What to do after minor incident

GJ_WRX

Hi all

My wife was driving round a fairly busy roundabout on Wednesday when a metal office chair fell from the back of transit tipper type vehicle and hit the side of her car. As it was busy she kept going expecting the van to stop but it didn't. I would imagine the driver didn't see or hear it falling so would not be aware.

She was able to get its reg number and says it was a highways agency vehicle (although I suspect it just said highway maintenance on the back like hundreds of civil engineer vehicles).

She reported it to the police firstly to let them know their is a chair in the middle of the road and to also let them know the the driver didn't stop. They weren't interested in the accident itself but took notes of the location to find the chair, gave her a ref number, told her to visit our local police station to report the accident and gave her the highway agency number.

She called the highways agency and they were absolutely no help and wouldn't even check to see if that was one of their vehicles.

The resulting damage to the car is a dent about the size of a can of coke to the rear door. The car itself is only an 08 Peugeot 207.

I know we need to tell our insurance but I'm a bit hesitant to make a full claim as despite us both driving company cars for years this is our first own car and as such we've had to start out with zero no claims (although did get a discount with letter from our employers). I also suspect the if we make a claim our insurer will simply put it through as an at fault claim as it's too much work to find the other party.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can find out who owns this vehicle? And even if I do what are the chances of the admitting up to anything and allowing us to claim from them?

Or should I just forget about it and worry about something else.

Thanks

Spicy_McHaggis

Have a look here and claim direct off the third party.

http://m.askmid.com/mt/www.askmid.com/mobile/


Are you sure it weren't tatters in the van?

InsideInsurance

It wont be too much effort to claim off the TP/TPI, its a couple of keystrokes to request the owners details from the DVLA and get the insurance details from MID

How far they will decide to go if it turns out that the third party deny involvement in the incident is another matter and will come down to evidence (yours, the company's and any police report)

Money_maker

There ought to be some recourse from this. What if it had hit a cyclist or pedestrian? The police report should strengthen your case.

GJ_WRX

Hi, thanks for all the replies. I've check on the MID link (thanks Spicy Mchaggis) but it's not coming up. I'd have thought being a work vehicle it will be part of some huge company policy.

I've check the dvla site and can get the owners details by posting a form off. Seems like a laborious task to get some relatively simple info.

Think it's worth calling a non fault company or is that a world of grief?

InsideInsurance

GJ_WRX wrote: »

Hi, thanks for all the replies. I've check on the MID link (thanks Spicy Mchaggis) but it's not coming up. I'd have thought being a work vehicle it will be part of some huge company policy.

I've check the dvla site and can get the owners details by posting a form off. Seems like a laborious task to get some relatively simple info.

Think it's worth calling a non fault company or is that a world of grief?

A commercial policy still has to have all its vehicles listed on MID but they have 14 days to do so and may frequently roll vehicles on and off cover as long as they are obeying all other rules about SORN etc. Its the policyholders obligation to do this though rather than the insurers

Your insurers will be able to do both electronically rather than form filling etc but you'd need to have a registered claim for them to do it for you.