Motor Insurance & personal injury claims

gilbertcr

I understand that a claimant may make a claim up to three years after an incident.

So, I was wondering, say a claim is made in year three and you'd changed insurers several times since the incident, who would handle the claim?

The insurer you were with at the time of the incident or your current insurer?

c

Ian_W

gilbertcr wrote: »

The insurer you were with at the time of the incident or your current insurer? c

The insurer you were with at the time of the incident would have liability [if proved] so they would have to deal with it. I would have though it highly unusual for a personal injury claim to be lodged out of the blue just before the 3yr cut-off without an incident or accident being reported to the insurer at the time, though.

gilbertcr

Thanks Ian,

The question was hypothetical, I was just interested in whether it was in the insurers interest to dismiss a claim asap so that should a subsequent claim arise it would be dealt with by another insurer.

The real life scenario involves a claim made only 4 months after an incident, the incident itself was 12 months ago and in the intervening period zero progress has been made. This apparently is far from unusual and typically claimants will be advised to wait at least 6 months before seeking a medical report in support of their claim.

lisyloo

The question was hypothetical, I was just interested in whether it was in the insurers interest to dismiss a claim asap so that should a subsequent claim arise it would be dealt with by another insurer.

No, you can't insure with a new insurer for something that's already happened.
The old insurer is responsible.

If someone made a claim 3 years later then I think there would be suspicion about cause and effect.

This apparently is far from unusual and typically claimants will be advised to wait at least 6 months before seeking a medical report in support of their claim.

Yes, the wheels grind very slowly.
Also it's simply the case that some injuries and their effects take many years to fully assess.
The original insurer still has to deal with it though.

Ian_W

This apparently is far from unusual and typically claimants will be advised to wait at least 6 months before seeking a medical report in support of their claim.

To be fair though - the claimant is [mostly] the innocent party and has just one shot [usually] at getting fair compensation for their injuries. With serious injuries cases can take a lot longer as they may need ops/treatment etc and it takes time to know how well these have worked and what the long term prognosis for their injuries really is.
When clients complained of how long their claim was taking to settle a PI lawyer of my acquaintance always used to say,
Settle in haste, regret at leisure - or words to that affect.

gilbertcr

Ian_W wrote: »

To be fair though - the claimant is [mostly] the innocent party and has just one shot [usually] at getting fair compensation for their injuries. With serious injuries cases can take a lot longer as they may need ops/treatment etc and it takes time to know how well these have worked and what the long term prognosis for their injuries really is.
When clients complained of how long their claim was taking to settle a PI lawyer of my acquaintance always used to say,
Settle in haste, regret at leisure - or words to that affect.

Perhaps not (claimant is the innocent party) in this case there's nothing, other than a chipped number plate, to evidence a possible cause of any supposed injury. However This seems to be irrelevant and due process needs to be applied, that could take years and meantime the potentially innocent party is penalised by the insurance industry - nice!

Can I counter claim for increased insurance costs! lol

lisyloo

If you are found to be 100% innocent then yes I believe you do get refunded any increased insurance claims.

However you would have to be 100% innocent for this to occur.
If there is any blame/fault/liability at all then it doesn't work.

Insurance companies try to settle things in the cheapest way possible rather than the fairest and arguing about cases is very expensive especially when solicitors get involved.
Many cases are settle 50/50 or some other ratio simply because it's MUCH cheaper to agree this than to spent tens of thousands of pounds in court arguing over the exact percentage.

In general overall this is probably in consumers interest because if they fought in every case for total fairness then premiums would rocket, but of course that's no consolation if you are on the wrong end of a cheap decision