Fraudulent claim against me, help!

MancBee

Back in October I was away for a mini break with the partner in one car, left the other one on the driveway with our friend house/pet-sitting. Arrived home and got a text that evening saying I had been in an accident in Berty (the car left behind) and I needed to give more info. I took it to be a smishing scam but logged into our admiral online account and saw a red flag thingy. Immediately called them to be told I had a claim against me that I'd reversed into someone at red lights but no details of when (just the day) exactly or where. Told them this was nonsense as we had literally just arrived home in the other car having been 250 miles away for 3 days and Berty was exactly where I had left it on our drive. I provided them evidence of our whereabouts and a full photo shoot of the car showing no new damage and asked for any more info about time or place of alleged incident the next morning. 5 months on, having asked for updates 3 times to no avail, it is renewal time and we have found our quote to have doubled and now have to inform other insurers when we ask for quotes because it remains open. Admiral just say they are waiting to hear back from the third party insurers and they believe me that I wasn't  involved but will do nothing to chase it up. I already suffer from mental health issues and this is causing me a great deal of stress and now money! Does anyone know if there is any way to give admiral a more noticeable kick to do something or force them to give me more details of this supposed crash? Or if I can provide the evidence that this is clearly a fraudulent claim why on earth it is still open 5 months on? The other half reckons they are being slow on purpose to be able to charge more and take away my no claims (even though his is 10 years and mine is only 2, having been a single car household for so long).
Is there anything I can do? I'm so frustrated with the way we have been fobbed off by admiral! 

jimbo6977

Unfortunately you have to let it play out. Admiral have received a claim and have to (a) log it (b) reserve sums that might be paid to a third party and (c) allow the third party reasonable opportunity to evidence their claim. 

AdrianC

The issue isn't Admiral. It's the other insurer and their policyholder.

Look at it from the opposite direction. Insurer X have been given a registration by their policyholder. They've contacted the insurer of that registration, who's contacted their policyholder, who's said "Nope, not me".
That's been passed back to Insurer X, who've gone back to the claimant... and that's where it's sitting...

Until X hold their hands up and say "Our policyholder was clearly lying, sorry.", it's going nowhere.

Sandtree

90 percent of the time this isn’t fraud etc but simply poor handwriting or “B” being recorded as “D” on a telephone call etc so simply mistaken identity.

angrycrow

As Sandtree suggested most of these types of cases play out as a mistaken registration. It is even common that the make and model can match if the original dealer pre registered a number of cars. 

The only concern your post flags is that somebody else could have had access to the car without your knowledge. I know it will be difficult to consider but could your house sitter have taken the car without permission, had the accident and then lied about it because they did not have permission to drive the car or insurance.

If this turns out to be the case your insurers we be required to deal with the third party claim as Road Traffic Act (rta) insurers. Your policy would then be affected unless the driver reimbursed them in full. 

Stubod

....guilty until proved innocent...seems a bit backward to me??

AdrianC

Stubod said:

....guilty until proved innocent...seems a bit backward to me??

What criminal charge has been laid? None.

All that's happened is that a claim is open.

MancBee

The only concern your post flags is that somebody else could have had access to the car without your knowledge. I know it will be difficult to consider but could your house sitter have taken the car without permission, had the accident and then lied about it because they did not have permission to drive the car or insurance.

If this turns out to be the case your insurers we be required to deal with the third party claim as Road Traffic Act (rta) insurers. Your policy would then be affected unless the driver reimbursed them in full. 

This isn't an issue as she physically can't drive a normal manual car and she'd have had to thoroughly search the house to find the spare key as well. Also when I say the car was exactly where I left I do mean exactly, same half a leaf and twig sticking out from under the wheel and everything.
(not meaning this grumpily just that I know she never moved the car let alone drove it anywhere). 

MancBee

jimbo6977 said:

Unfortunately you have to let it play out. Admiral have received a claim and have to (a) log it (b) reserve sums that might be paid to a third party and (c) allow the third party reasonable opportunity to evidence their claim. 

Is 5 months not reasonable opportunity? Does it time out eventually? I get that it could just mistaken identity but I've given the info that proves it wasn't me or my car so why can't they close off the claim against me and just deal with the claimant? If they had any evidence that proved it was me or my car surely 5 months is plenty of time?

 It does feel like guilty until proven innocent as it seems someone could just pluck a number plate out of thin air, check on the dvla website what make and model it is before calling their insurer and then it's that random person that has to deal with the consequences. Also they are technically saying I broke the law by not stopping, exchanging details and informing the police and insurance. This very much irks me. 

What makes it feel like fraud is that they original claim text said I reversed into someone at red lights and we have a dint in our rear bumper plastic (that we have had since the first 6 months of owning it, around 8 years ago now). Just feels like someone has decided to take a chance with preexisting damage. 

Sandtree

MancBee said:
Is 5 months not reasonable opportunity? Does it time out eventually? I get that it could just mistaken identity but I've given the info that proves it wasn't me or my car so why can't they close off the claim against me and just deal with the claimant? If they had any evidence that proved it was me or my car surely 5 months is plenty of time?

 It does feel like guilty until proven innocent as it seems someone could just pluck a number plate out of thin air, check on the dvla website what make and model it is before calling their insurer and then it's that random person that has to deal with the consequences. Also they are technically saying I broke the law by not stopping, exchanging details and informing the police and insurance. This very much irks me. 

What makes it feel like fraud is that they original claim text said I reversed into someone at red lights and we have a dint in our rear bumper plastic (that we have had since the first 6 months of owning it, around 8 years ago now). Just feels like someone has decided to take a chance with preexisting damage. 

It may come to as a shock to you but not every policyholder in the world is honest and some do submit fictitious claims and defenses. An insurer has a legal obligation to hold appropriate claims reserves for all incidents and it would be very remiss of them to simply close the case, release the reserve and have a shareholder party with the money just because a policyholder says it wasnt them. 

In most cases when such accusations are received it triggers a two pronged response, one back to the third party insurer asking for further details of the incident and evidence to support it and one to the policyholder asking for their comment on the allegations and evidence of any defense. Part of the problem is in this digital age most claims reporting is done over the phone or by email etc and so when the request for evidence comes back from the other side they then have to go about collecting it. Some insurers run very big backlogs of post etc too!

Unfortunately not all third party insurers are the most helpful either, more than once I've sent evidence to one that our client was elsewhere at the time and you dont get a response. After finally getting hold of them on the phone they say that actually their PH made a mistake on the registration and now the other party have admitted liability, they just didnt bother telling us that.

Due to the above most insurers will diary on from the last communication 3-6 months and if nothing is heard within that time the claim is closed however if a further approach is received it does get reopened.

Guilty till proven innocent is a matter of criminal law which insurers dont deal in, guilty or innocent if there is an alligation of a crime police investigate, ask qs etc and you dont go to prison until found guilty (based on you posting here we are probably safe in assuming you've not been sent to prison yet either) 

NBLondon

MancBee said:

What makes it feel like fraud is that they original claim text said I reversed into someone at red lights and we have a dint in our rear bumper plastic (that we have had since the first 6 months of owning it, around 8 years ago now). Just feels like someone has decided to take a chance with preexisting damage. 

So when you sent photos showing your car wasn't damaged in the non-existent incident... it would have included this dint?  Sadly, that might be causing a delay; while there's an argument about is that pre-existing or not.

Or as Sandtree just said - it could be six months waiting.  Keep all the records and be prepared to argue with Admiral about making sure you don't get increased premiuims.