Hit an animal - act of God - good or bad?

ozvaldinho

A couple of years back, a deer ran out between some bushes and hit the front of our car. We were doing 70 at night, and I barely had time to blink in the time I saw it coming.
Luckily, we weren't hurt. Unfortunately the deer died and got run over by a truck, so wasn't even worth taking home for Sunday Roast.

Anyhow, we were insured with Direct Line fully comp, they arranged repairs quickly and we were only down the £50 excess. There was £1500 of damage to our car. There was no attempt to get out of paying up on DL's part.


Good luck sorting this out. I'm guessing the Act of God clause is more relevant then there's nobody to claim against when you only have third party fire & theft cover. You could, I suppose, try using the Legal Expenses cover on your policy to try to recover uninsured losses if you can trace the owner of the horse. I'm sure there are a lot of people reading this with a much clearer idea than me.

Did your friend get a few quid for the poor GG from the local Knacker?

harveybobbles

Thought "Acts of God" were stuff like hurricanes? Storms, floods etc...?!

And does the "act of good" cover every religion? Or even if, like me, you're an Athiest...?!

Alias_Omega

This could be a good one,

Ring the insurance company up and ask them to prove it was act of god, maybe a witness testimony something to the effect of...

"I, .............. witnessed GOD instruct the horse to hit the veichle registered as XXXX XXX on XXth Nov 2007, Signed ................".

Then whilst your on the phone, tell them your going down the local church to ask the local priest to talk to god, and ask him if he is going to pay your friend back the damages to the car...

'The man who sued god..'

PasturesNew

harveybobbles wrote: »

And does the "act of good" cover every religion? Or even if, like me, you're an Athiest...?!

Your religion won't come into it, as a policy holder would have agreed to the policy T&Cs when they took it out. Therefore agreeing to an Act of God being a potential decision/outcome.

banger9365

would it be act of god if it was a person ? not a horse

Markyt

I think this depends on whether the horse is owned or not.

Any livestock owner has the responsibility to keep their animals off the roads, and should be insured against it. Exceptions may be if it is somewhere where the animals run wild, eg. on common grazing like exmoor, where the roads run across it, or where the animal isn't considered to be livestock.

Crabman

One little thing, has the incident been reported to the police? Normally an accident involving animals, damage to property or other injury must be reported within 24 hours...

harveybobbles

"Sorry Sir, I haven't done my homework, my school books went missing. It was an act of God..."

I knew I should have tried that out in Science all them years ago...

Greta

Hazarding a reply ...

Act of God - its unforeseen, you have no control over. Which is good for renewing policy next year, i.e. its not your fault, and thus should not have implications on your premiums.

However, policies often exclude Acts of God, where you are trying to make a claim. Your friend needs to check the t&c of their insurance policy, specifically at exclusion clauses.

raskazz

Greta wrote: »

Hazarding a reply ...

Act of God - its unforeseen, you have no control over. Which is good for renewing policy next year, i.e. its not your fault, and thus should not have implications on your premiums.

However, policies often exclude Acts of God, where you are trying to make a claim. Your friend needs to check the t&c of their insurance policy, specifically at exclusion clauses.

I suspect the policy is TPFT and thus it will only cover fire/theft/liability to third parties. Accidental damage to your own car is excluded, regardless of the cause - whether malicious damage, road traffic accident or 'Act of God', and so on.

The only option is to trace the owner/keeper of the animal and pursue him for damages. This will be very difficult as one would need to prove that the owner/keeper was actually negligent.

The incident will be recorded as a non-fault, no payout accident. It will still have a certain effect on premiums though.