Car crashed into house

Inplanesight

Hi all

Looking for a sanity check as we’ve had a car drive into our house causing structural damage to the front with the wall pushed into the room. I’ve got all the details of the car down and spoken to the driver and told them I’ll have to go through insurance to make sure the work is done to a standard (same bricks etc) and assuming insurance repairs are fully covered? 
 I read a thread on here that suggested it wasn’t the right thing to do as I should be using the car’s insurance to put it right but my home insurer said they’ll recover costs from the car owner

Really confused and never expected this to happen so any pointers would be great

Ms_Chocaholic

Are you still in the home? Have you notified your insurance company and have they provided alternate accommodation. You may be residing in an unsafe home.

cw8825

I would go with the HOUSE insurer
it us their job. They know what they are doing and will have contracts in place to make it much more straightforward 

Inplanesight

Ms_Chocaholic said:

Are you still in the home? Have you notified your insurance company and have they provided alternate accommodation. You may be residing in an unsafe home.

I sent pictures off to the loss adjuster/structural surveyors and they told me they’d review the pictures and call me if they were going to send someone out tonights and if they believed it was unsafe to stay I haven’t had a call so they said will call over tomorrow to start the process 

DullGreyGuy

Both routes are valid but you have more rights if claiming off your own insurance than the third party's. Given its a cross class claim it also somewhat depends on who the third party insurers are, even though we did Motor and Home insurance we were poorly setup for dealing with home damage in Motor until the last few months of my time in Claims. Not a problem for modest claims but we didnt have easy access to structural engineers or alternative accommodation if there were safety concerns etc. 

Keep_pedalling

Let your house insurers deal with it, that is what you pay the premiums for. They will get their money back from the car insurers.

Inplanesight

Thanks for everyone’s replies I’ve just got some more questions;

- Will my home insurance go up next year because of this even though I was not at fault in anyway?

- If the driver was uninsured what does that mean for my claim (had a text from the driver which is making me think this might be true)

- I can see my insurer covers alternative accommodation up to 10K. If we’re asked to move out for a period would a short term rental be likely to be approved rather than a hotel? We have a newborn at home so I’m not 100% comfortable on a hotel given the lack of space and facilities for their care

- As above I’ll be able to get accommodation for our dog I think too as I did put that on the policy too? I.e kennel fees covered too

BarelySentientAI

Yes, price will go up.  You have had a claim and are statistically more likely to have another.

Uninsured driver is not much different from your side - afaik there isn't a fault/no-fault distinction based on recovery in home insurance.

Depends how long they think it will take and what the differential in cost is.  Speak to your loss adjuster.

If it's covered by the policy, yes.  Speak to your loss adjuster.

Aretnap

1. Most things that you might claim for on your home insurance are not your fault - fires, floods, storm damage etc etc. This will be recorded as a claim and will probably have much the same effect on your premium as most other claims. Any increase will likely be trivial compared with the cost of the damage. 

2. It will make little or no difference to a claim through your own home insurance - you are covered for damaged caused by a motor vehicle collision full stop. Your insurer won't be able to get their costs back from an insurer that doesn't exist of course, but that's their problem more than yours. 

3. It depends, inevitably if you need accommodation at very short notice a hotel is likely to be the only practical option for the first few days at least; if you're likely to be out of your house for a long period the insurer should be open to rented accommodation.

4. Depends on the policy terms but I would hope that alternative accommodation would generally make provision for family pets.

Mark_d

I would always go via my own insurance company.  They work in my best interests and then recover the money from the other party.

Inplanesight

Thank you all again for your support 

I’ve read on here about getting a loss assessor to support ourselves https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/loss-assessors/#should

Is this something I should look at as I don’t want to be short changed on the repair or will the loss adjuster typically side with me anyway as we’re in a no fault situation?