insured driver of vehicle damaged garden wall. loss adjusters engaged by drivers insurance company

Whatdo

Hi All,

Insured driver of vehicle smashed a section of brick garden retaining wall. Police and emergency services attended at ~2AM on a saturday, no other vehicle was involved.  The wall owner advised the house insurers "for information only" of the incident. The Police provided insurance details of the driver and classed the incident as a RTA.  The house owner contacted the Drivers insurers directly and it was suggested  that quotes and photos be forwarded to them with a view to settlement.

File was compiled and sent to drivers insurers who have replied that they have instructed loss adjusters.

I presume that the loss adjusters ( LA)  will price the damage to a formula benefiting the drivers insurers. The house owner simply wants to be made whole.

Does anyone have experience of this type of claim. Although it is classed as an accident "road traffic accident". The young driver is subject of a police investigation, and he made the choice to get behind the wheel and drive at such a speed in a 20MPH zone that even after smashing this particular wall his vehicle did not come to a rest for a further 50meters along the road and that after hitting yet another wall on the other side of the street.

Is this not criminal damage not unlike vandalism?

thanks for any replies

Cheers

plumb1_2

Get a couple of builders round to quote then they will have a good idea what the price it likely to be.

TELLIT01

Police have classed it as a RTA and I don't understand why the wall owner thinks a different classification would make any difference.  The insurance company will arrange inspection of the damage and pay for the relevant repairs.

Bendy_House

The driver's insurance should cover it, no problem. I wouldn't worry about the other stuff.

Whatdo

Thanks for replies,

Will have to see the outcome of the loss adjusters assessment and the offer of settlement from the drivers insurers.

The alternative is to instruct the house insurers and the additional legal cover to deal with the whole matter on the home owners policy.

One comment that came up with the drivers insurance was a claim that insurers have a special  arrangement when dealing with each other concerning charges, and that in effect they do not charge each other.

Anybody aware that this is the case or simply a negotiating stance to to have the issue settled privately.

Thanks for replies again.

Cheers

GDB2222

The issue the owner will have is that he will want the finished wall to match all the way along. That may mean replacing the whole wall.

 The insurance company will only want to pay to replace the damaged section, and the new part probably won’t match the old part. So, the house owner may have to pay part of the cost, if he wants the whole wall replaced.  

elsien

My grandmother had her front wall demolished many times over the years by speeding drivers until the council finally changed the camber,
Driver’s insurance always paid up. She only ever had the damaged bit redone but I don’t recall that being an issue in terms of how it looked. There was never any suggestion on either side that the whole wall needed replacing. 

GDB2222

elsien said:

My grandmother had her front wall demolished many times over the years by speeding drivers until the council finally changed the camber,
Driver’s insurance always paid up. She only ever had the damaged bit redone but I don’t recall that being an issue in terms of how it looked. There was never any suggestion on either side that the whole wall needed replacing. 

Interesting. I suppose that depends on how well the existing materials can be matched. As well as how picky you are!

Sandtree

Whatdo said:

Does anyone have experience of this type of claim. Although it is classed as an accident "road traffic accident". The young driver is subject of a police investigation, and he made the choice to get behind the wheel and drive at such a speed in a 20MPH zone that even after smashing this particular wall his vehicle did not come to a rest for a further 50meters along the road and that after hitting yet another wall on the other side of the street.

Is this not criminal damage not unlike vandalism?

Dealt with many of them back in my days as a claims handler, in fact they became common enough that a few of us in the Motor department was given access to the Home claim's system to be able to directly instruct the appropriate loss adjustor rather than having to phone through etc (was before the days of Teams etc).

Loss adjustors are appointed based on a combination of estimated cost and how busy they are. Their role is to manage the claim locally and ensure costs are reasonable. As mentioned by others above, the biggest issue with these types of claims is where the wall was in poor condition before, the quote is for more than the damaged area or the claimant is wanting a different design (eg going from a single to double skin). Outside that then as long as you've gotten reasonable quotes they'll most likely just settle on the basis of the lower one.

Criminal Damage requires that the driver intended to cause damage... nothing you've said suggests they deliberately hit your wall. The police would have classed it as an RTC not RTA, they changed from "accident" to "collision" a long time ago as it was felt an "accident" suggested there was no possibility of an offence or blame.

lisyloo

GDB2222 said:

The issue the owner will have is that he will want the finished wall to match all the way along. That may mean replacing the whole wall.

 The insurance company will only want to pay to replace the damaged section, and the new part probably won’t match the old part. So, the house owner may have to pay part of the cost, if he wants the whole wall replaced.  

If this is a retaining wall then that could be very high cost.
the question is - is the owner entitled to have it perfectly matching from day 1 (it will “weather”). My feeling is not but I am not a lawyer.

if it was me I’d call the solicitor provided by my legal insurance. It’s usually free to call them and ask about the law.

Whatdo

The wall in its entirety is 60 meters long (200ft). damaged section is approx 11mts, the owner is not expecting the whole wall to be replaced but from the area of damage to an opening a further 5mts to an opening. The extra 5mts the condition of the wall is delicate but it has been shifted by the impact and made worse. That is to say it is was not sprawled out lying in the pavement and road.

The question is achieving a best match to Victorian bricks as best as possible with those currently in production and available, and also achieving an aesthetic overall look. Not as regards a wall that has been hit many times. Should a householder build a wall to prevent a continued attack and damage from cars or have a wall that is so badly mismatched multiple times that a prospective purchaser is shied away from any future purchase.

I accept that this is a qualitative issue.....

Yikes I search for the pedant alert example in my posts............! help!

Cheers