Car Accident - car on wrong side of road - liability?

Bantex_2

Marktheshark wrote: »

Yes I can help you, no problem, sit down...
Other side disputes liability and it goes to court.
A barrister has to be employed to represent in court at £1750 per hour or part of for a bargain basement one.
If they lose, that is double
Calculated loss, written up, little office time and staff costs and away at £3000 if we use your figures.
Obviously your experience of the real world is some what limited.
In business loss mitigation makes the decisions.

Where did you get that figure from?

InsideInsurance

Captaincodpiece wrote: »

Did I say it has to be linked?

I said where is say must, that's law and I can't see any must in rule 186.

Ok, I miss read your post :A

InsideInsurance

Bantex wrote: »

Where did you get that figure from?

Don't burst their bubble

http://www.barristersdirect.co.uk/home/fees.asp
http://www.outertemple.com/about-us-fees/index.html

trukdiver

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The "benefit" is they avoid court. Assuming no injuries are being claimed then this almost certainly would be a small track case and as such legal costs are excluded from settlements. The numbers rarely stack up to pay £2k as a certain loss as a punt to try and get back your outlay when it may well end up in 50/50 or a loss.

What if both are insured with the same company? (given that a few insurers have high market shares)

InsideInsurance

trukdiver wrote: »

What if both are insured with the same company? (given that a few insurers have high market shares)

There needs to be a sticky on this topic.

If there is no injury/ major uninsured losses involved and both are comp cover then its arguable if there is any benefit. They still end up paying 100% of both parties insured losses as its just an accounting thing of moving monies around.

The naysayers will normally point out that the "benefit" is that both sides premiums go up as a result that both customers lose their NCD/ have had a fault claim and so the insurer gets more premium at renewal but the reality is that the customer retention rate is much lower when people have a claim where they are forced to take an unfavourable settlement and so by forcing both parties into a fault claim they massively increase the probability of losing both customers and so actually are in a worse position.

Obviously add back in uninsured losses/ injury etc and then you are into a totally different world. If one party is uninjured and the other is claiming a modest £3k (plus £1.5k of sol fees etc) for injury then they are to be in a better position by saying that the customer with an injury was 100% liable and thus avoid any major uninsured loss payments which would outweigh any increase in premium even if the customers were retained. Obviously in these cases the majority of injured parties use a solicitor and so there will be someone arguing their case for them and it goes outside of being a case where the insurer is judge, jury and executioner.

In my day, other than a few minor practicalities, there was no difference in the claims handling process other than you dont settle the TPI's losses at the end and as the TPI details were hidden in a sub page half the time you wouldnt even remember that it was a blue on blue case when you were dealing with the file. File loads ranged from 300-800 per handler depending on your specialty and so you dont remember many by name.

The FCA would also have a field day if they found any insurer was prejudicing settlements in an attempt to manipulate the balancesheet

shazzzzza

I pushed the cps and police to prosecute the driver who killed my son, THe driver was driving at approx 55mph on dipped lights. down a rural rd with no street lights so according to the Highway Code he was not driving to road conditions but did not even get 3 points. (Speed limit was 60) at that bit of road and he was driving in the middle of the road

sj77

Thanks for the discussion.. It turns out the vehicles insurance was invalid as he wasnt a named driver. However, the insurer has agreed to pay my insurer all the costs incurred but do not accept liability. So as a result my no claims bonus is being reinstated and liability will be 'no fault' on my part.

Phew :-)

weatherlobe

I can foresee loads of telephone calls coming from commission hungry claims firms offering cash upfront to handle the claim and possibly huge medical bills for the resultant whiplash treatments.

InsideInsurance

weatherlobe wrote: »

I can foresee loads of telephone calls coming from commission hungry claims firms offering cash upfront to handle the claim and possibly huge medical bills for the resultant whiplash treatments.

a) hence the lack of an admission of liability

b) You'll get them irrespective of if you've been in an accident or not. 99% of the calls are pure fishing and because they talk in vague terms "I'm calling about your accident" then you are the one that does 1 + 1 but get 334231 and give them the details "you mean the one last year?" Bingo