Involved in car crash as added driver, what happens to me?

theone999

The policyholder of the car I was driving has informed his insurers that I was involved in an accident as added driver. The insurance company thinks its going to be 50/50. It concerns lane changes / overtaking / indication / speeding /at 5am morning after Boxing Day. I was car changing into right lane as speeder hit my driver side. No independent witnesses. Other car has no dash cam.

But what happens to me now and my own car with my own policy?

1) do I need to notify my insurers for my own car that I was involved in an accident? Even before liability is settled? If I ring up now, I wouldn't have anything definitive to tell them because dash cam footage is being sent to insurers of the other car I was driving.

2) will I still keep my NCD on my own car for next year?

3) does 50/50 count as "at fault"?

4) will my insurance go up for my current year insurance which I have already taken out and paid for?

5) is an "accident" within the last 5 years treated any different than a claim for quotation purposes? Can "accidents" be "at fault"? Or is it just claims? Because I won't be making a claim, because it wasn't my car / policy.

6) how much can I expect my next year's premium to go up by? I have 2 years NCD currently and no points / claims / accidents except this one.

Quentin

1) Check your policy wording on when they require to be informed - some require immediate notification, others at renewal


2) Your own NCD is unaffected


3) Yes (At fault is nothing to do with "blame". It refers to whether or not the policyholder's insurer was involved in any unrecoverable cost)


4) No


5) Yes accidents are "fault" even if the driver is blameless (eg if an unidentified third party damages the car in a car park). Insurers normally ask for claims and incidents that result in any loss even if no claim is made


6) Do dummy quotes online now with and without this claim in your history to get a good idea what difference it makes to your premium

marlot

theone999 wrote: »

.... I was car changing into right lane as speeder hit my driver side....

I hope you checked your mirror and signalled before you pulled out, or it could be regarded as entirely your fault.

Do I understand correctly that you are a named driver on the car you were driving?

iammumtoone

marlot wrote: »

I hope you checked your mirror and signalled before you pulled out, or it could be regarded as entirely your fault.

What makes you think the OP didn't?

People can't be expected to describe every single moment/action of an accident otherwise that would just confuse the question with too much detail.

theone999

Quentin wrote: »

1) Check your policy wording on when they require to be informed - some require immediate notification, others at renewal


2) Your own NCD is unaffected


3) Yes (At fault is nothing to do with "blame". It refers to whether or not the policyholder's insurer was involved in any unrecoverable cost)


4) No


5) Yes accidents are "fault" even if the driver is blameless (eg if an unidentified third party damages the car in a car park). Insurers normally ask for claims and incidents that result in any loss even if no claim is made


6) Do dummy quotes online now with and without this claim in your history to get a good idea what difference it makes to your premium

I've rang my insurer and they've "logged it for review at renewal", in other words, they don't want to know about it now and I won't be charged any more for the rest of the year that I have already paid for.

I've done some dummy quotes on a claim of £2k, at fault, no injury and it doesn't seem "too bad", maybe 20% higher. I guess it will depend on what the eventual claim figure is. But it doesn't seem to double the price, ie from 1500 to 3000, which would make it unaffordable. That's with an extra year's NCD as presumably I won't lose it as I won't be claiming on my policy.

A different question now then. Do you think it is worth it to put a claim in for whiplash assuming liability of 50/50? I assume that would raise future insurance costs and that the other party might decide to retaliate by also suing for whiplash but I could do with money to pay for the excess for the policyholder's car that was involved in the crash.

Quentin

Yes if you have suffered whiplash you should claim - even if you are held 50% liable for the incident you will get that share of any compensation award (ie 50%)


Expect the third party to claim if they have suffered any injury!

chattyuk

To help you a bit on questions 5/6 I've had two non fault accidents that have happened to me in the past 3 years which caused my insurance to go up.

One of those accidents happened a few hours after I parked my car in a bay at the side of the road, I wasn't even at the car at the time. Despite this I have to mark it as a non-fault accident which has increased my costs.

Insurance really sucks sometimes.

tempus_fugit

iammumtoone wrote: »

What makes you think the OP didn't?

People can't be expected to describe every single moment/action of an accident otherwise that would just confuse the question with too much detail.

The thing is, it probably wouldn't make any difference. Either they didn't check their mirrors, in which case they'd be largely at fault, or they did, saw the third party coming and pulled out anyway. The claim that the third party was speeding is neither here nor there, and difficult to prove anyway, and the best likely outcome in this case would be a 50/50 settlement.

theone999

tempus_fugit wrote: »

The thing is, it probably wouldn't make any difference. Either they didn't check their mirrors, in which case they'd be largely at fault, or they did, saw the third party coming and pulled out anyway. The claim that the third party was speeding is neither here nor there, and difficult to prove anyway, and the best likely outcome in this case would be a 50/50 settlement.

it's probably going to be 50/50.


The other's drivers accusation against my driving is neither here or nor there and there were no independent witnesses and he did not have a dashcam.

However, I later obtained dashcam footage that shows the other car to have braked suddenly as he realised that my car was going over to the other lane but then stops braking and decides to gun it past me and I believe (though not explicitly shown) he ends up clipping his car against a static object on his side before slamming into mine and straightening the car out and shooting past me before braking to stop.

The speeder in his fast German saloon called me an idiot, so maybe he should have treated me as one. If he wasn't speeding in the first place and/or decided to do an emergency stop when he first braked instead of deciding to gamble on shooting past me, he could have ensured the crash did not take place, by doing what he did, he sealed it.

paddedjohn

Speeding or not you shouldn't have been moving over into their lane until it was clear to do so, I'd say you will be lucky to get 50/50