Fraudulent claim

MamaMoo_2

Hi, sorry if this isn't the best place to put this, I wasn't sure whether to pop it in here or motoring, so if it's best placed over there, please let me know.

7 months ago my husband slightly scraped a parked car. He of course made the owner aware and,due to the value of the damage being just £100, (based on quotes obtained at the time) he offered to pay and have it repaired privately.
The owner said she would get back to us but never did.
We saw her two weeks later with a courtesy car and said "let us know what's owed" and she said that the courtesy car was due to her all but writing her car off.
We heard nothing more until last month when hubby went to renew his van insurance, and was told that there was an active claim so he wouldn't be given his no claims. It turns out that the woman my husband had hit, in his car, was trying to claim from his van insurance and was maintaining that he had hit her in his transit van.
We have a witness in the form of a neighbour who came out just after the accident and can verify that it was indeed the car that hit her car.

My question is, what do I do? Hubby has lost his first years no claims on a vehicle that wasn't in a fault accident. She is knowingly making a fraudulent claim and I would like to see her dealt with appropriately for that.
We have never had any issue taking responsibility for this accident, and the car insurers at my end are aware (but are very dubious about paying for the damage should she contact them based on both her claim that the van hit her, the time she left it to claim and the fact that she has been in a significant accident since.)

The van insurers have investigated the damage and have said that the bumper has crumpled underneath. Now, I have photos of the damage. There's a shattered reflector at the bottom and about 3 small scratches on the bumper. No way would any "crumpling" have occurred from the impact. It was so small, there wasn't even a scratch on hubby's car.

How do we go about a) having her punished for her fraudulent claim, b) ensuring that our insurance pays out only for the damage we did, and not the damage she has allowed to occur since?

As I say, we are more than happy to pay for the damage hubby did, but no more.

Quentin

Concentrating on b).

If/when you get that sorted then a) will hopefully be dealt with by the relevant insurers.

As far as b) goes make sure your insurer is fully in the picture and won't be paying out.

McKneff

YOU cant do anything about having her punished.


You must leave it to the insurance company, that is what you pay them for.

InsideInsurance

It sounds like you know each other or are neighbours? How would they even have your vans details or insurance? Did you hubby possibly accidentally give her the van insurance details instead of the car?


Is she actually claiming directly from your insurance or has she claimed off her insurance and her insurers are making the claims against yours which would be the normal/ traditional route?


Your insurers will deal with any "fraud" as they see appropriate.


There are far too many open questions and possibilities to say what is going on and if there is anything untoward. Certainly damage to bumpers can be more substantial than thought, after all they are designed to crumple to absorb impacts. There are plenty of threads on here from people who accepted £200 for a scratch then found there was damage underneath next time it goes in for a service and how do they get that extra back etc

MamaMoo_2

Her parents live a few doors down. She was parked in our private car park, (despite having been told previously not to as she was parking in the way of people's cars, not in a bay)
She didn't take any insurance details that day, and presumably has come to get the reg after, the car hasn't been parked at home but the van has, and she's just taken the van's details and gone on from there.
She is not a particularly pleasant person, and so is just out to get a payout and cause trouble rather than doing things properly.
She is claiming herself rather than using her insurance company.
She's now adamant that the van caused the damage, and so we're getting hold of the car's black box data to prove otherwise, but I would like to see her punished for the trouble she has caused.

Our insurers are both fully in the picture, with photos of the damage and quotes for the repair of the damage that we took at the time.

Rossim1985

"she's just taken the van's details".

How would she know who the van's insurer is from just the registration number alone? You must have given her the insurance details at some point!?

OnanTheBarbarian

Rossim1985 wrote: »

"she's just taken the van's details".

How would she know who the van's insurer is from just the registration number alone? You must have given her the insurance details at some point!?

If she passed the reg number of the van onto the claims management company who have sorted her hire car etc, they will just have made an enquiry on askmid.com and gone straight to the insurers for the van.

HHarry

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

If she passed the reg number of the van onto the claims management company who have sorted her hire car etc, they will just have made an enquiry on askmid.com and gone straight to the insurers for the van.

Which I assume means that if the claim can be shown to be fraudulent she is liable for the hire car costs.

chanz4

tell them to send an assessor out to check the van, they will find it to be false

MamaMoo_2

Sorry, I hadn't seen the replies since my last post.

Firstly, the hire car she had was due to a different accident she was in with someone else where her car was significantly damaged. Not us.

I have no idea where she got the insurance details from as, according to hubby's insurers, she's dealing with this herself.

I wrote down all the car's insurance info at the time and tried to hand it to her but she refused it. It's still in hubby's glovebox to this day.

Also, all irrelevant as she's told the insurers specifically that the accident was with a van. The insurers contacted her and said "PapaMoo says the collision was with car x, not van y, is this correct" and she said "no, it was the van".

Hubby's car insurers are fully aware and have been trying to get all the info off of van insurers but they're being a bit obstructive and refusing to close the case.
We have
-a relatively impartial witness (she's our next door neighbour, but has known the woman making the claim for years and had given her permission to use a visitor's space and is willing to give evidence)
-black box data from the car
-car insurers willing to take over the claim

Unfortunately (?) no damage was done to hubby's vehicle in the accident, so couldn't prove that it hit her via that.

Zurich had a claims assessor check out the damage.

Claims assessor said there was buckling under the bumper. Is this likely to have been from a sub 5mph graze, or is it more likely this was caused in her bigger crash?

Van insurers have asked their engineer whether he thinks that the damage could have been caused by a transit, but he hasn't responded.
It's obvious it wasn't due to placement of scratches etc.

Claims assessor checking the van would make no difference as there was no damage to the car from the impact, so the same could be argued of any vehicle accused presumably?

ohreally

chanz4 wrote: »

tell them to send an assessor out to check the van, they will find it to be false

Given the time scales involved this would be futile, the van could have been repaired umpteen times in 7 months.

MamaMoo wrote: »

7 months ago my husband slightly scraped a parked car