Road accident involving dog, no pet insurance

zaax

what is the driver claiming for?

luaive

Its a letter from their insurance company saying we are lable for repairs to their insurers car and other costs, or similar writing, my husband has the letter atm. Im sure I posted previously on what it said.....

huckster

You don't need to respond to their Insurance company. And should not at this stage. They have no information on your liability, apart from information the car driver gave them.

If you have not admitted liability and the car driver has no recorded evidence, the Insurance company don't have reliable evidence to say you were responsible for your dog getting onto the road.

This may never get to a court and you may never have to pay. Of course if you sent off a letter admitting liability, you would then have to enter into an arrangement to pay the Insurers and the car driver. The Insurers would want their claim outlay repaid and the driver would want his uninsured losses paid. You don't know what you are getting involved with. The driver might start complaining about some injury they suffered.

Best advice is not to respond at all and see what happens. If you had Insurance cover for this liability, you would let your Insurers deal with it and they would not admit liability.

Mrs_Optimist

Unfortunately for you, speed is not considered an act of negligence as far as I recall (I dealt with 100s of these types of claims many years ago).

Upshot is your dog escaped, ran into the road and caused an accident. It was not the drivers fault this happened, nor is it the drivers fault that your dog wasn't insured. He is likely to be several hundred pounds out of pocket with the excess he will have to pay. He could lose his no claims bonus. He may be in financial difficulties also.

It is probable that the insurers will sue you if you dont come to an arrangement with them to pay for the vehicle repairs.

I recall one claim I dealt with, where an escaped dog caused a car to swerve, to avoid hitting it when it ran onto the road, the car mounted the pavement and hit a pedestrian. Thankfully, although your dog was unfortunately killed, no innocent bystander was instead.

huckster

luaive wrote: »

I spoke to a solicitor and she advised me to phone the insurers and ask if they were pursuing a claim, I rang them told them there was no insurance, and they said there is an open claim and that no repair work had been done atm and could I explain what happened, I said I couldnt as I wasnt there and that I would speak to my husband, and she was asking if my dog had escaped from the garden? Which it had but if I say this then it admits responsibility, and I got told not too She said depending on the circumstances they would be making a claim against us So im still at a loss, do I say she got out and ran across the road? Does it matter it took him 2x the stopping distance for the speed he should have been travelling? And my husband seems to be leaving it all for me to sort out And I forgot to get the solicitors number so I cant speak to her until/if she rings me.....sigh.....

Yes speed is not the issue.

The crux of the matter is whether you or your husband or responsible person in your house, acted in a way, that was likely to see your dog running out into the road.

Until a court claim is issued and you cannot be untruthful in statements, you don't have to say anything at all.

At the moment, the third party has no evidence to suggest you let your dog out of the house into the road. Perhaps the door was closed, but not locked. The dog jumped up at the door, hit the door handle and managed to get out of the house. The dog let itself out of the house and adults in the house could not prevent it. It was not something you could forsee happening, by not locking the door. ( this is just an example of what might happen and i am not suggesting this if untrue ) .

If nobody knows how the dog got outside of the house, if the Insurers threaten any court claim, you could just say you don't remember what happened and you would not let a dog near a road, without a lead or some barrier to prevent it.

Unless the third party have an admission of liability or evidence to take this further, i can't see them issuing a court claim.

superbigal36

What actually constitutes ownership of a dog these days with no license required.
Surely you can in theory say "not my dog guv"

chris_m

superbigal36 wrote: »

What actually constitutes ownership of a dog these days with no license required.
Surely you can in theory say "not my dog guv"

Since a few days ago, the microchip recorded details would be a bit of a giveaway