Car accident and phone call from legal company

littlemoney

Not sure if this is the correction section to post this, but here goes.

Two weeks ago a car overtook me as I was turning right. My car is a write off. I have had a phone calll from Cogent Law asking if I am all right following the accident. Physically I am fine but psychologically I am not.

My insurer have passed my name to this company. Does anyone know anything about these things. I am very much in the dark as this is my first accident in many years of driver

neilmcl

Sounds like the usual ambulance chasers seeing if you want to claim for injury.

MEM62

You will find that after an accident your details will be sold on to various so-called 'claims handlers', 'lawyers' and other such organisations. Sometimes by your insurers and sometimes by other parties involved such as the recovery company or repair shop. Most are little more than ambulance chasers looking to persuade you make claims for whiplash and other injuries - whether they are genuine or not!

You will receive quite a few calls and txt messages over the coming months. I still get them because of an accident I had almost two years ago.

Foxy-Stoat_3

MEM62 wrote: »

You will find that after an accident your details will be sold on to various so-called 'claims handlers', 'lawyers' and other such organisations. Sometimes by your insurers and sometimes by other parties involved such as the recovery company or repair shop. Most are little more than ambulance chasers looking to persuade you make claims for whiplash and other injuries - whether they are genuine or not!

You will receive quite a few calls and txt messages over the coming YEARS . I still get them because of an accident I had almost two years ago.

Corrected that for you !!

InsideInsurance

MEM62 wrote: »

You will receive quite a few calls and txt messages over the coming months. I still get them because of an accident I had almost two years ago.

The true ambulances cold call without knowing if you've ever even had an accident but use intentionally leading scripts to make it sounds as if they do but they are just gathering info from you.

I get these calls all the time and have never been in a non-fault accident in my life.


If you have legal expenses insurance on your motor insurance then your insurers will have passed your details on to their chosen solicitor firm of which Cogent is one such company. They will deal with any of your uninsured loss recovery such as your excess, hire car or personal injury.

If you dont have legal expenses then your insurers may still pass your details across however the solicitors will only take on the case if you will be fitting into the higher tracks of the court as otherwise they dont get paid.

Search here and on the Insurance board as there have been a couple of threads on Cogent recently.

BertTheRaccoon

But why are a law firm - i.e. Cogent Law - cold calling somebody? They need reporting to the SRA for this as it is a breach of Rule 7 of the Solicitor's Conduct Code.

No insurer should be passing details to a lawyer for the lawyer to then make a call as this is cold calling and a referral fee can not be paid for this either.

InsideInsurance

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

But why are a law firm - i.e. Cogent Law - cold calling somebody? They need reporting to the SRA for this as it is a breach of Rule 7 of the Solicitor's Conduct Code.

No insurer should be passing details to a lawyer for the lawyer to then make a call as this is cold calling and a referral fee can not be paid for this either.

The OP says their insurers passed their details to them. It could well be that the insurer did mention it to the OP either it being passed as a referral under their Legal Expenses cover or as a non-LE referral if the OP said they were injured in some way.

We all know that when someones just had a crash and their speaking to their insurers who are trying to do everything all in one call that the insured doesnt remember every single bit

McKneff

Were you injured.

I got a call yesterday re our 'accident, which was some one elses fault, from 3 years ago and we weren't even in the car when It was hit.

GAZ237

littlemoney wrote: »

Not sure if this is the correction section to post this, but here goes.

Two weeks ago a car overtook me as I was turning right. My car is a write off. I have had a phone calll from Cogent Law asking if I am all right following the accident. Physically I am fine but psychologically I am not.

My insurer have passed my name to this company. Does anyone know anything about these things. I am very much in the dark as this is my first accident in many years of driver

Basically they will do their best to talk you into making a claim for something.

Its claims companies making fraudulent claims which cost everyone of us, increased insurance premiums.

BertTheRaccoon

GAZ237 wrote: »

Its claims companies making fraudulent claims which cost everyone of us, increased insurance premiums.

Correction - it is insurance companies selling people's details onto claims companies and law firms or having Alternative Business Structure agreements with law firms (to get around the referral fee ban) that give rise to the volume of claims, which may push up premiums

littlemoney

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The OP says their insurers passed their details to them. It could well be that the insurer did mention it to the OP either it being passed as a referral under their Legal Expenses cover or as a non-LE referral if the OP said they were injured in some way.

We all know that when someones just had a crash and their speaking to their insurers who are trying to do everything all in one call that the insured doesnt remember every single bit

I probably don't remember that bit of the phone call as it was only 15 minutes after the accident and I was very upset at the time.

I am trying to find my last insurance details to see if I have legal cover. I amy have opted out to save money. Just my luck after years of paying it if I have opted out.

I phoned Cogent Law and was told someone would ring me back shortly. 7 hours later I was still waiting for the call. Perhaps they will not bother as I said was OK physically but not psychologically, so they may think they have nothing to pursue to make money out of.