Fraudulent behaviour from an insurer?

richardheadingmouth

Good evening,

I am currently in the process of putting through a claim on my car insurance after some brainless boy racer tried to overtake me as I was performing a signalled right turn. My insurer is satisfied that I am not in any way responsible or at fault.
However the boy racer is (predictably) denying any fault themselves, and their insurer appears to be even more devious and mendacious.

This insurer has recently sent me a letter asking me to pay a large four-figure sum to settle the boy racer's claim with them or they will take me to court to recover the costs. Their reasoning for this is that my insurer has not contacted them since I submitted my claim.

My insurer claims they have a trail of written correspondence with the insurer as well as having had telephone conversations with them. Which, to the untrained eye, makes the boy racer's insurers correspondence look extremely dodgy indeed.

Is this sort of shameless misrepresentation along with threatening legal action common from car insurers? Does the Financial Ombudsman deal with cases of this malpractice? Is their any legal recourse for me for what is patently an attempt to gain financially by means of false representation (i.e. fraud)?

antrobus

richardheadingmouth wrote: »

....

This insurer has recently sent me a letter asking me to pay a large four-figure sum to settle the boy racer's claim with them or they will take me to court to recover the costs. Their reasoning for this is that my insurer has not contacted them since I submitted my claim.

...

Forward a copy of the letter to your insurer, they will deal with it.

Nearlyold

Someone at the "boy racers" insurer has probably just selected the wrong template letter.

CarbonImage

Had this before when I got knocked off my bike by some idiot going way too fast and not looking as I was crossing the road.

His insurer sent me a letter saying they would be pursuing me for a new front bumper and radiator for his car (a posh Audi I believe so easily four figures).

I sent a letter back saying I'd be counter-claiming for medical expenses and lost earnings compensation as well as a new bike, which came to more than what they were trying to claim from me.

They very quickly backed down and agreed to call it even.

As said though, just let your insurers deal with it, if the accident is as you say then there's no way they'd have a case in court.

I'm guessing there were no witnesses and the police weren't called to the scene of the accident?

rudekid48

Where's the fraud?

trailingspouse

Seems reasonable to me. He shouldn't have been overtaking, you should have been checking your mirrors. Certainly worth a try from their perspective. Forward their letter to your insurers - that's why we have insurance.
But no - no fraud. A wee bit heavy handed maybe - but they're not on your side!

peterbaker

I might have used the word fraud also - some of the responses above mine indicate people who think this kind of threatening correspondence is acceptable, and that we should always constantly be looking behind us for idiots. To me that just shows what a mixed bunch of values we all have in the UK. If I was confident my own insurers had a good hold of the case, I wouldn't worry too much about the threat contained in such correspondence - just pass it on to them unacknowledged.

Have you checked with your insurer if the name of the insurers threatening you is the same as the insurers they are corresponding with? It could be "Uninsured Loss Recovery" service chancers separate from the other party's main liability insurers?

Nothing is lost on your part by naming them here so we might at least be forewarned if we come across the name ourselves. Alternatively, someone here might be able to affirm an existing reputation to go with the name.

trailingspouse

peterbaker wrote: »

we should always constantly be looking behind us for idiots.

That's exactly what we should be doing - it's why cars have mirrors.

And it's an argument that is likely to be used by the insurer of the overtaking vehicle if they are attempting to go for a split liability.

peterbaker

trailingspouse wrote: »

That's exactly what we should be doing - it's why cars have mirrors.

And it's an argument that is likely to be used by the insurer of the overtaking vehicle if they are attempting to go for a split liability.

Yeah right. Keep a good lookout in your mirrors for the trailingspouse everybody. Split liability is the game.

dacouch

The other driver has simply given a different story to his Insurers telling them you are at fault.

Their Insurers have likely been chasing your Insurers who may or may not have been responding to their correspondence

Aretnap

In accidents involving overtaking a vehicle that is turning right, it is not uncommon for the driver who is doing the turning to be found partially or even wholly liable. There are some examples here

https://www.motorcyclelawscotland.co.uk/why-choose-us/case-law/pell-v-moseley-(2003/

And of course the boy racer's version of events may differ from yours - he may, for example, claim that you didn't indicate, or only indicated at the last moment. Unless your argument is that his insurer should automatically believe your version of events and not his, it is not unreasonable for them to be disputing liability.

Yes, it's common for insurers to threaten legal action - if they can't agree on liability between themselves, the way to settle the question is to go to a binding, independent tribunal, otherwise known as a court.

Any court claim issued by the other driver and/or his insurer would be made against you personally, because you're the person who he is claiming caused the accident, so ultimately the (alleged) liability is yours. They can't take your insurance company to court directly because nobody is claiming that your insurance company damaged his car. Instead you would have to ask your insurer to deal with the claim on your behalf - which is what you pay them for.



And of course before they issue court proceedings against you they have to write to you warning you that they are considering it... unless you'd prefer just to receive court papers out of the blue with no prior warning...?

As for the fact that the letter says that his insurers haven't been contacted by your insurers, !!!!-ups are generally more common than conspiracies; as above the most likely explanation is a simple error such as someone selecting the wrong template letter. Accusing them of fraud seems more than a little melodramatic.


Anyway, as advised the correct thing to do is to pass the letter on to your own insurer - you pay them good money precisely so that when things like this happen it's their problem not yours. Your insurer will make a judgement on whether to pay what they're demanding or to tell them to see them in court. In the event that it does go to court and you do end up being found partly or wholly liable it will still be your insurers who end up putting their hands in their pockets, not you personally.