Flying debris car Insurance claim

DullGreyGuy

Davejones22 said:

They said my original incident number would also be linked within the other incident report. Seemed confident that my insurer would be able to pull the details needed from that.

Not sure I can do much else to help our case really. Been very clear about the nature of the debris in that it was flying rather than on the ground before we hit it, as I'm aware the likelihood of any successful claim from that would be pretty much zero.

An insurer has to buy a copy of the police report, the police will only release a copy of the report once decisions over charges etc have been made etc. The police certainly used to be poor at remembering to send a copy of the report if the request is made before it's able to be released. It therefore can take a very long time to get sight of it.

I know it's the police and all but sometimes catching the right person at the right time can mean you can get the critical piece of information you need which is the number plate. Driver's name would be great but 99% of the time not necessary and asking for personal information is more likely to trigger memory of data protection courses that you shouldn't just tell people this stuff. 

In fairness the police do it all the time too... had an officer phoning (before my insurance days) saying they'd recovered a stolen car and some of our paperwork was in it, could we identify the person from an invoice number/account number type thing. The answer is of cause we can but I'm not just giving it over the phone to you, need the appropriate data protection release paperwork. 

chrisw

Also be aware that if you are doing dummy quotes for at fault, non-fault, etc with your real details then the quotes will start to rise massively as you start to trigger anti fraud measures. 

Davejones22

All very useful info, thank you.

Grumpy_chap

Davejones22 said:

Driving down a motorway with intermittent heavy rain & a fair amount of standing water. Intentionally driving very safely to the conditions, max 70mph & at least 300-400 yards of stopping distance in front of me. 

For reference, driving safely to the conditions may mean that 70 mph is not appropriate.  From the description of "heavy rain & a fair amount of standing water" I would suggest it was not driving very safely to these conditions if at 70 mph.

The OP may wish to consider the other car on the other carriageway may also have been driving at 70 mph before they apparently aquaplaned and lost control.

For reference, Highway Code rule 125.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-rules-techniques-and-advice-for-all-drivers-and-riders-103-to-158

Davejones22

It was perfectly safe at that moment in time. Earlier in the journey I had been driving at significantly less than 70mph because it wasn't safe as you quite rightly point out.

There was not enough standing water on my entire journey to aquaplane unless there was a fault with a vehicle, or a car was going far, far too fast. Certainly on my side of the road at least (there was actually none at all on that stretch of the motorway, and very good visibility because it had stopped raining).

I'm sure there are some potential mitigating features for the other party involved - if this is the case this unfortunately this leaves me with an "At fault accident" claim and what looks to be trebled insurance premiums for 3-4 years. There is nothing I could have done in terms of driving any differently to avoid being hit, short of not making the journey, that would have avoided this "accident". It seems grossly unfair but thanks to the input from this thread I'm fairly satisfied I can't do much else to improve the outcome at this point.