Please Help!! Car Insurance woes

karlospij

Anyone else been in this position
Lent a friend my car. Said he was insured. I took his word for it as I trust him. I was happy to accept his risk at third party insurance as my car is low value.
He crashed it into a taxi with very light damage. then he decided to tell me he wasnt insured it was a miss-understanding on his paperwork.
Taxi driver wasn't in the car.
My insurance firm have paid out as thats how it goes. 3300 so far for the damage to his taxi.
My car was fixed for 68 pound.
So. thats the sorry story. needless to say I will never lend a car out again.
My insurance was cancelled, it jumped from 300 a year to 1000.

I want to know if I can expect an IN12 in the post.
I want to know if the insurance company will chase me for the 3300 plus as it wasn't technically their loss or the driver who caused the accident.
Anyone been in this situation before? sorry if I'm rambling I'm just chewing it up in my head.

Sandtree

Who do you think would be informing the police? Were they called to the accident or by the taxi driver?

They are typically entitled to chase either of you; depending on what they feel their prospects of success are they may chase one, the other or both for the monies.

Not been in the situation as in let a friend drive my car without insurance but have dealt with similar claims in the past where one of our policyholders have or a kid has borrowed their parents car when not insured etc.

TELLIT01

The insurer is very likely to try to recover their costs either from you or from the person driving the car.  If you can convince them that the person driving assured you they were insured they may go after them first but they may take the easy way and claim it from you.  It will then be down to you to recover it from your (ex) friend

Ditzy_Mitzy

From the criminal perspective, it would appear that Newbury v Davis has some relevance.  The judgment in that case was that the owner of a car lending his vehicle to another in the honest belief the other was insured is a defence to the charge of allowing a car to be driven without insurance.  The circumstances here suggest that the 'friend' lied to the OP as regarded the existence of valid third party cover.  The problem is one of how much diligence can reasonably be expected of the OP.  

lisyloo

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

From the criminal perspective, it would appear that Newbury v Davis has some relevance.  The judgment in that case was that the owner of a car lending his vehicle to another in the honest belief the other was insured is a defence to the charge of allowing a car to be driven without insurance.  The circumstances here suggest that the 'friend' lied to the OP as regarded the existence of valid third party cover.  The problem is one of how much diligence can reasonably be expected of the OP.  

A mis-understanding on the paperwork may be that he thought he had DOC (driving other cars) and didn't.
It might not change the liability, but I didn't infer that he lied in from the OP.

lisyloo

karlospij said:

Anyone else been in this position
Lent a friend my car. Said he was insured. I took his word for it as I trust him. I was happy to accept his risk at third party insurance as my car is low value.
He crashed it into a taxi with very light damage. then he decided to tell me he wasnt insured it was a miss-understanding on his paperwork.
Taxi driver wasn't in the car.
My insurance firm have paid out as thats how it goes. 3300 so far for the damage to his taxi.
My car was fixed for 68 pound.
So. thats the sorry story. needless to say I will never lend a car out again.
My insurance was cancelled, it jumped from 300 a year to 1000.

I want to know if I can expect an IN12 in the post.
I want to know if the insurance company will chase me for the 3300 plus as it wasn't technically their loss or the driver who caused the accident.
Anyone been in this situation before? sorry if I'm rambling I'm just chewing it up in my head.

When you said "it wasn't their loss" what do you mean?
They were obliged to pay in this situation so they did experience a loss and will likely try to recover it.
The biggest concern is that you say your insurance was cancelled.
Did you declare this on your replacement policy?
You will unfortunately have to declare you've had insurance cancelled in future.
What is your friend doing about it? Have they offered to help at all?
Do you have legal insurance? 

karlospij

The planets aligned of the cancelation as the insurance was 350 ish days old when the crash happened. then renewed. They allowed me to cancel the new policy at my cost of 50 pounds. but I don't have to say i had a policy cancelled for ever and ever.
The car insurance cost tripled, I have a group 20 motorbike I'm dreading renewing in November.
My Insurance have paid out and they have a loss but its not there loss so they will claim it back.
He isn't in a position to help. He didn't lie to me just got it wrong.
It's like a snowball thats become an avalanche.
I wanted to pay the claim on the taxi but he has worked the system and got his 3 and a half grand. he gave the guy my details and gave him wrong details so the guy thought he was being scammed.

lisyloo

It’s not clear why you believe he would never be able to pay you back ever.
i sympathise with your situation as I think most of us wouldn’t ask for our friends documents to check them, however from the insurance companies point of view you have caused them the loss (inadvertently) by allowing him to drive whilst they held the policy on the car.
i am not sure you have anyway out of this apart from agreeing a loan with your friend who might be able to perhaps pay you back In future?

sheramber

gave the guy my details and gave him wrong details so the guy thought he was being scammed.
DO you mean the friend gave the taxi driver your details   and the  wrong details for himself?
IF so, why did he do that if he thought he was insured?

8871Jlw

Call your insurance company and ask them what is happening with the claim. Maybe act a bit dumb and ask for an update, not that you’re fishing for info!  

They’ll have either closed the claim (negligently) and if so, say ok thanks very much for letting me know... or it’s with their recovery department to pursue you.  

The insurance company have a legal right of recovery against firstly the driver as the negligent party and if that fails, you.  £3k isn’t a huge amount, so it may not be something worth pursuing for them

Call them and find out the current position - it saves you worrying

MrFrugalFever

This all sounds rather suspicious and I would suggest your “friend” clearly isn’t someone who you’d want to have hanging around for much longer.
theres a fine line between knowing, not knowing and just pure ignorance.