taking my car insurance to court

johncraiglynn

i want to know if i can take my insurance to court long story sort i was found liable for a car crash due to the other guy lieing leading upto this date my insurance never kept me informed about anything i told them he had a box in his car as he claimed he was doing 10mph when he was not.Basiclay when i asked the lawyer they instructed he told me my insurance would not hire any accident investigator or anything as the claim was a low cost one and they would rather pay that than pay all the legal fees or extra costs as it would cost much more which am guessing is why they waited for him to take me to court which makes me look responsible for the rta they never done anything and think they were happy to lose in court to save them money.I am now £8000 down for the rental car lost my job due to being off for 8weeks with whiplash and i dont drive anymore.

rs65

First step is to make a complaint as spelled out in your policy and if still not satisfied, take it to the Ombudsman.

macman

It's often the case that insurers won't pursue low-value claims recovery through the courts, because the costs arising should they lose would exceed the value of paying the claim.
Yes, of course you can take your own insurer to court if you wish, but if the amount you are seeking is in excess of the small claims limit of £10,000, you'd better have deep pockets.

dacouch

Low value claim but you racked up £8k hire costs.

Did you finance the hire car costs yourself or were they provided by a claims management company / credit hire company

Marktheshark

Insurance companies will throw people to the Wolves with a court claim.
They do it every day.

You should have defended yourself against the claim.

straighttalker

First of all, what were the accident circumstances and why do you think you were not at fault?

Running a claim all the way to Court costs a lot of money. What I've managed to glean from your scrambled paragraph is that your insurance company defended this matter to trial and lost. What more could they do? You're lucky they defended it all the way. They could have settled at first intimation of the claim under the terms of their policy. Why would they be happy to lose in Court to save them money? Losing in Court means that they would have had to pay their own legal fees, the third party legal fees as well as the damages claimed by the third party. Not an insubstantial amount of money.

What if the third party lied in Court? Your insurers aren't responsible for that. If he was lying, it would have been down to the Court to determine that.

As another poster has said, this was a minor incident yet you racked up £8k in hire claims and were off work for 8 weeks with whiplash?!?!? So did you personally pay £8k for hire or use the services of a credit hire company? How much was your car worth? You have a duty to mitigate your losses. If your car was worth less than £8k, maybe it would have been cheaper to just purchase another?

Your motor insurer does not have a duty to you to issue proceedings or take any actions to recover your uninsured losses such as a claim for personal injury or hire charges. You should have gone to an accident management company, your own solicitors or legal expenses insurer if you paid extra. If in their view, you have a reasonable prospect of successfully making a recovery, they'll take it on. This is the real test because these people won't take on a claim if they believe you're at fault. Why didn't you instruct your own solicitors then if you had all of these losses? Is it because nobody would take your claim on?

In light of the above and in short, I would say no, you won't be able to sue your insurer. If you were that desperate to sue somebody, it would have obviously been the driver of the third party vehicle.

straighttalker

Marktheshark wrote: »

Insurance companies will throw people to the Wolves with a court claim.
They do it every day.

You should have defended yourself against the claim.

Why should he have defended himself against the claim when his insurers indemnify him to deal with any claim presented against him? The insurer would have a panel of specialist road traffic solicitors ready to defend claims all day long.

Would the OP would have known how to draft a Defence, complete an allocation questionnaire, draft witness statements, pay allocation fees, consider a counterclaim, make Part 36 offers, address the judge and provide advocacy at the trial?

If he had defended himself and lost, the OP would probably have blamed his own insurers for not supporting him and look to sue them for different reasons.

There are some truly idiotic comments posted on here.

DUTR

johncraiglynn wrote: »

i want to know if i can take my insurance to court long story sort i was found liable for a car crash due to the other guy lieing leading upto this date my insurance never kept me informed about anything i told them he had a box in his car as he claimed he was doing 10mph when he was not.Basiclay when i asked the lawyer they instructed he told me my insurance would not hire any accident investigator or anything as the claim was a low cost one and they would rather pay that than pay all the legal fees or extra costs as it would cost much more which am guessing is why they waited for him to take me to court which makes me look responsible for the rta they never done anything and think they were happy to lose in court to save them money.I am now £8000 down for the rental car lost my job due to being off for 8weeks with whiplash and i dont drive anymore.

How did you know whether the other driver had additional items in the car? Who authorised a rental car? Did you have a not fit for work note to cover your time off work?

Astronaughtwannabe

It reads to me like the claim was contested by the other driver/insurer so the OP's insurer gave him access to their solicitor. It was then that this solicitor said that the insurer will pay the claim rather than risk the legal costs incurred in ignoring/defending a claim.

The OP makes it sound like he either knew or thought the other driver's car was fitted with a telematics 'black box' that would disprove that driver' s statement of travelling at 10mph.The OP's insurer wasn't going to pay an expert to interrogate the said device and/or investigate the incident because it would be costly and disproportionate to the claim.

The £8k was for hire car costs, which was conditionally to be claimed back off the third party's insurer, providing the OP was not at fault.

DUTR

Astronaughtwannabe wrote: »

It reads to me like the claim was contested by the other driver/insurer so the OP's insurer gave him access to their solicitor. It was then that this solicitor said that the insurer will pay the claim rather than risk the legal costs incurred in ignoring/defending a claim.

The OP makes it sound like he either knew or thought the other driver's car was fitted with a telematics 'black box' that would disprove that driver' s statement of travelling at 10mph.The OP's insurer wasn't going to pay an expert to interrogate the said device and/or investigate the incident because it would be costly and disproportionate to the claim.

It still warrants the question, who authorised the rental vehicle?
Even when folk have run into the back of me, until the other party's insurer authorises a rental car then I ain't going ahead , if my GP is willing to give me a not fit for work, then other than evening weekends annual leave and bank holidays,I will be at work. It just seems odd that the OP drove the rental car and an expensive one at that, yet has real bad whiplash and now doesn't drive at all.
Insurers are experienced enough to have processed many claims, some of the descisions will be financial, but the descision especially in what we have read is based on probability, and naturally the OPs insurer disagree's with the OP's recall of events to defend the claim.

Astronaughtwannabe

I might be wrong, but don't some accident claims companies let you drive away in a hire car providing you sign the form, of which it states that in the event of a 'found at fault' claim - hirer pays?