Reserved into whilst parked - 50/50?! - Allianz

fedupwithinsurers

I'm absolutely fed up. In late November last year, my partner was parked, stationary in my work car park waiting to collect me from a meeting. My partner was parked in a space and watched a mother and child get into their car, and reserve into the side of my partner's car.

She apologised, accepted it was entirely her fault, exchanged details and was in a hurry so off she went. No other witnesses and CCTV didn't catch anything as the night vision had not yet switched on.
Phoned insurers, Allianz who were very reassuring that this would be a simple claim to settle and proceeded to get the damaged door fixed.
We chased the claim for months with Allianz to get this closed and almost four months later we hear that the other side is not accepting liability and stating that we were moving.
We send off further details promptly in early March and told to expect news in two weeks. Allianz say it is on us to disprove the other parties version of events, that we were stationary, but with no witnesses or CCTV it is not possible otherwise it will be 50/50.

Today, Allianz have received the other party's version and are willing to accept 50/50 as we are unable to disprove the other sides allegations that my partner was moving in the car park. The other side has also claimed £3,000 in damages from an accident management firm who has contacted us (encouraging us to the do the same) via the details given to the third party - surely against Data Protection?

So not only is the other side lying, I'm particularly aggrieved that Allianz has communicated incredibly poorly and this has been dragging on six months. I feel like Allianz are half expecting us to roll over.

- Do I wait for a full and final before writing a formal complaint into Allianz?
- Are there any time limits imposed on responding to requests for information? The TP has drawn this out over six months.
- Can I take the other side to small claims court to recover my losses? We have legal cover on our policy.

Many thanks,

C.

InsideInsurance

(1) Full and final what?

(2) Assuming there are no injuries then the law of limitations in England is 6 years (5 in Scotland)

(3) You'd need to speak to your insurers as your and their losses are all "yours" and so going to court certainly is an option but you normally need to include their bills as well as your own in the action. If they feel you have reasonable prospects of success they will be doing this anyway, if they feel its a straight flip of the coin then they wont fund the case and you'd need to do it yourself.

Quentin

Allianz will be following their policy conditions which will allow them to desl with a claim as they wish.


With 2 opposing stories insurers will go for 50/50 rather than spend more on court cases where the outcome isn't definite.


You can complain at any time to your insurer (follow their complaints procedure set out in the policy docs.


6 months is not a long time to resolve disputed liability issues


You can take the other side to court but bear in mind the costs to you and that should it get to court their insurer would be acting for them and doing the defence.


Legal cover won't help if your insurer is happy with 50/50.


If it ends 50/50 you will be able to use your legal to recover 50% of your uninsured losses (eg excess)