Another accident - liability

captainawsome

Hi everyone. Long story short last Monday on our way to work a driver failed to stop at a give way and hit my NSR wheel, they tried to drive away but I managed to catch up with them shortly after. My car is a write off and me and my fianc! arnt in the best of states (not a normal 'blame there's a claim' rubbish, I'm not into all that. I've a twisted muscle and can't bend down and my better half has been sent for x rays on her neck, awaiting results).

Anyway....we are both with LV and have been told today the driver has not admitted liability. The nearside front bumper of his car hit my nearside rear wheel directly causing extensive suspension damage. Insurers now tell me the case will be 'investigated' and may end up a 50/50 depending on the investigation. I'm Quite worried by this as its 100% his fault, he even said he didn't see me when we spoke!

My questions are 1) is it standard practice to deny fault? 2) are these 'investigations' thorough or will they just push it aside as 50/50 for ease? 3) when I reported the accident LV waved (sp?)!my excess and gave me a hire car. If it is 50/50 wil I have to pay that, as its not on my policy.

As always, any help much appreciated.

AdrianC

So he was coming out of a T-junction, across a give-way, and his NSF bumper hit your NSR wheel THAT hard?

He's going to have to go some to spin that as being anything other than 100% his fault. Short of him lying about the location completely, it's only going one way. Relax.

force_ten

LV are a bunch of idiots their insurance is cheap and so is their service

I wont go into detail as it is personal, but i wouldn't insure a shopping trolley with this bunch of jokers

captainawsome

Thanks for your replies. Adrian yes, he was not stopped at the junction waiting, he just didn't stop at all, nearly spun the car around. I think as you say the only way he can try to worm his way out of it is to say I wasn't where I actually was etc. it's just the fact that LV have the power to say "yes, that's 50/50, end of dicussuon" that I don't like. Along with the fact that he denied liability in the first place obviously.

AdrianC

If they do say "50/50", that's not necessarily the end of it.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-insurance.html#2a

captainawsome

Thanks Adrian. I really REALLY hope it doesn't have to go that far. Hopefully common sense (yes, that is still a real thing. Apparently) will provale.

Richard53

And keep making the point that he tried to drive away afterwards and you had to go after him. Given the damage to your car, he can hardly say he didn't notice the bump. Leaving the scene of an accident without first exchanging details - naughty naughty.

haz25a

Similar thing happened to me recently. Me and another car "bumped" whilst reversing out of parking spaces in a supermarket car park although I had already reversed out first and was on the "main" part of the road first. We both drove back into spaces after bump. He came over and said "Sorry, I just didn't see you" i.e. admitted liability. I grabbed a witness who heard him say this and got his details.

Turns out we were both with same insurance company AND his wife, who was the main insurer (he was a named driver on policy) worked for them!

I had to pay excess for courtesy car initially whilst it was being investigated. He denies admitting liability. My witness sent in statement. I kept phoning and repeating that I would take it to court if other driver was not found liable.

Got a text, yes a text, few weeks later telling me driver had admitted liability and had my excess refunded.

Keep on at them. I don't think I would have got my excess back if I hadn't kept mentioning taking it to court. The witness statement helped of course.

Good Luck.

InsideInsurance

captainawsome wrote: »

My questions are 1) is it standard practice to deny fault? 2) are these 'investigations' thorough or will they just push it aside as 50/50 for ease? 3) when I reported the accident LV waved (sp?)!my excess and gave me a hire car. If it is 50/50 wil I have to pay that, as its not on my policy.

Claims departments tend to be split into a number of specialisms from the guys that have the least training/ experience who do field most the customer telephone calls and do the initial registration all the way through to the people who deal with multi-million pound personal injury claims who normally sit in the litigation team. My guess based on the comment is that you were talking to one of the first response guys who is pretty much just winging it

1) Depends, some people do, some insurers do, it can also be a case that simply the TPI are not in a position yet to comment on liability and the person you spoke to has interpreted that as a denial.

2) Define thorough? We've already had a long thread this week that some think insurers investigations are too thorough and a waste of money. Certainly you get many more cases where a PH complains that they are not thorough enough.

In practice there is rarely that much that can be "investigated". Step one is simply going to be a case of getting the third party's version of events and compare it to your own. Assuming they are different then get your comments on their version, look at the damage to both vehicles/ road layouts etc and see if these really support one version over the other, see actually who'd be liable in the TP's version as I've had cases where they were different but their version still made them 100% liable

3) Check what the "hire car" is. My guess would be that LV haven't given you a hire car but have passed (aka sold) your details to a credit hire company which means the car is given to you under a credit agreement with the car hire company intending to recover their outlay from the third party insurer. If this is the case the vehicle handover form that you signed would normally have a credit agreement on the reverse.

In most cases credit hire companies swallow the loss of claims that end up being a split liability situation, with their day rates being 2-3 times normal hire fees they can afford to. However if they found you had intentionally lied about the circumstances to get the car etc then they may recover their costs from you (eg you allege the TP jumped the lights but its you not the TP that are successfully prosecuted for going through red)

If you have concerns/ didnt keep the documents you signed from them then speak to the hire company to confirm the situation.



Assuming this is a T junction collision with the TP emerging from the side road with you on the main road there is very little they can claim that will change the liability decision short of claiming the accident happened 1,000% differently which is very rare

captainawsome

Thanks for all your help guys. I will keep this updated over the next few days as I hear anything. Thanks again

fivetide

How did you manage to chase them in a wrecked car though? That must have been fun!