Voided Car Insurance - implications for me as the wronged party

ulltiger

Hello all,
I'm looking for some advice as my insurer is not responding to my requests for information.
I was hit by a 3rd party back in Oct 2019. I was stationary awaiting the, to be, witness coming down the road, the 3rd party reversed off a hardstanding into the side of my car. I have a witness statement confirming this version of events.
However it would seem the 3rd party gave false details, certainly address, possibly name. The mobile number was genuine at least! I got the registration plate.
Initially the 3rd party insurer denied responsibility on the basis of mistaken identity but given the witness corroborated my version of events and description of the 3rd party I presume that moved on. Then last month, nearly 2 years later, out of the blue, despite being told all along that prospects for recovery are deemed good (I accept this is no guarantee, clearly), a letter from the solicitors involved stating "there are no resonable prospects of recovery as the 3rd party policy was void".
I'm guessing the person who actually hit me was not the insured on the vehicle and presumably shouldn't have been driving it (although this hasn't been confirmed to me).
I then had an email from my insurer, Zurich, stating:
"I refer to your above dated incident and I can confirm that your motor insurance claim has now been settled.
I can also confirm that your No Claims Bonus has been disallowed.
As you have protected your No Claims Bonus it will only be affected if there have been more than two claims in 5 years with a disallowed NCD decision."

I was a little surprised by this turn of events, however I then questioned what should I declare on future insurance as to the value of the settled claim, as I am not aware of this, should Zurich have provided me with this information? Also there was an uninsured driver promise on the policy (I'm out of pocket to the tune of £350 excess), is it not covered in this scenario?
Not being knowledgable about the insurance industry the lack of information from my insurer is disappointing to say the least, I've only had 2 phone calls from them in the 2 years it's been going on. All other contact has been me chasing them.

One questions what insurance is for if not to protect the innocent.

Kind regards,
Chris.

Sandtree

You would need to speak to your insurers to find out what has happened and why they are not looking to the third party insurer as the Article 75 insurer (aka RTA Insurer) and similarly why it doesnt fall under their "uninsured driver promise"

ulltiger

Thanks very much Sandtree, I have looked this up and I'm now feeling more fobbed off than before, especially when I see there was an amendment made in Nov 2019 under which even if they were to make the policy void they are effectively still liable!!
However thanks for the leads, hopefully my insurer actually deems me worthy to converse with as it's track record isn't the best.

Sandtree

ulltiger said:

However thanks for the leads, hopefully my insurer actually deems me worthy to converse with as it's track record isn't the best.

Insurers generally divide their claims teams into tiers... there is the least trained team that deal with the first notification of loss and most basic customer enquiries and then there will be a few layers of more technical teams eventually hitting the guys who deal with multi-million pound claims. 

The trick is always to get past the first response guys and get to the technical teams behind, some insurers are more open and you are likely to had a letter/email from the tech team with a telephone number for them but others are a bit more an escalation point only and so dont reveal their direct dial numbers etc.