AIG Insurance purposely delays taking liability after car accident

STRIPKWIK

OK so this is my first ever post, which shows the complete desperation!
On the 13th July 2018 I've had an accident on A96 dual carriageway were Third Party driver was attempting to cross two dual carriageways via intersection coming from the forest track road.
Long story short I was driving 70mph where Third Party driver carelessly pulled out right infront of me where his door was literally directly in front of my car bonnet with only a second or two between us. I knew that breaking wont do nothing therefore swerved towards intersection around the car missing him by couple of inches unfortunately mounting a curb and hitting cones and barriers on the opposite site of the dual carriageway.

Third party driver immediately fled the scene, with me stopped on the other side of the dual carriageway front facing the incoming traffic.

Luckily three witnesses who drove directly behind me stopped and offered their statements. Police was called in on the scene who took all the statements. What are the chances that two of the witnesses were off duty police officers? :A

Reason for my post its been now over 3 weeks and AIG who are the insurers of the Third Party vehicle are not admitting liability or at least purposely delaying it constantly urging me to claim it through my insurance. After numerous phone calls to Vanameyde (claim handlers) and AIG the request for the police report was raised on the 23rd which is 10 days after the accident. I understand that in hindsight over 3-4 weeks isnt long but trying to maintain full time job and having a 6 year old isn't easy, especially living out in the country where public transport isn't an option.

I have tried googling everything possible but unfortunately latest thread was in 2012 that was similar to mine.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Even if i could get a deadline from them i could work things out but just now i dont know whether it will take months, years or never.

Thanks very much in advance

Quentin

The third party insurer isn't bound to assist you quickly!

So your options are to see if a claim handler will take you on as a no win no fee client/ instruct your own solicitor/or if you have comprehensive cover then make a claim on your own insurance

oscarward

it's probable that if 3rd party has fled the scene they haven't informed his insurers or responded to their enquiries to them. My son had an accident where someone ran in to back of him, we tried to claim from her insurers but she totally refused to respond to her insurers. They paid up eventually...


If the 3rd party insurers don't respond soon then you will have to get your own insurers to carry out repairs. with a cast iron witness then there should be no problems with liability. Some insurers will waive the excess if they are sure of recovery so try them first. you will have to inform them anyway... You have haven't you?

MovingForwards

You will struggle with a claim as you voluntarily swerved (I know, it's one of the daft things in care claims/litigation).

Zorillo

How do you have the Third Party insurers details?

It's going to be very difficult to establish liability if there was no contact between the vehicles and no video evidence.

Put this through your own insurance and hope to recover the losses afterwards. It's going to be a complete headache to resolve otherwise.

k3lvc

Being blunt the 3rd party didn't have an accident so didn't 'leave the scene' or 'fail to report' and has no duty to report to his/her insurers.

Suspect you're in for a long drag and potential disappointment if you put all your effort into claiming from this driver.

wolvesmat

Insurance companies can be tricky at the best of times to get them to pay up.
What will probably happen is you will have to claim on your own insurance policy causing you to loose your no claims bonus if you have any, and even if your no claims bonus is protected, when the time comes to renew your insurance you will find a heafty increase to the annual premium.
I'm sure that your insurance company would have made a settlement with you if they were confident that the 3rd parties insurance would be acceptable liability.
Unfair as it seems, I'm not sure how liability is decided in a situation like yours when careless or dangerous driving of an individual causes a collision for innocent parties yet their vehicle is not involved with the collision that follows their careless actions.

An example I'm aware of in similar circumstances was a friend of mine driving up M6 North in snowy and icy conditions. A person further ahead careless actions caused his car to loose control, career across all lanes, up the embankment and back down onto the main carriage way. Didn't hit any other car or railings the car gained control and just carried on with their journey. However their careless actions causes a couple of cars to break sharply and skid in the icy conditions causing a chain reaction leading to a pile up of 36 vehicles. Luckily enough no one was seriously injured but hundreds of thousands pounds of damaged caused by 1 idiot who got off Scott free.
As my friend was the last car to collided in the pileup the insurance liability was placed on him.
Insurance companies are notoriously difficult to get them coughing up payouts.
My own personal experience wasn't the best.
Following an accident that wasn't my fault and left my car undrivable. I tried to arrange collection of a courtesy car, which I had specifically requested when taking the policy out. To be told that the level of cover on my policy only provided a court

wolvesmat

Was told the level of courtesy car cover only provided me with a car for the duration mine was being repaired in the repair shop and not while i was waiting for it to be assessed and inspected. So after waiting 2 weeks for an inspector was told the car was a rite off then waited another 4 weeks for the cheque. Leaving me with no transport for 6 weeks .To add insult to injury they advised me that an increased level of protection to give me a courtesy car straight away ( exactly what I had specified when I took out the policy)
Could be added to my existing cover should the need arise in the future for the paltry sum of an additional £7 to my annual premium. I wasn't best pleased but there was nothing I could do about it. But I did refuse to renew the policy with them . This was a "reputable" company The AA. A name I thought could be trusted