Insurer won't pay for bollard damage

Moconnell

I had a car accident in Jan 2019 that was my fault. My insurance accepted this and paid me £1000 for my car write-off. I presumed the other party has also been settled with. In the crash that was my fault the other driver ploughed into a bollard and there was lots of mess on the road. Yesterday 23 months later I got a letter from a representative of highways England saying that the insurers had not agreed to pay out for the bollard damage and I as the at fault party need to pay them £2000. They have given me 2 weeks to respond.

I am no longer with the insurer and have not contacted them yet, but was wondering if someone knows if they are responsible for such fees (I was fully comp and insurer was major player).. Or what my choices in this situation are?

TonyMMM

Forward the letter to your insurer

Sandtree

They are and they will pay it.... claims for street furniture are always slow coming in and its not uncommon for them to get directed to the car owner with some rubbish about the insurer not paying; in my claims days I never saw one unpaid/contested bill despite our insured receiving a letter saying we’d refused to pay it.

Moconnell

Thanks guys-will do

Aretnap

Moconnell said:

I am no longer with the insurer and have not contacted them yet, but was wondering if someone knows if they are responsible for such fees

Yes, the Road Traffic Act makes your insurer responsible for any liabilities that you have to other people or organisations as a result of a road accident. There are just a handful of exceptions, such as liability for other people's property that you are carrying in your own car.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll always pay up at the first request from the third party however. If they are disputing liability or the amount claimed, or if the overworked claims department is just being slow, then the third party (the highways agency in this case) will have to take court action if they want to force them to pay.

Now any court action would have to be taken against you, because you're the one who caused the accident, so ultimately you are liable for its consequences. They can't take your insurer to court directly because they are not claiming that your insurer damaged the bollard. Instead they would issue a court claim against you, and you would have to ask your insurer to deal with it on your behalf, as your policy says that they will.

So doubtless it's alarming to get a letter like this, but it's not actually very unusual and not something to get too worried about. As above, pass it onto the insurer asap. It would do no harm to chase them up a few days later and make sure that they're dealing with it. It's unlikely that it will get anywhere near as far as an actual court hearing, but even if it did, rest assured that it will still be your insurer putting their hand in their pocket at the end of the day, not you personally.