3rd party's insurance dispute

Straw_Hat

Hi All,
Hoping for some advice. A couple of weeks back I was driven into by another driver pulling out of a side road without looking properly. My car is only small compared to his and there was significant damage to my car (which was only a few weeks old ). As my car was still under warranty I registered the incident with my insurance company then took it back to the dealer's body shop for assessment. They have a claim management service they use so these claim managers have been dealing with everything so far. Today the claim managers have provided me with the update that the other driver's insurance is a problem. The other car was insured by company "A" but it wasn't his car and he was driving it on an extension of his own insurance provided by company "B". Now although he's admitted liability, companies A & B are arguing about who should pay for repairs to my car. The claim management service are saying that I'll need to get my insurance company to pay for repairs and then my insurance company will claim it back but can't tell me if that will leave me out of pocket. My insurance company have advised not making a claim as I'll then be liable for my excess etc. All new to me as this is my first accident but I can't see why I should need to claim on my insurance when the other party were liable and admitted it. Can anyone offer any thoughts or advice? Thanks.

InsideInsurance

Is your car still drivable? If not, are you currently in a credit hire car?

If your vehicle is still drivable and you're not in a hire car at all then you can sit and wait for the two third party insurers to decide who's going to indemnify the TP. Ambulance chasers are leaches and hate having to do work for their massive fees so I'm not surprised they're saying you should get your insurers involved who would actively pursue the two insurers and get the matter resolved.

If you are in a replacement vehicle (hire, credit hire or anything similar) because your's is undrivable then things are in a totally different area. You must mitigate your losses (ie make them as small as possible) and so cannot just drive around in a hire car for months waiting for "someone" to repair your car when you have a comprehensive policy that could do it for you.

By the sounds of it there is an RTA insurer on the vehicle so ultimately you wouldnt end up out of pocket no matter what happens.

You could ask for the leaches, sorry accident management company, to try and push the insurers of the vehicle itself to repair your car on a without prejudice basis as you are clearly the innocent party and then they can bash it out with the other TPI in their own time. Depending on who the insurers are etc they may or may not agree to it, more likely not than yes given you have comp insurance and have leaches involved but worth a try

Straw_Hat

Thanks for such a quick response InsideInsurance.
I am in a hire car at the moment as I need my car for work and my steering was damaged in the impact so the car isn't driveable (it is at the dealer's body shop still).
I must admit I had never put 2 and 2 together between "accident management company" and the ambulance chasers you mention but that has just clicked for me!

InsideInsurance

Then this is why they are saying you must claim off of your own insurance as you have a legal duty to make your claim as small as possible and obviously driving around in a hire car at the very high rates that credit hire companies charge without any attempts to get your car repaired wouldn't be meeting that requirement.

Some insurers, as a gesture of goodwill, will waive your excess in non-fault accidents but this is purely at their discretion and due to the issue over insurance for the TP they may be less willing to do this than normal.