Hit by foreign hgv

dfraser_6

Hopefully someone can give some advice. I have been in an accident where my car has been side swiped by a Dutch Hgv that was changing lanes. The hgv did not stop but I got the registration number and another driver was kind enough to stop and give me dashcam footage of the incident. I am very clearly not at fault.

A week later and rather frustratingly I now know that European lorries have different registration plates on the cabs and trailers and as I only got the trailers number my insurance company believes they may never track down the other driver who is clearly at fault. If I am lucky and they do it will take 6 to 9 months minimum. In the meantime my car is being written off and the only way I can proceed is to register a fault claim against my insurance and pay my excess. I will be thousands of pounds out on the value of my car and will see increased premiums potentially for the next 5 years - all through someone else's poor driving.

Does anyone have experience of the same? Did you manage to find the driver based on trailer registration? It seems to me that even if they are registered separately there should still be a record of who the trailer is registered to and there should be insurance linked to that trailer that I can claim against.

Any advice folks?

DullGreyGuy

dfraser_6 said:

Hopefully someone can give some advice. I have been in an accident where my car has been side swiped by a Dutch Hgv that was changing lanes. The hgv did not stop but I got the registration number and another driver was kind enough to stop and give me dashcam footage of the incident. I am very clearly not at fault.

A week later and rather frustratingly I now know that European lorries have different registration plates on the cabs and trailers and as I only got the trailers number my insurance company believes they may never track down the other driver who is clearly at fault. If I am lucky and they do it will take 6 to 9 months minimum. In the meantime my car is being written off and the only way I can proceed is to register a fault claim against my insurance and pay my excess. I will be thousands of pounds out on the value of my car and will see increased premiums potentially for the next 5 years - all through someone else's poor driving.

Does anyone have experience of the same? Did you manage to find the driver based on trailer registration? It seems to me that even if they are registered separately there should still be a record of who the trailer is registered to and there should be insurance linked to that trailer that I can claim against.

Any advice folks?

Why will you be thousands out on the value of the vehicle if you bought comprehensive cover from a reputable insurer? It should be insured for market value less the excess that you chose to set when you bought it.

Your insurers will contact the MIB who will contact their equivalent in the Netherlands who'll make enquiries and hopefully confirm the insurance details and who their UK representative is. Depending on companies involved the UK company may be able to fully handle the claim or they be nothing more than a message box and translation service. 

Its been many years since my claims days but these sorts of claims are typically very slow and frustrating and probably have a lower success rate than when both vehicles are UK but the majority were still settled in the right way on the longer timescale. 

Goudy

If the MIB fail to identify the other drivers insurance, isn't there another scheme to claim.
I was thinking about the Uninsured Drivers Agreement.

You could try this as it's designed for claiming when the other driver is uninsured or untraceable.
It mentions in the FAQs about Green Card insurance, so it must apply to untraceable foreign vehicles as well.

Not sure how successful you would be but it might be worth a shot if all else fails.

dfraser_6

DullGreyGuy said:

dfraser_6 said:

Hopefully someone can give some advice. I have been in an accident where my car has been side swiped by a Dutch Hgv that was changing lanes. The hgv did not stop but I got the registration number and another driver was kind enough to stop and give me dashcam footage of the incident. I am very clearly not at fault.

A week later and rather frustratingly I now know that European lorries have different registration plates on the cabs and trailers and as I only got the trailers number my insurance company believes they may never track down the other driver who is clearly at fault. If I am lucky and they do it will take 6 to 9 months minimum. In the meantime my car is being written off and the only way I can proceed is to register a fault claim against my insurance and pay my excess. I will be thousands of pounds out on the value of my car and will see increased premiums potentially for the next 5 years - all through someone else's poor driving.

Does anyone have experience of the same? Did you manage to find the driver based on trailer registration? It seems to me that even if they are registered separately there should still be a record of who the trailer is registered to and there should be insurance linked to that trailer that I can claim against.

Any advice folks?

Why will you be thousands out on the value of the vehicle if you bought comprehensive cover from a reputable insurer? It should be insured for market value less the excess that you chose to set when you bought it.

Your insurers will contact the MIB who will contact their equivalent in the Netherlands who'll make enquiries and hopefully confirm the insurance details and who their UK representative is. Depending on companies involved the UK company may be able to fully handle the claim or they be nothing more than a message box and translation service. 

Its been many years since my claims days but these sorts of claims are typically very slow and frustrating and probably have a lower success rate than when both vehicles are UK but the majority were still settled in the right way on the longer timescale. 

I bought the car 12 months ago and the initial offer on its value is about 60% of what I paid for it - over 5k less. I have sent it back for an engineers report and will hopefully get closer to what I consider it's value.

I'm more concerned really about impact on my premiums. My insurance company have said they think it is unlikely that they will get the other drivers details which I find staggering so it's a claim on my insurance. I have a protected ncd but I dont really understand how that works and I'm fairly certain it won't stop my premium going up when it's due for renewal in about 6 weeks time.

The whole situation is just so frustrating... Thank you however for the slightly more positive spin than I'm getting from my insurance company. If the majority of these cases are settled eventually I can keep my fingers crossed and try to be oatient

DullGreyGuy

Goudy said:

If the MIB fail to identify the other drivers insurance, isn't there another scheme to claim.
I was thinking about the Uninsured Drivers Agreement.

You could try this as it's designed for claiming when the other driver is uninsured or untraceable.
It mentions in the FAQs about Green Card insurance, so it must apply to untraceable foreign vehicles as well.

Not sure how successful you would be but it might be worth a shot if all else fails.

It would depend if they can identify the driver or not, if its identified and they didnt have insurance then its the uninsured driver agreement or if they are unable to identify them its the untraced driver agreement. In both cases you can only claim uninsured losses. 

dfraser_6 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

dfraser_6 said:

Hopefully someone can give some advice. I have been in an accident where my car has been side swiped by a Dutch Hgv that was changing lanes. The hgv did not stop but I got the registration number and another driver was kind enough to stop and give me dashcam footage of the incident. I am very clearly not at fault.

A week later and rather frustratingly I now know that European lorries have different registration plates on the cabs and trailers and as I only got the trailers number my insurance company believes they may never track down the other driver who is clearly at fault. If I am lucky and they do it will take 6 to 9 months minimum. In the meantime my car is being written off and the only way I can proceed is to register a fault claim against my insurance and pay my excess. I will be thousands of pounds out on the value of my car and will see increased premiums potentially for the next 5 years - all through someone else's poor driving.

Does anyone have experience of the same? Did you manage to find the driver based on trailer registration? It seems to me that even if they are registered separately there should still be a record of who the trailer is registered to and there should be insurance linked to that trailer that I can claim against.

Any advice folks?

Why will you be thousands out on the value of the vehicle if you bought comprehensive cover from a reputable insurer? It should be insured for market value less the excess that you chose to set when you bought it.

Your insurers will contact the MIB who will contact their equivalent in the Netherlands who'll make enquiries and hopefully confirm the insurance details and who their UK representative is. Depending on companies involved the UK company may be able to fully handle the claim or they be nothing more than a message box and translation service. 

Its been many years since my claims days but these sorts of claims are typically very slow and frustrating and probably have a lower success rate than when both vehicles are UK but the majority were still settled in the right way on the longer timescale. 

I bought the car 12 months ago and the initial offer on its value is about 60% of what I paid for it - over 5k less. I have sent it back for an engineers report and will hopefully get closer to what I consider it's value.

I'm more concerned really about impact on my premiums. My insurance company have said they think it is unlikely that they will get the other drivers details which I find staggering so it's a claim on my insurance. I have a protected ncd but I dont really understand how that works and I'm fairly certain it won't stop my premium going up when it's due for renewal in about 6 weeks time.

The whole situation is just so frustrating... Thank you however for the slightly more positive spin than I'm getting from my insurance company. If the majority of these cases are settled eventually I can keep my fingers crossed and try to be oatient

Your car is 12 months older with one more previous owner than when you bought it so realistically its simply going to be worth less than what you paid but that doesn't mean you've lost thousands because of the claim, you'd already lost the money because of the passage of time just like 99% of the other things you own have depreciated. 

Its likely you were dealing with the First Notification of Loss team who are the lowest trained people in claims who's role is to record the details and make basic initial decisions and then route the claim to a more technical team who'll deal with the other aspects of the claim. In most insurers they'll have no sight of how 99% of claims end up being settled but get anecdotal knowledge over time which sometimes is based on reality but normally highly simplified.

NCD promises you a discount on your premiums. NCDP promises your discount percentage won't reduce. Neither promise that premiums won't go up but the increase will be reduced by the appropriate percentage. The issue is the eventually, in my days of letters it was exceptionally slow and so little/no chance of resolution prior to the renewal.  

dfraser_6

DullGreyGuy said:

Goudy said:

If the MIB fail to identify the other drivers insurance, isn't there another scheme to claim.
I was thinking about the Uninsured Drivers Agreement.

You could try this as it's designed for claiming when the other driver is uninsured or untraceable.
It mentions in the FAQs about Green Card insurance, so it must apply to untraceable foreign vehicles as well.

Not sure how successful you would be but it might be worth a shot if all else fails.

It would depend if they can identify the driver or not, if its identified and they didnt have insurance then its the uninsured driver agreement or if they are unable to identify them its the untraced driver agreement. In both cases you can only claim uninsured losses. 

dfraser_6 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

dfraser_6 said:

Hopefully someone can give some advice. I have been in an accident where my car has been side swiped by a Dutch Hgv that was changing lanes. The hgv did not stop but I got the registration number and another driver was kind enough to stop and give me dashcam footage of the incident. I am very clearly not at fault.

A week later and rather frustratingly I now know that European lorries have different registration plates on the cabs and trailers and as I only got the trailers number my insurance company believes they may never track down the other driver who is clearly at fault. If I am lucky and they do it will take 6 to 9 months minimum. In the meantime my car is being written off and the only way I can proceed is to register a fault claim against my insurance and pay my excess. I will be thousands of pounds out on the value of my car and will see increased premiums potentially for the next 5 years - all through someone else's poor driving.

Does anyone have experience of the same? Did you manage to find the driver based on trailer registration? It seems to me that even if they are registered separately there should still be a record of who the trailer is registered to and there should be insurance linked to that trailer that I can claim against.

Any advice folks?

Why will you be thousands out on the value of the vehicle if you bought comprehensive cover from a reputable insurer? It should be insured for market value less the excess that you chose to set when you bought it.

Your insurers will contact the MIB who will contact their equivalent in the Netherlands who'll make enquiries and hopefully confirm the insurance details and who their UK representative is. Depending on companies involved the UK company may be able to fully handle the claim or they be nothing more than a message box and translation service. 

Its been many years since my claims days but these sorts of claims are typically very slow and frustrating and probably have a lower success rate than when both vehicles are UK but the majority were still settled in the right way on the longer timescale. 

I bought the car 12 months ago and the initial offer on its value is about 60% of what I paid for it - over 5k less. I have sent it back for an engineers report and will hopefully get closer to what I consider it's value.

I'm more concerned really about impact on my premiums. My insurance company have said they think it is unlikely that they will get the other drivers details which I find staggering so it's a claim on my insurance. I have a protected ncd but I dont really understand how that works and I'm fairly certain it won't stop my premium going up when it's due for renewal in about 6 weeks time.

The whole situation is just so frustrating... Thank you however for the slightly more positive spin than I'm getting from my insurance company. If the majority of these cases are settled eventually I can keep my fingers crossed and try to be oatient

Your car is 12 months older with one more previous owner than when you bought it so realistically its simply going to be worth less than what you paid but that doesn't mean you've lost thousands because of the claim, you'd already lost the money because of the passage of time just like 99% of the other things you own have depreciated. 

Its likely you were dealing with the First Notification of Loss team who are the lowest trained people in claims who's role is to record the details and make basic initial decisions and then route the claim to a more technical team who'll deal with the other aspects of the claim. In most insurers they'll have no sight of how 99% of claims end up being settled but get anecdotal knowledge over time which sometimes is based on reality but normally highly simplified.

NCD promises you a discount on your premiums. NCDP promises your discount percentage won't reduce. Neither promise that premiums won't go up but the increase will be reduced by the appropriate percentage. The issue is the eventually, in my days of letters it was exceptionally slow and so little/no chance of resolution prior to the renewal.  

I guess my benchmark on the value is could I go out and buy the same car, same age with the settlement figure. What they have already offered is a no but I'm sure they will do better. Thanks for your advice...

Essex_uk

Similar situation to many above, sideswiped by a foreign lorry. Cars been repaired but did not have the reg of the cab only the trailer. Insurers closed the case so complained, close that as well with no result. BUT once the renewal came through listing us as 'AT FAULT' then thats not on. Let me expalin the renewal quote was in keeping with the annual 'extortionat' price rise so begrudgingly took that on the chin, BUT having researched for cheaper insurance using a few comparison web sites I see that our claim 'AT FAULT' data has been shared across insurers which has a financial impact in that other insurers are looking for at least £1k more; so for the next 5 years we have no choice but to stay with our current insurers. Lets see what the Financial Ombudsman has to say about that!

400ixl

dfraser_6 said:

I guess my benchmark on the value is could I go out and buy the same car, same age with the settlement figure. What they have already offered is a no but I'm sure they will do better. Thanks for your advice...

Where are you getting those prices from? If they are main dealer forecourt asking prices then you are unlikely to get an offer that would match those. The offers will be more in line with general retail values from generic dealer sold prices. They have guides which are updated frequently to give them the value of the car.

400ixl

Essex_uk said:

Similar situation to many above, sideswiped by a foreign lorry. Cars been repaired but did not have the reg of the cab only the trailer. Insurers closed the case so complained, close that as well with no result. BUT once the renewal came through listing us as 'AT FAULT' then thats not on. Let me expalin the renewal quote was in keeping with the annual 'extortionat' price rise so begrudgingly took that on the chin, BUT having researched for cheaper insurance using a few comparison web sites I see that our claim 'AT FAULT' data has been shared across insurers which has a financial impact in that other insurers are looking for at least £1k more; so for the next 5 years we have no choice but to stay with our current insurers. Lets see what the Financial Ombudsman has to say about that!

At Fault is the insurance term for not able to recover the claim from a 3rd party. It is not saying the driver caused the accident.

Registering the claim as at fault on the shared database in your circumstance is correct. Unlikely the Ombudsman will do anything.

You have made a claim they could not recover their costs for, this is an at fault accident and you will have to declare it as such unfortunately as that is the way it works.

Mildly_Miffed

Yes, in NL trailers are registered separately to the tractor unit... but that doesn't mean it's untraceable. It's registered. You have its registration. That can be traced to the operator, who should have a record of the tractor unit's operator, who should provide their insurance details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_Netherlands#Trailers

Your insurer should still be able to get off their backside and do this.

Either way, the process for claiming is the same - you claim through your insurer. The only difference is if it goes on your record as an at-fault or eventually not-at-fault. The pay out shouldn't be delayed, and you should get the fair market value for your car immediately prior to the collision.

DullGreyGuy

Mildly_Miffed said:

Yes, in NL trailers are registered separately to the tractor unit... but that doesn't mean it's untraceable. It's registered. You have its registration. That can be traced to the operator, who should have a record of the tractor unit's operator, who should provide their insurance details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_Netherlands#Trailers

Your insurer should still be able to get off their backside and do this.

Either way, the process for claiming is the same - you claim through your insurer. The only difference is if it goes on your record as an at-fault or eventually not-at-fault. The pay out shouldn't be delayed, and you should get the fair market value for your car immediately prior to the collision.

It's the MIB's job to identify the insurers of overseas vehicles, they contact their opposite number in the other country who confirms and passes it back. 

In most cases the foreign insurer will have a UK representative who the OP's insurer would deal with. "Representatives" can have full delegation and deal with the claim or they can be nothing more than a mailbox & translation service.