Car accident, not at fault but being penalised

boohua

I am after some advise if possible. I am currently insured by Quote Me Happy - a subsidiary of Aviva. On 11/07/2012 I was involved in an car accident. I was driving home from school with my children, my friend and her daughter in my car when we were in a head on collision with a drunk driver (he was at fault). The driver and his passengers fled the scene before the police arrived and have never been traced. The whole incident was reported to my insurance company. My car was a write off and my passengers and I all suffered injuries. I was paid out for my car within 6 weeks, we are still in the process of receiving compensation for the injuries sustained. On 24/05/13 I have received a letter from my insurance company stating:

"We refer to the above incident. Please find attached a letter from the DVLA stating that the third party vehicle was sold before the accident. The vehicle was insured by Service Insurance but as their policy holder had sold the vehicle, the third party insurers had no insurable interest at the time of the accident and therefore we have no avenue to make a recovery of your outlay.

This will mean you will have a claim against you on your policy and will need to declare this on any future insurance policies. We will also need to settle your policy holder's personal injury claim as they have submitted a claim against you."

How can I be penalised for an accident that was not my fault? I've done quotes to get rough idea of what my premium will go up to and in most cases it is double (with Quote me Happy they've quoted me £9434 for the year)!

spacey2012

It matters not if the car was sold as claimed, if the policy was inforce upon the offending car at the time and not cancelled then they will eventually have to pay out.
You should contact a the MID and request the insurance details held at that time, if someone forgot to cancel it, thats their problem.
Plenty of accident claims companies will take this forward for you.
If the offending car had insurance in force, the company underwriting it are liable.
You could try to explain this to your insurance mentioning the FOS as many times as required.

vaio

As above, get on to the MID to see if there was any policy in force on the car when it hit you.

If there was a policy in force then I think that policy will pay for all the damage/injuries (either under RTA or Article 75) and you won't have a fault claim on your record.

If there wasn't a policy attached to the car then the all the injury claims will be paid by the MIB under the untraced driver agreement. They would also pay for the damage to your car but as you have already claimed on your insurance your insurer can't then reclaim their costs from the MIB so you still end up with a fault claim. You can also claim any uninsured losses from the MIB.

thenudeone

Your insurers are wrong.

Motor insurance is governed by Acts of Parliament which over-ride any other civil matter relating to insurance (such as the need for an insurable interest)

If there is a policy in place covering the vehicle on the date of the accident then the insurer cannot avoid paying out, regardless of who was driving or whether the insured person had sold the car (and even if they have no driving licence)

The law which forces them to pay is here: s151 (2) b)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/151

You have a number of avenues available to you:
1) make a formal complaint to your insurer and robustly follow through to the Ombudsman if necessary.
2) obtain the insurers' details from askmid.com and then contact them directly pointing out that the costs involved in the claim will only increase if you have to involve solcitors
3) make a claim to MIB under the uninsured drivers agreement http://www.mib.org.uk/Submit+a+Claim/en/Default.htm
4) contact solicitors (possibly no win no fee) to progress the matter.

vaio

whilst I agree with your general thrust (the OP's insurers are wrong) I don't think s151 applies as that requires a judgement against the driver which can't happen as he hasn't been identified.

FlameCloud

I actually think the insurers are technically correct, but it will depend hugely on what type of insurer the third party is acting as.

If they act as an RTA insurer, then the op's insurer can subrogate a claim against them, whereas if they act as an Article 75 insurer (untraced drivers agreement) the op's cannot.

The third party insurer may have said to the op's that if they push the issue of subrogation, they will formally avoid the policy using s152 of the RTA, forcing them to be a Article 75 insurer and hence avoiding the subrogated claim.

The mistake the op made was to go via their own insurers- had they gone directly against the third party it would not have arisen.

dacouch

thenudeone wrote: »

Your insurers are wrong.

Motor insurance is governed by Acts of Parliament which over-ride any other civil matter relating to insurance (such as the need for an insurable interest)

If there is a policy in place covering the vehicle on the date of the accident then the insurer cannot avoid paying out, regardless of who was driving or whether the insured person had sold the car (and even if they have no driving licence)

The law which forces them to pay is here: s151 (2) b)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/151

You have a number of avenues available to you:
1) make a formal complaint to your insurer and robustly follow through to the Ombudsman if necessary.
2) obtain the insurers' details from askmid.com and then contact them directly pointing out that the costs involved in the claim will only increase if you have to involve solcitors
3) make a claim to MIB under the uninsured drivers agreement http://www.mib.org.uk/Submit+a+Claim/en/Default.htm
4) contact solicitors (possibly no win no fee) to progress the matter.

The third party ran away, unless the police arrested them or they were otherwise identified that piece of legislation is irrelevant.

If the claims had gone to the MIB, they might have passed it back to the RTA Insurers which they often do, otherwise there's nothing to force them to pay an unidentified drivers claim.

dacouch

spacey2012 wrote: »

It matters not if the car was sold as claimed, if the policy was inforce upon the offending car at the time and not cancelled then they will eventually have to pay out.
You should contact a the MID and request the insurance details held at that time, if someone forgot to cancel it, thats their problem.
Plenty of accident claims companies will take this forward for you.
If the offending car had insurance in force, the company underwriting it are liable.
You could try to explain this to your insurance mentioning the FOS as many times as required.

This does not apply if the driver was unindentified...

boohua

FlameCloud wrote: »

The mistake the op made was to go via their own insurers- had they gone directly against the third party it would not have arisen.

Sorry I don't quite understand this last bit. Having never been in an accident before I assumed I had to notify my insurance company that I had been involved in an accident and they then pursued the matter on my behalf, is this not correct?

Quentin

When you make a claim off your own policy, then it is always a "fault" claim until your insurer is reimbursed in full. Fault and no fault don't refer to "blame", but to whether or not your insurer was put to any cost.

When there is someone to blame you can normally pursue them direct rather than claim off your own policy, though not so in your case.

thenudeone

dacouch wrote: »

The third party ran away, unless the police arrested them or they were otherwise identified that piece of legislation is irrelevant.

If the claims had gone to the MIB, they might have passed it back to the RTA Insurers which they often do, otherwise there's nothing to force them to pay an unidentified drivers claim.

Fair point. I hadn't clicked that point. Sorry.

Whilst getting you own insurers involved straight away normally isn't an issue, in this example it should have become apparent quite quickly that there was no driver to claim against - i.e. once the police didn't find anyone shortly afterwards and there wasn't a registered keeper for them to knock on the door of in order to trace the driver.

In those circumstances I might have been tempted to pay for any repairs myself until I was reimbursed following a claim to MIB under the untraced drivers agreement. However, since there was personal injury to other passengers, using MIB may still not have prevented a personal injury claim against the innocent driver's policy.