Third party insurance claim after car fire

iamcagb

Three weeks ago a car pulled into our road which was on fire, everyone was ok but the car burnt out to nothing right outside my home, the problem is the road is private and not adopted. Highways and the council don’t want to know and his insurance company say that because the fire was a mechanical failure they are not liable for the cost of repairing the roadway. Need advice as no one is willing to help us.
any advise would be great.

lisyloo

Do you have legal insurance on your home cover? (Or anyone of the people who upkeep the road)
if you have access to a free legal helpline then call them.
its possible they aren’t liable as they weren’t negligent

iamcagb

OK but what’s the point of insurance? I agree the car caught fire and yes it may be a freak occurrence But its also not my fault ether. I though your insurance will cover you for damage to other peoples property in cases like this. If my car spontaneously catches fire my insurance would cover any damage done to the owners of the property where the car is at the time?

lisyloo

The point of insurance is to cover liabilities. 

To be clear I don’t know if they are liable or not in this case.
That’s why I suggest that I f one of the householders (it may be shared responsibility for the road) has a legal policy that they contact a solicitor.
sometimes things happen that are no ones fault
you thought wrong (in general). Insurance would only cover you if liable not just because there is damage.
As an example if a tile fell off your roof or your bin flew away you would not be liable so you or your insurance would not have to pay.
in this case I don’t know as motoring law is different to general law as the interpretation of the road traffic act is not clear to me.

Aretnap

iamcagb said:

OK but what’s the point of insurance? I agree the car caught fire and yes it may be a freak occurrence But its also not my fault ether. I though your insurance will cover you for damage to other peoples property in cases like this. If my car spontaneously catches fire my insurance would cover any damage done to the owners of the property where the car is at the time?

The point of insurance is to protect yourself - not generally to protect other people. If other people want to protect themselves, they need to get insurance of their own.

Hence your own insurance will generally cover (1) damage to your own property and (2) your liabilities to other people - it things that were you not insured you would have to pay for yourself.

Now legally, liability generally goes with negligence - you only have to pay for damage to other people's property if the damage was the result of a lack of care on your part. If your car catches fire through no fault of your own and there was nothing you could realistically have done to prevent it then you are not liable for the damage it causes - which is reasonable enough when you think about it. And hence your insurance won't cover the damage either - except for the damage to your own car. It's unfortunate for the owners of the property as it's not their fault. But there are a lot of ways a fire could start which wouldn't be their fault but wouldn't be anyone else's fault either, so if they want to be protected against fires they need to insure their own property.

So if you have access to legal advice through you home insurance there is no harm in making use of it - but you should be prepared for the possibility that you will reach a dead end with the driver's car insurance. Do you, or the residents group collectively, have any insurance of your own that might cover the damage? Does your home insurance say anything about shared driveways/spaces etc?

TELLIT01

If the road is private, the driver trespassed by bringing the car onto it.  There would be the potential for a claim of 'Damage by trespass', but a solicitor would be required for that.  If it's a private road are all properties in the road jointly liable for pay for its upkeep?

lisyloo

TELLIT01 said:

If the road is private, the driver trespassed by bringing the car onto it.  There would be the potential for a claim of 'Damage by trespass', but a solicitor would be required for that.  If it's a private road are all properties in the road jointly liable for pay for its upkeep?

I think they might struggle with this (i am not a lawyer).

I live on a "private driveway" which looks like a public road but is a dead end past 4 houses.

The postman, milk man, delivery drivers, visitors etc. are not tresspassing. There is nothing to tell anyone it's private.

Even people going to the wrong house who have lost their way are not tresspassing.

I think you'd struggle with this unless you'd put up clearly visible warnings saying "tresspassers will be prosecuted" or some such.

In our case the householders are jointly liable for the bit they use.

So the end house is 100% liable for their bit, the next one is shared 50/50 between the 2 houses that use it etc. but it will be stated in the deeds somewhere.

sal_III

TELLIT01 said:

If the road is private, the driver trespassed by bringing the car onto it.  There would be the potential for a claim of 'Damage by trespass', but a solicitor would be required for that.  If it's a private road are all properties in the road jointly liable for pay for its upkeep?

Is it trespassing if there is a public right of way, which is likely to be the case? 

Seems that there are specific insurance products for unadopted roads. Maybe it's time to look for one, to avoid similar issues in the future.

TELLIT01

sal_III said:

TELLIT01 said:

If the road is private, the driver trespassed by bringing the car onto it.  There would be the potential for a claim of 'Damage by trespass', but a solicitor would be required for that.  If it's a private road are all properties in the road jointly liable for pay for its upkeep?

Is it trespassing if there is a public right of way, which is likely to be the case? 

Seems that there are specific insurance products for unadopted roads. Maybe it's time to look for one, to avoid similar issues in the future.

I was just suggesting a possible route.  I'm not a solicitor either.

lisyloo

It’s certainly worth looking into.
this is why I like to have legal insurance. Might have mentioned it elsewhere but I buy mine standalone in case I have issues with my insurer as a few people have had on here (you can’t sue your insurer with their own add-on).