Car accident

reggie

Any advice on the following?
Had someone go into the back of my car while in traffic jam - needs about £400 work - it was a young lad who wanted to pay for it rather than get the insurance involved. So, (rather trustingly) we waited - he was in the process of applying for jobs, this has dragged on, and we still haven't received any payment. He keeps in touch and insists he will pay - we'd like to believe him but 3 months later our trust is diminishing. Not sure what our next step could be - how can we get his insurers details if he doesn't want to give them? Does our claim become invalid after a certain period? Any ideas?

mrbadexample

Contact your insurer without further delay. Who knows when (or if) you'll receive payments from this chap? Your insurer will chase his insurance company, if he has one. You don't have to do him any favours.

vikingaero

Has he given you any insurance details?

Technically you should have informed your insurance company as soon as any claim (whether blameless or not) occurred.

I would submit a claim to your insurers who will send him a letter asking for his insurance details and they may even bypass him and send a letter by tracing his insurers though the MIB database and sending them a claim direct. Then his insurers will send him a claim form. This will probably focus things more rapidly and act as a check on whether he has insurance or not.

There's nothing to stop you sending him a Letter Before Action warning him that you'll take further action in Court. 3 months is too long.

reggie

Never had this happen before, so wasn't aware that we should contact our insurers - thought it was up to the party responsible. How does it work regarding repairs, would our insurer pay and then aim to recover from his insurer? If he is not insured, would we then pay our excess and be liable for costs? Thanks. I think the guy is genuine - just in a bit of a mess financially and, if insured, probably can't afford the excess. Trouble is you end up feeling sorry for him and end up in this mess!

waster_2

Firstly are you sure he's insured? If he is a young person and has no or little income I would be suspicious of whether he has insurance at all.

You are obligated under the terms of your insurance policy to divulge to your insurer any relevant information. In this case the accident. YOU DO NOT have to claim via your insurance, that's your prerogative. If you are not claiming via your insurer make it clear that you are just informing them about the accident and not submitting a claim.

If you are not claiming via insurer they will probably not be interested in taking up the matter on your behalf. If you have legal expenses insurance as an additional policy or a bolt on they will probably assist in forming a claim against the third party.

I suggest that you now make time of the essence in closing this matter. Write, recorded delivery to the third party saying that unless you receive the amount for the repairs within a given period (say 14, 21, 28 days you chose) then you will be contacting your insurance company. If you go through your insurers and he’s not insured and they pay your repairs (less any excess on your policy) you will probably lose some NCB (remember it’s no claims NOT no blames). Taking the increased premium and the excess into account you may think it more cost effective to pay yourself? Only you can make that calculation as only you have the info and facts necessary.

Of course you can claim the excess back from the third party and your insurer can claim their costs back if he is insured or he has sufficient funds available to pay himself. But on what you’ve posted it seems unlikely.

Additionally you could say you are going to pursue him through the small claims court. But, as said above, if he has no funds even if you get a judgement you will still end up with no money.

Basically you will need to assess the situation and the likelihood of him having insurance and/r funds to enable the claim to be satisfied. Is he living at home? If so his parents may want to bail him out so as stop him getting in strife. What sort of car was he driving? If it is a decent motor then possible funds through that, otherwise I think you may have a difficult decision as to which way to go on this.

Good luck.