Car Insurance Ombudsman

full_stop

Hi,

Wonder if someone can help please.

I recently had an accident. My insurance company agreed with the third party insurer that this should be a 50/50 joint liability.

I am not happy about this decision and want to contest this outcome. In the first instance, is this a matter that the Insurance Ombudsman can adjudicate on?

If the answer to the above is yes, I wanted to clarify how I should go about this in the right way.

1. Firstly, presumably I need to advise my insurance company that I am disputing this finding and raise a complaint.

Question: when I write in to my insurance do I have to give them a full and detailed account of the reasons why I believe their decision is incorrect or should I refrain from this and just tell them I disagree and provide that information in my submission to the ombudsman. if you see what I mean.

2. At what point can I refer this matter to the Insurance Ombudsman.

Any help much appreciated
Cheers

GeordieGeorge

You must exhaust the complaintes procedure with your insurer before you can take things further. Playing games by withholding information makes no sense at all, why would you want to do this?

AdrianC

Yes, the financial ombudsman can adjudicate your insurer's decision. Remember that you did explicitly delegate full permission to make that decision to your insurer, though, as part of your policy Ts & Cs.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/insurance/motor-insurance/fault-claims-no-claims-bonuses

You need to exhaust all the insurer's own internal appeal procedures first.

And, yes, of course you need to give FULL information at ALL stages.

Remember that "50/50" doesn't mean an EXACT equal split of liability. Just that you were partially liable, not completely innocent. Perhaps you could have been reasonably expected to have avoided the impact but didn't. What were the circumstances?

full_stop

GeordieGeorge said:

You must exhaust the complaintes procedure with your insurer before you can take things further.

Thank you

GeordieGeorge said:

Playing games by withholding information makes no sense at all, why would you want to do this?

Just seeking help and guidance from those who have much more experience on this than I do

AdrianC said:

Yes, the financial ombudsman can adjudicate your insurer's decision. Remember that you did explicitly delegate full permission to make that decision to your insurer, though, as part of your policy Ts & Cs.

Many thanks

AdrianC said:

Remember that "50/50" doesn't mean an EXACT equal split of liability. Just that you were partially liable, not completely innocent.

In practical terms does 50/50 mean that 50% of my repair will be paid by my insurer and the other 50% by the third party insurer? Any other implications apart from the fact that my premium will likely go up!

One final question please. I was involved in a collision with a panel van. The panel van was fitted with a dash cam.
I requested that my insurer let me have sight of this footage but they informed me that they cannot do this without the consent of the third party insurer.

I made this request about a month ago and still no reply. I am calling my insurer weekly to enquire about this and they are sending chase emails to the third part insurer. But to date no reply.

Any advice as to how to proceed on this please.

Any info much appreciated

AdrianC

full_stop said:

AdrianC said:

Remember that "50/50" doesn't mean an EXACT equal split of liability. Just that you were partially liable, not completely innocent.

In practical terms does 50/50 mean that 50% of my repair will be paid by my insurer and the other 50% by the third party insurer?

It makes no difference to you. You pay your excess. Your car gets repaired.

Any other implications apart from the fact that my premium will likely go up!

The only difference is that you have an at-fault claim (as does the other driver) on your history, rather than a no-fault one.

One final question please. I was involved in a collision with a panel van. The panel van was fitted with a dash cam.
I requested that my insurer let me have sight of this footage but they informed me that they cannot do this without the consent of the third party insurer.

They're right. You have no right to see it. What benefit is there in you seeing it?

The insurers will both have seen it, and used it to decide that you are partially liable, as is the van driver.

If there's dashcam evidence, I'd save your time and blood pressure. It's not going to change if you complain to the ombudsman. They will look at the dashcam footage and come to the same conclusion.

Are you willing to give us more information on the circumstances?

full_stop

AdrianC said:

Are you willing to give us more information on the circumstances?

Ok. I'll keep it brief and to the point.

I am on a large and busy roundabout. There are 3 lane leading up to a set of traffic light which are at red.

I had indicated and was moving / had partially moved into the third lane, the one on the very left. I am about 80 feet or so from  the traffic lights at that time (still on red). There are no cars in this lane all the way to the traffic lights.

To the right of me are 2 lanes of traffic queuing at these traffic lights.

I continue on my approach and immediately prior to events unfolding am mostly in my lane. At that moment I would say that I am about 50 feet from the traffic lights which are still showing red.

A panel van was in the lane immediately to my right (ie middle lane) and stationary in the line of vehicles waiting at the lights.

The panel van pulls out of his lane and into my lane. He has noticed that he can gain a couple of cars in so doing, queue jumping.

This van wasn’t some 30-40+ feet in front of me, it was much closer than that. In relation to my field of vision it seemed to be at an acute angle on my right and seemed to lurch out.

Hard to be completely precise after this point but I recall trying to steer away and kinda like go around him. The panel van continues it maneuver and collides with me. Basically he runs into my driver's door with his left front corner bumper.

The dash cam footage allegedly shows that both parties moved at the same time and converged into the same lane.

My contention is that the dash cam footage is not clearly reflecting what has happened in respect of the reason why this collision happened in the first place. I would argue that the panel van (which had much reduced visibility and was solely reliant on the wing / door mirrors to assess traffic coming from behind) , much like a car parked at the side of the road should act with due care and attention.

The dash cam footage merely reflects the final actions that I took in order to avoid hitting the panel van but in so doing the video is painting the picture that I was joining that lane at the time of the collision which is not the case.

Hope I have explained it clearly.

Let me know your thoughts

Much appreciate your help

GrumpyDil

My first thought is to wonder why you tried to drive around him rather than stopping when you realised he was moving into that lane.
Were there any third party witnesses as otherwise it's simply your word against his with some dash cam footage which the insurance companies have used to decide on split liability. 

Sandtree

You need to properly engage with the complaint process which would include stating why you are unhappy with their decision on the 50/50 proposal.  You can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman once you have received their final response or once 8 weeks have passed from your complaint being logged, whichever is sooner.

CCTV including dash cam is covered by data privacy law and therefore anyone that holds a copy that shows you/your vehicle then you can do a DSAR request to receive a copy of it. 

The insurer has the legal right to settle the claim as they see fit and therefore a complaint purely about the decision is unlikely to be upheld (other than for economic reasons) unless you can demonstrate that they've ignored some submitted evidence or have failed to make reasonable efforts to gather evidence (again factoring in economics). Hence the complaint tends to need to focus on the process than the decision.

It may be helpful to confirm:
a) What your version of events are
b) What the third party version of events are
c) What evidence you have to support your version

A large proportion of 50/50s are basically because its one persons word against another with no real evidence supporting either version and economically its not worth spending thousands on a barrister to take it to court because it falls into the Small Track and so legal costs are excluded from recovery.

AdrianC

full_stop said:

AdrianC said:

Are you willing to give us more information on the circumstances?

Ok. I'll keep it brief and to the point.

I am on a large and busy roundabout. There are 3 lane leading up to a set of traffic light which are at red.

I had indicated and was moving / had partially moved into the third lane, the one on the very left. I am about 80 feet or so from  the traffic lights at that time (still on red). There are no cars in this lane all the way to the traffic lights.

To the right of me are 2 lanes of traffic queuing at these traffic lights.

I continue on my approach and immediately prior to events unfolding am mostly in my lane. At that moment I would say that I am about 50 feet from the traffic lights which are still showing red.

A panel van was in the lane immediately to my right (ie middle lane) and stationary in the line of vehicles waiting at the lights.

The panel van pulls out of his lane and into my lane. He has noticed that he can gain a couple of cars in so doing, queue jumping.

This van wasn’t some 30-40+ feet in front of me, it was much closer than that. In relation to my field of vision it seemed to be at an acute angle on my right and seemed to lurch out.

Hard to be completely precise after this point but I recall trying to steer away and kinda like go around him. The panel van continues it maneuver and collides with me. Basically he runs into my driver's door with his left front corner bumper.

The dash cam footage allegedly shows that both parties moved at the same time and converged into the same lane.

My contention is that the dash cam footage is not clearly reflecting what has happened in respect of the reason why this collision happened in the first place. I would argue that the panel van (which had much reduced visibility and was solely reliant on the wing / door mirrors to assess traffic coming from behind) , much like a car parked at the side of the road should act with due care and attention.

The dash cam footage merely reflects the final actions that I took in order to avoid hitting the panel van but in so doing the video is painting the picture that I was joining that lane at the time of the collision which is not the case.

You were both doing exactly the same manoeuvre, changing lanes from L2 to L1.

And, yes, you should have been aware that you were in a blind spot for the van driver.

Did any of your actions to avoid him include... braking and letting him in?
Or were you trying to close the door on him, and deny him that gap?

Will the dashcam's audio include you sounding your horn to make him aware of your presence in the gap he was moving into...?

You seem to be denying that the dashcam's footage is accurate. You are not going to win that one.

Aretnap

Here's what the Ombudsman says about these sort of complaints.

If your insurer has accepted liability for an accident, it doesn’t necessarily mean they think you’re to blame. It may mean they’ve considered the evidence and decided to pay out, rather than fight a claim they think they might lose in court.

Your insurer may have accepted liability for an accident without asking you first. Most policies say the insurer can decide to accept liability. But we often find they haven’t always explained this to the customer.

It’s not our role to investigate the accident and decide who’s responsible. But we’ll look at the evidence available to your insurer at the time and check they made a fair decision. This may include things like:

• accounts from you and any other drivers involved
• witness statements
• engineers' reports
• CCTV footage

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insurance/motor-insurance/fault-claims-no-claims-bonuses

born_again

That's a new one, that a dash cam is not clearly reflecting what has happened in respect of the reason why this collision happened in the first place.

NO. What it shows is what really happened...

dash cam footage allegedly shows that both parties moved at the same time and converged into the same lane.

So 2 cars is approx 25 foot. Given you must have been creeping along, would seem that van decided that you were letting them in, then decided to speed up & block them.
Hard to be completely precise. Yep, as that is exactly what the dash cam footage shows..