hit by a foreign truck

InsideInsurance

Being third party there is no cover for damage to their own vehicle hence the insurers disinterest. If however your friend has Legal Expenses insurance then they should ask for representation to be assigned under that and they will pursue the TP on his behalf.

Unfortunately the claim will take a long time, with foreign vehicles the MIB has to be involved - you/ your representative write to the MIB, the MIB writes to the equiv of the MIB in the country of the country where the vehicle is, they do work to identify the insurer, policy number and the UK representative of that insurer and write back to the MIB to advise the same, the MIB then write to you or your representatives advising the same.

You or your representatives then write to the UK representative of the TPI and depending on the level of authority delegated they either handle the claim in full on behalf of the foreign insurer or act as little more than a messaging service sending everything back to the insurer (often by post) and awaiting instructions to come back.

xoleeb

he is third party only insured - if he wants the insurance company to work for him then he should have had fully comprehensive...

mambo69 wrote: »

A friend at work was hit on the M42 on his way to work this morning by a Romanian lorry. He is only 3rd party insurance and when he rang up his insurance company they appear to not be interested


As his car is a write off what can he do to at least get his insurance company to do something for the policy he paid for? if it was a UK lorry then I am sure they would claim off the lorry insurance so do they not have a duty regardless of where the lorry is from?


cheers all

mambo69

he has all the vehicle details, i also found on the MIB database that a manchester based company are the UK representative for the Italian insurer

Notmyrealname

Usually claims with foreign hauliers goes straight forward although as said, it does take longer. Unlike up to 20% of car drivers in this country, at least they're insured.

mambo69

I found the details of the MIB for a UK representative based in Manchester, my Friend rang them yesterday and is sending all the details of the accident, pictures etc along with the bill of £150 for towing his car of the motorway and they have said they will then deal with the Italian insurance company and get back to him

From what he said they semed very helpful so I am hoping he gets a good conclusion

londonTiger

wow i didnt know that, its not really worth getting 3rd prty cover for the sake of saving £150 or so quid then is it?

im sure a claims company would be glad to help if it was a non-fault claim and the other vehicle was british. but i dont think a uk claims company will be able ro get an italian insurer to agree on £100 a day car hire and excessive repair cost

londonTiger

Notmyrealname wrote: »

Usually claims with foreign hauliers goes straight forward although as said, it does take longer. Unlike up to 20% of car drivers in this country, at least they're insured.

i dont beleive that, i think the uninsured driver bs is created to scare people into paying more for their premiums (and to sell insurance with cover with no NCB loss from acccidents with uninsured cars). it's simply not possible to drive around without insurance. I think insurance is required for mot/council car parking or something along those lines (cant remember exactly), and uninsured vehicles turn up on police scanners, and get detected before too long.

Lum

londonTiger wrote: »

it's simply not possible to drive around without insurance. I think insurance is required for mot/council car parking or something along those lines (cant remember exactly), and uninsured vehicles turn up on police scanners, and get detected before too long.

Sorry but this is simply not true.

Yes it is legally required, but there are plenty of people who ignore this requirement.

Stolen cars are the most obvious one, though if the stolen car was insured then the insurers do pay out. If you steal a car that's been SORNed on someone's drive way then it will be totally uninsured.

Police scanners? These just work on checking the numberplate against a database, so if you steal say, a red Mk4 VW Golf all you need to do is search autotrader for another red Mk4 VW Golf that has the numberplate visible, check on askmib if it's insured and then stick that plate on your car. Police scanners are now totally defeated, as are speed cameras.

And, of course, there are those people who simply forget to renew. Even the continuous insurance scheme gives an effective grace period on this one.

In some areas, where insurance is particularly high (e.g. central Bradford where it's so high because of all the uninsured drivers in that area causing a lot of claims) some people find the risk of getting caught without insurance to be a fair trade off against the cost of insurance.

londonTiger

Lum wrote: »

Sorry but this is simply not true.

Yes it is legally required, but there are plenty of people who ignore this requirement.

Stolen cars are the most obvious one, though if the stolen car was insured then the insurers do pay out. If you steal a car that's been SORNed on someone's drive way then it will be totally uninsured.

Police scanners? These just work on checking the numberplate against a database, so if you steal say, a red Mk4 VW Golf all you need to do is search autotrader for another red Mk4 VW Golf that has the numberplate visible, check on askmib if it's insured and then stick that plate on your car. Police scanners are now totally defeated, as are speed cameras.

And, of course, there are those people who simply forget to renew. Even the continuous insurance scheme gives an effective grace period on this one.

In some areas, where insurance is particularly high (e.g. central Bradford where it's so high because of all the uninsured drivers in that area causing a lot of claims) some people find the risk of getting caught without insurance to be a fair trade off against the cost of insurance.

do you have any actual statistic on the number of uninsured cars in UK actually driving around?

I don't know anything about Bradford, I live in London and we dont have theives nicking cars - well not the bog standard cars below 5 grand, they wont get too far without being spotted. Plus there's not many places you can go for joyriding either. I understand some towns like bradford, hull are as decrepit as former soviet bloc industrial towns, so rules are different there I suppose.

Most high value cars stolen are for parts, or export to other countries, so they get nicked and driven straight to a dodgy breakerrs (prolly).

But it sounds like my guess is as good as yours, none of us have exact data.

My hunch is the risk of uninsured drivers is exaggerated to scare normal road users who pay insurance, and get additional uninsured no claims cover.

regarding the database thing

1) anyone driving around in a stolen vehicle without a care in the world is an idiot
2) anyone who has their cars stolen and doesn't report it to the police and dvla/insurers is an idiot.

Lum

1) Plenty of criminals do this all the time and get away with it. The ANPR systems are most effective at catching the generally law abiding citizen who makes an honest mistake than they are at catching career criminals.

2) Not always. If the stolen car is a £100 banger, because that's all you can afford, then reporting the theft to the insurance is just going to increase your premiums when you replace the car. They're certainly not going to pay out because your excess is going to be higher than what the car is worth.

Yes report it to the police because otherwise you'll be liable for the tax and speeding tickets but I can totally understand why someone wouldn't want to report it to the insurance.

As for statistics, here's some from August this year:

http://www.insurancechoice.co.uk/latest-news/bradford-and-birmingham-worst-places-for-uninsured-drivers