insurance company problems

kernowbysvykken

My son was going around a roundabout in the designated lane when a minibus entered the roundabout and hit my son's car on the left hand so hard it pushed him up on the centre bit. Details were exchanged the other driver said something about my son " hiding behind a lorry " in otherwords the mini bus driver didn't see him what ever the reason. The law says you givewway to vehicles on your right when entering the roundabout. This is not what happened. My Son's insurance has said as the other party is not admitting fault it will be knock for knock. My son's car is a write off. They offered him money £900 for car but kept £500 of for excess. He has no car as he can't afford one,he's spent a fortune in public transport to get to work his dad and I have also spent a fortune running him around and he lost out on 4 months of insurance paid a year in advance.This happened four months ago. He drew diagram of incident and his insurance said they will exchange drawing with other party nothing heard over a month since told this. Surely the rules are not being upheld here and he's not being supported by his insurance. This is stressing both my son and myself out . How do we get this sorted out. Is there an independent way ? All helpful advice would be appreciated.

OnanTheBarbarian

Does he have legal cover? If so, it will be well worth getting them on with the case.

Insurers are incredibly lazy specimens with large backlogs and they dither and mess about when pursuing recovery of their own outlay. They generally do not pursue recovery of his excess as that is an uninsured loss, but he may get a free ride on the back of the action his insurers are taking to recover the £400 they have outlaid. But as I said, they are slow.

Iceweasel

In the absence of independent witnesses I think you are on a hiding to nothing.

To almost every insurance company the pay-out here is so small that they won't see it economically viable to go to any great lengths contesting who was at fault.

So 50/50 it will be.

To take legal action to claim your uninsured losses from the other party will likely cost more than the losses.

It's very unfair - but it happens every day.

InsideInsurance

4 months in claims times is not long, particularly when you are dealing with a commercial vehicle.

What have your insurers received from the TPI yet?

bazster

As stated, big problem with no witnesses. One guy's word against another's. I once had an insurance company try to screw me over like this but I'd got witness details so all I had to say was "ask the witnesses". They did, and backed down.

dcouponzzzz

Not that it helps with this case, but the first thing I did was invest in a dashcam as soon as I picked up my first car. I hope never to be in your situation, but I sure as hell will be prepared if I am. Many hours of research led me to the below cam and its everything anyone needs for around 70quid

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-DrivePro-Video-Recorder-Adhesive/dp/B00NUVDWBU/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1437641099&sr=8-13&keywords=transcend

OnanTheBarbarian

Any pics possibly taken of the areas of damage/ contact on the 2 vehicles could fully support the OP's version of events.

i.e. damage is to the passenger side of his car. Presumably if the other vehicle has just T-Boned him the damage/ marks on that vehicle would be concentrated to the frontal area of the bumper, rather than the side (in the event the other party tries to allege it was the OP making some form of lane change to the left and into the lane the other vehicle was occupying as being the cause of the collision).

wiltsguy_2

i had a shunt on a roundabout years ago, was decided 50/50, the insurance advisor said that nearly all roundabout accidents end that way.

InsideInsurance

wiltsguy wrote: »

i had a shunt on a roundabout years ago, was decided 50/50, the insurance advisor said that nearly all roundabout accidents end that way.

It depends.

For accidents that happen when both vehicles are on the roundabout or when the vehicles are exiting then most do go 50/50 as both claim its the other person that encroached into their lane.

For accidents involving a vehicle joining the roundabout then 50/50s are rarer as the joining vehicle is supposed to give way to the right and so unless they have a fundamentally different story, ie that they were already on the roundabout or that the accident didnt actually happen on a roundabout at all, then its hard to argue that its anyones but the joining vehicles fault.

bazster

InsideInsurance wrote: »

It depends.

For accidents that happen when both vehicles are on the roundabout or when the vehicles are exiting then most do go 50/50 as both claim its the other person that encroached into their lane.

For accidents involving a vehicle joining the roundabout then 50/50s are rarer as the joining vehicle is supposed to give way to the right and so unless they have a fundamentally different story, ie that they were already on the roundabout or that the accident didnt actually happen on a roundabout at all, then its hard to argue that its anyones but the joining vehicles fault.

Of course, pretty much always the joining vehicle at fault. But without witnesses the driver could simply lie about the circumstances.

InsideInsurance

bazster wrote: »

Of course, pretty much always the joining vehicle at fault. But without witnesses the driver could simply lie about the circumstances.

Hence my saying

InsideInsurance wrote: »

and so unless they have a fundamentally different story

And you do get cases where you get totally different stories. Policyholder says they were in a carpark see a car reversing out a space so stop, apply their handbrake and wait. TP doesnt stop moving, PH sounds their horn, TP reverses back into the nose of their car.

TP claims the accident happened on the main road, they were waiting at lights with their handbrake one and our PH failed to stop in time going into the rear of them.

Both agree no witnesses stopped, no CCTV etc.

They were the most frustrating cases to deal with