Car accident - Driver not insured - Advice please

Ref44

Potentially 2 prosecutions; family member driving without insurance and OP for permitting same.

Sandtree

marie43read said:

Anyway my insurance company have advised me they pay the amount claimed from other driver insurance company ( after mitigation) and then come after me and my family member for the total cost. Whenever I call my insurance company for an update  they tell me nothing , they just say will give me/us  the bill when case settled.

I just wondered, under these circumstance am I not allowed to be more involved in what is being claimed, or question  it and question time spent in sorting out the claim. ( been 28 days so far) For example if the person is using a hire car this could cost hundreds a week - am I liable for this cost too?  Also if their car is written off, could I not request to buy the old one as before the other driver realised that they could still claim from my car insurance and thought there was no recourse to insurance funds was agreeable to getting their partner who owned a body shop repair business to do the work and get my sister in law to pay that, so obviously did not think it was a write of. 
any advice would be gratefully received 
thank you 

In these circumstances your insurers can be forced to deal with the claim under the Road Traffic Act as there is an identified driver of a vehicle they insure. They then have a right to make a recovery against either the driver or the policyholder.

Your insurers will apply their same claims handling protocols for this claim as they would any other, they arent going to pay double for hire just because they know/hope to recover the money from you.

In theory you could handle the claim end to end until such point that a court ruled that your insurance company is the RTA insurers however from practice insurers know that this generally means the losses are larger (court fees etc) and the higher loss the less chance they have of getting the money back from their insured which is why they deal with it from the outset.

As to the third party vehicle, if the vehicle is a total loss then the claim against your insurance, and therefore subsequently you, will be the total loss value minus the salvage value. If you want to try and buy the salvage then you can certainly have a conversation but it will obviously increase the total cost of the claim for you 

TooManyPoints

Not sure that could be done, could it?

No it couldn't. I was being flippant. As above, the insurer has an obligation to meet the claim under the RTA.

Sandtree

Keep_pedalling said:

caprikid1 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Probably a lucky escape that no-one was injured and no prosecution pending.

Still time I suspect for a prosecution

And for an injury claim!

And with an accident that is sufficient force to write off both vehicles it is probably reasonably likely one will follow... though thankfully whiplash claims are now much lower cost.

marie43read

Thanks for all your replies, yes my car was written off,  it has already been scrapped, was not interested in any compensation for that as I knew I was not entitled to any. I do not know if the other car has been written off by the insurers, they will not tell me
Yes it really was local, they really were just getting petrol for their own car ( which was insured but in my brothers name with my sister in law as a named driver hence why she was not insured to drive mine, ) . Insurers have already advised they alone deal with it. Police are already involved and yes whiplash injury claim  already put in. Yes a very costly lesson for simply loaning car out to put some petrol in a can! I am absolutely gutted, I do everything by the book and was trying to help out!

Car_54

marie43read said:

Thanks for all your replies, yes my car was written off,  it has already been scrapped, was not interested in any compensation for that as I knew I was not entitled to any. I do not know if the other car has been written off by the insurers, they will not tell me
Yes it really was local, they really were just getting petrol for their own car ( which was insured but in my brothers name with my sister in law as a named driver hence why she was not insured to drive mine, ) . Insurers have already advised they alone deal with it. Police are already involved and yes whiplash injury claim  already put in. Yes a very costly lesson for simply loaning car out to put some petrol in a can! I am absolutely gutted, I do everything by the book and was trying to help out!

Clearly not ...

DB1904

marie43read said:

Thanks for all your replies, yes my car was written off,  it has already been scrapped, was not interested in any compensation for that as I knew I was not entitled to any. I do not know if the other car has been written off by the insurers, they will not tell me
Yes it really was local, they really were just getting petrol for their own car ( which was insured but in my brothers name with my sister in law as a named driver hence why she was not insured to drive mine, ) . Insurers have already advised they alone deal with it. Police are already involved and yes whiplash injury claim  already put in. Yes a very costly lesson for simply loaning car out to put some petrol in a can! I am absolutely gutted, I do everything by the book and was trying to help out!

So your fine and six points are coming soon. 

TooManyPoints

 I do everything by the book and was trying to help out!

When permitting somebody to drive your car you must be absolutely as certain as you can be that they are insured to drive it. That means, as a minimum, asking to see their certificate of insurance which will show whether they have cover for other cars or not. They may genuinely believe that they have or simply be trying to deceive you. Either way it doesn't matter. It may be embarrassing to ask for such proof, especially when that person is a close friend or relative, but that's what you must do. That's what "doing it by the book" means and simply saying "he told me he was insured" will not do