and you were out of pocket at least for the cost of repair or replacement?

luckily for me (and after over a year of wrangling) my solicitors managed to get the car's insurer to admit liability (apparantly they were still liable despite the driver being uninsured - i don't understand it but that's the way it works)

I will be getting compensation but not for another year at least because that is how long it will take me (at least) to recover from the injuries that I received and to see what the damage is to my neck, shoulder & back after I have more surgery (ouch!) so fingers crossed that I'm fixed properly & that I get compensation for all the crap I've put up with because of this! I've had an interim payment but not been refunded the expenses (new bike, new helmet, time off work, medical care etc) yet.

steveeeee

JMartin wrote: »

They say it was his responsibilty and they want nothing more to do with it. They say he knew he wasn't insured and was told that he had to arrange insurance...I presume therefore that they have indemnified themselves from any blame.

Thanks for the thought though...they're a very small localised company whose owners couldn't care less about me being hit by one of their cars so I doubt they care about negative publicity.

That sounds like weasling to me . If they knew he wasn't insured, they shouldn't have let him drive it. I'm not a lawyer, but having watched one too many "Cops with Cameras" or "Police, Camera, Action" programmes, I was under the impression that them letting him do this (knowingly drive their vehicle illegally) was an offence in itself. This might be worth looking into. Anyone here know different?

Also, the link to the MIB website is http://www.mib.org.uk/MIB/

Astaroth

There are two possible offences... allowing someone to drive without insurance and "encouraging" (cant remember the correct word off hand) someone to drive without insurance.... these are however matters for the police as criminal law and have no bearing on the OPs situation which falls under civil law.