Advice! Third party car insurance want their fee after 5 years

59 Posts

Hi,
I was involved in a car accident back in in December 2016 (not my faulty). Both cars were scratched. The other driver called me after the accident and he offered to pay to fix my car and then he changed his mind a couple of days later, so I decided to hire a private solicitors office (no win no fee) and, as far as I remember, did not inform my car insurance company . The private solicitors office refused to take the matter to Court when the third party denied responsibility and no further action was taken and I forgot about it after being so upset by the private solicitors office.
A month ago (after more than 5 years from the date of the accident), I received a letter in the post from the third party insurance claiming that they believe I was responsible for the damage caused to the third party vehicle and want me to repay their costs. They asked me to provide my insurance details!
My questions are:
1- Are they able to file a claim after 5 years ? (status of limitations is 3 years as far as I know)
2- If I am legally required to respond, should I do it directly with them or get in touch with my current car insurance company?
3- What is the expected outcome of this claim and will it affect my NCP? I still have dashcam footage to prove that I was not at faulty.
Thanks
I was involved in a car accident back in in December 2016 (not my faulty). Both cars were scratched. The other driver called me after the accident and he offered to pay to fix my car and then he changed his mind a couple of days later, so I decided to hire a private solicitors office (no win no fee) and, as far as I remember, did not inform my car insurance company . The private solicitors office refused to take the matter to Court when the third party denied responsibility and no further action was taken and I forgot about it after being so upset by the private solicitors office.
A month ago (after more than 5 years from the date of the accident), I received a letter in the post from the third party insurance claiming that they believe I was responsible for the damage caused to the third party vehicle and want me to repay their costs. They asked me to provide my insurance details!
My questions are:
1- Are they able to file a claim after 5 years ? (status of limitations is 3 years as far as I know)
2- If I am legally required to respond, should I do it directly with them or get in touch with my current car insurance company?
3- What is the expected outcome of this claim and will it affect my NCP? I still have dashcam footage to prove that I was not at faulty.
Thanks
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Replies
2. It's your insurer at the time, not current one you need to send info to.
3. Without knowing circumstances and seeing evidence no one can say.
Send to the old insurance company but make it clear you have the dashcam footage (make sure it's backed up on cloud somewhere just in case) and want to defend the case.
You'll probably run into issues though given you said you didn't notify your insurer at the time
so you suggest that I should get in touch with my car insurance company and tell them? without responding to the third party letter because they asked me for my insurance policy number?
Do I need to get in touch with the private solicitors office?
thanks
2) You would hand it to the insurer at the time of the incident... you could ignore it and hope to run down the clock but your insurers may hold you liable for the additional costs incurred if they do litigate and add interest etc which has been caused by your delays in passing it on
3) Presumably you have been committing fraud all these years and not telling your insurers about the incident? The impact may be much more than just your NCD as intentional false declaration on your current and last 4 years of cover could result in them all being voided.
Any reason why the third insurance company are trying to get in touch with my directly instead of getting in touch with my car insurance? I thought they usually use my car reg number to find my car insurance company details ?
Assuming the TP gave their insurers all the right details then often they will check MID to get the insurance details at the time and will approach both the driver and the insurer at the same time given how little time there is to issue left.
If you have failed to notify your insurers for 5 years your insurers may have told them they have no claim registered and so go away and hence they have reverted to you.
The action is always legally you -v- the other driver... insurers act on your behalf and if they repair your vehicle get subjugated (inherited) rights and act against your wishes if they want - some will and some wont.
It could be that its not an insurance company but a broker or accident management company etc in which case they may not have access to MID and dont benefit from subjugated rights.
It could be the third party or the insurer have registered the details slightly wrong and so dont get a correct match on MID when trying to trace the insurers of your vehicle.
After 5 years it could be the details of your insurers/their representatives have changed since they were loaded to MID and so the third party insurers aren't getting a response or the response is that its nothing to do with them etc.