Accident - my fault or not?

cgray25

My wife was recently in an accident and our car was written-off. Our insurer settled pretty quickly but passed us on to their elected lawyers as they believed my wife may not be at fault. They had deducted our excess (£250), though said the lawyers may be able to claim it back.

A brief of the crash scene - my wife was on a mini-roundabout when the other car T-boned her in the centre/slightly rear of our car. The roundabout has 4 equal 90 degree exits - the other car was coming from her right and, under usual circumstances, giving way to the right would mean my wife would be at fault, but I don't believe that's the case in this circumstance for 2 reasons:
1) the other party hit her directly in centre/rear, so my wife was on the roundabout first (so had priority?)
2) the other party had boxes piled up on the passenger seat (completely obscuring her vision to her left, the direction from which my wife was coming) - surely dangerous driving in the first place (had photos of boxes).

The fact that it's a tiny roundabout with poor visibility for both parties (a wall obscuring it) clouds the issue somewhat - IMO the speed at which the other woman must've fired through it and the boxes make me question it.

Our lawyer has said they think my wife would be at fault, but I don't know if it's worth contesting. At this stage, I don't know if our own insurer takes that view too (we haven't heard anything from the other side or our insurer regarding anything). But renewal is approaching, and I don't want to be further penalised if this wasn't her fault.

Edit: just had a renewal letter in, somewhat confusing...
We had max NCB (although 16 years they register a max of 5yrs), protected.
Renewal says under 'claims': none, though now NCB=3yrs, not protected.
But premium has nearly doubled. I'm not sure if this could be an admin error, I remember someone saying you can lose some but not all NCB when in a crash.
Complicating matters further, I was planning to upgrade the 2nd car on the policy!
Any thoughts?

DUTR

The renewal probably includes the unresolved claim that is outstanding.

alchemist.1

Your wife's fault. You will have a huge problem trying to prove the speed the other driver was travelling apart from wife's say so.

You're going to penalised with the no claims bonus anyway as there wont be a quick resolution.

tho_2

cgray25 wrote: »

1) the other party hit her directly in centre/rear, so my wife was on the roundabout first (so had priority?)

This doesn't matter, you go when you have space to complete the manoeuvre. The fact he hit her means she didn't.

cgray25

Thanks for the replies. I'm wondering if it definitely is unresolved though - the accident was 6 months ago and we haven't heard anything from the insurer at all. We were in discussion with the lawyer on their suggestion but this wasn't mandatory, so I don't know if it has any bearing on anything. Regarding speed, the other driver was in a tiny city car took out our 4x4, thought that would've said it all!

Also, I'm joint on the policy with 2 years NCB which they appear to have now scrubbed - is that standard procedure?

If I were to get renewal quotes from elsewhere how does that work? Current insurer lists 'claims: none' as mentioned.