Car insurance - Who was at fault here?

signalnorth

Recently when backing out of our drive I hit a car on the road. I was backing out extremely slowly as there was a number of parked cars and wheelie bins badly obscuring our sightlines. The car we hit was traveling about 40mph in a 20mph area and did not stop and did not return . We reported the accident to the Police. Our insurers say that the accident was my fault and we therefore have to pay the excess. I feel that as we took every care in the given situation this seems rather unfair. Any thoughts?

Quentin

Your insurer is correct.


Who do you want to pay your excess anyway? Your insurance doesn't cover it!


(Unless you have protected NCD that will be impacted too by this fault claim - and from what you say you were to blame anyway)

InsideInsurance

The courts will almost certainly say that the reversing party is to blame, particularly in this circumstance as not only are you reversing but you are attempting to join a road as well.

The TP from what you say was a correctly proceeding vehicle with right of way. Speed in itself is not negligent unless there are extreme weather circumstances or road layouts and even then it would only make them partially responsible.

Buellguy

Insurer is correct
However, what's the betting the third party was uninsured/drunk/on the phone/in a stolen car? as they didn't stop

InsideInsurance

Buellguy wrote: »

Insurer is correct
However, what's the betting the third party was uninsured/drunk/on the phone/in a stolen car? as they didn't stop

Depends on how light/ heavy the impact was and what the other vehicle was. If its just a clipped mirror on an ancient battered old car then it may simply not be worth their while stopping in their opinion. With loud music on they may not even have been aware.

With bigger heavier vehicles its more common for them to not notice accidents but still have had normal family cars where the policyholder has said they though they had just hit a pothole or raised ironworks etc and didnt realise another vehicle was involved.

sinizterguy

Your fault.

Excess is to be paid your car is being repaired.

If other party was at fault, you could have recovered it from their insurance.

InsideInsurance

sinizterguy wrote: »

If other party was at fault, you could have recovered it from their insurance.

If the other party was to blame an attempt to recover the excess and insurer outlay. On the basis it was a hit and run, if the other driver remained unidentified then it would still be a "fault" claim unless your insurer is one of the minority with a "promise" around this sort of thing.

fannyadams

you say '"The car we hit" and "We reported the accident to the Police"
SO, if there was someone else available to act as a 'banksman' that is someone who could stand in the road and check for traffic and indicate to you that it was safe to manoeuvre and possibly warn other traffic that you were manoeuvring, then why didn't they do this?
https://www.gov.uk/using-the-road-159-to-203/reversing-200-to-203
"Get someone to guide you if you cannot see clearly."
If you had taken reasonable steps to perform the

Buellguy

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Depends on how light/ heavy the impact was and what the other vehicle was. If its just a clipped mirror on an ancient battered old car then it may simply not be worth their while stopping in their opinion. With loud music on they may not even have been aware.

With bigger heavier vehicles its more common for them to not notice accidents but still have had normal family cars where the policyholder has said they though they had just hit a pothole or raised ironworks etc and didnt realise another vehicle was involved.

All true, probably just my cynical head on LOL

dacouch

InsideInsurance wrote: »

If the other party was to blame an attempt to recover the excess and insurer outlay. On the basis it was a hit and run, if the other driver remained unidentified then it would still be a "fault" claim unless your insurer is one of the minority with a "promise" around this sort of thing.

Which Insurers have a promise on excess or ncd for an unidentified hit and run accident?

[Deleted User]

How do you know they were doing 40 MPH? How did you measure their speed?