Car Insurance and Repair

NEETF69

400ixl said:

Unfortunately the speed of the other driver does not remove your responsibility for not reversing out onto a road and into their path. Probably the best scenario will be a 50/50.

By the sounds of it, your policy broker is RAC and the insurance underwriter is Aviva. The RAC incorrectly advised you it would be a non fault claim and passed you to a 3rd part accident management company. They in taking your side have tried to claim off the 3rd party directly giving you an expensive credit hire vehicle which is where they make their money.

On discovery of the 3rd party not accepting responsibility, and knowing the likely hood that they are correct, the claims management company know they will not get their money so want to cut and run as soon as possible.

This passes you back to the RAC as the broker who now want to pass you to the underwriter in Aviva.

Sounds like you only have the basic courtesy car cover which is supplied by the repair network, not Aviva. They will where available provide you will a car only when the vehicle is with them for assessment and repair and up until there is a write off settlement. Unfortunately the car is not with them at this time, so they will not provide a car as you are not entitled to one until it is. And even then maybe not if it is a write off.

Unfortunately we see more and more of these examples where insurance brokers (and insurers themselves) are passing people to claims management companies without the due diligence themselves, or explanation of the different scenarios that could happen to the claim.

Sorry to say you are likely liable (maybe not wholly) for the accident, but have been given a real run around caused by the belief that you weren't.

Hopefully Aviva will get you sorted quickly. The main thing to get sorted is getting the car to their approved repairer, or an assessor out to where it is.  

Thanks for the explanation.  I had no idea I'd even entered in to this type of agreement so not happy with RAC at all.  

DullGreyGuy

RAC is neither an insurer nor broker when it comes to Car Insurance, they simply have licensed their brand to Budget who are a broker. 

Margins on selling car insurance as a broker are absolutely tiny and even smaller if you are having to pay licensing fees for a brand. As such it's not uncommon for them to look at other revenue streams like selling passing customers to credit hire companies in non-fault accidents. 

With credit hire the company pays an "independent" engineer to assess the vehicle and the repair estimate, if there is one. If its unrepairable they will value the vehicle and send a report to the credit hire company who in turn pass it on to the Third Party Insurer asking them to pay what their engineer has valued the car at. Obv in this case because you were reversing at the time of the incident liability is in dispute so they've declined to settle and the credit hire company have gotten cold feet so pulled the hire car given if the TPI dont pay up its their loss. 

Few insurers accept the independent engineer report without question but may use it to get basic details like the mileage and pre-accident condition etc for doing their own valuation. Things would probably be quicker if the relevant insurer did their own investigation but the credit hire company get a kickback from the engineer and the claim being quick is the last thing they want because the big money is made from the credit hire. 

As you were reversing at the time of the accident you will be held at least partially liable, probably the majority to blame and potentially fully to blame. Visibility is significantly worse when reversing and as a consequence you have a greater duty of care. Likewise you emerged into the path of a vehicle of a vehicle already established on the road which again gives you a heightened duty of care. 

Back in my day speeding itself was not considered an act of negligence even if it's illegal however driving at an inappropriate speed for the road conditions could be. Having seen a few cases post my leaving claims there have been a couple of cases which imply the attitude is slightly changing however these things take time to be established as the baseline of caselaw rather than odd outliers. 

You'll need to check your policy documents regards what your are entitled to during a claim, as already explained by others your basic courtesy car is only available when the vehicle is economical to repair, its given by the garage at their own expense hence no repair = no car.