Drunk driver hit my parked car - advice needed

Brie

I would suggest that you shouldn't call the drunk driver again.  The person is obviously an idiot and a liar and could accuse you of harassing him.

Susieee

Brie said:

I would suggest that you shouldn't call the drunk driver again.  The person is obviously an idiot and a liar and could accuse you of harassing him.

Thanks for the advice. I won't be calling them again. I just wanted to know whether they had called their insurer yet and whether they were admitting blame or not. That's it. They actually live two roads away, so the last thing I want is any trouble.

DullGreyGuy

Susieee said:

Urgent help needed please.

My car was parked outside my house on the road. A drunk driver (car A) collided head on with another car (car B.). Car B was pushed into my car. It was a high speed accident which resulted in my car being pushed from the road into the kerb and on to the pavement.

The driver of Car A staggered out and clearly smelt of alchohol. He hung around for a bit but then drove off leaving his friend behind. Anyway, the police managed to attend his house the same night and must have breathalysed him. I don't know for sure, but he will likely admit blame. There are more than 10 witnesses placing him at the scene.

I think my car is written off but my insurance need to have a look at it. I think they will take a while to go through their investigation - even if the other party admits fault.

I spoke to my insurance company and told them my car is used for business daily - I travel from site to site carrying tools undertaking surveys - I cannot use public transport as this will take too long visiting multiple sites and I am not able to carry my many tools. I asked for a courtesy car immediately as I have work tomorrow and my insurance provides for this. Over the next 3 days, I will be earning almost £3,000.

I was advised that they cannot provide a courtesy car until they have completed their investigation. I think they want to send the car to a repair garage and the garage will provide the temporary car.

They said I shouldn't hire my own car because I will be mitigating my losses and therefore unable to claim from the 3rd party. I think they meant hire costs.

They said they should be able to claim for loss of earnings.

My question is, is the above reasonable?
Why can't I, if blame is admitted, claim for reasonable car hire costs (around £30 per day) instead of claiming for £500-600 per day in lost earnings? Why would the 3rd party insurance not want this?

The claim is being handled by a claims management company - QDOS Accident Assistance - recommended by my insurer Ladybird Insurance.

Thank you for any help and advice.

So you are claiming from an accident management company as your broker has sold passed your details to them. Therefore what's in your policy etc will be irrelevant. They will deal with your claim on a credit basis with a view of recovering their outlay from third party. They predominately make their money by giving you a hire car on credit at a silly rate, if the car is repairable then they will do that on credit too and add a 10% margin when billing the insurer, if the car isn't repairable then they will simply send an engineers report to the third party insurer and ask them to deal with the total loss. Given you'd be sitting in an expensive hire car they have little interest in it going quickly. 


Now the problem is that the TP was drunk, many policies exclude liability when someone is intoxicated. There are two different ways it can go, the TP Insurer (TPI) may decide they accept they are the RTA insurer and so deal with you immediately and then recover their money from their policyholder. Some insurers however go by the letter of the law which means you/the accident management company would need to get a court order against the drunk before the TPI will consider the claim. 


Yes you do have a duty to mitigate your losses and so hiring a car is better than a Loss of Earnings claim however you are then taking from them the main way they make money hence they say not to hire the car yourself.  Id assume they have cold feet over the drink driving bit, it could be a long delay in them getting paid hence the "investigation"

oldernonethewiser

Susieee said:

Thanks for the reply. I have just called the drunk driver. He says he isn't admitting blame as he thinks the red car pulled out on him and caused him to crash. When he was at the scene, he said the same thing and he pointed to a space that didn't exist. I can't believe someone can drive whilst drunk, crash into a car, drive off from the scene and then deny he was at fault.

You need to get out more 😉

Sorry this has happened to you and hope you get things sorted. 

As others have said I would be hiring a car and making sure I could keep earning.  

Susieee

Hello, just following up on this with you guys, thanks for all the help so far.

QDOS (the accident management company) got in touch to send a credit rerpair agreement last week. But after posting on here I decided to do away with them and go to the underwriter. The underwriter (Wakam) seem to be abroad and use another company to manage their inhouse claims. Things went well on the initial call but then they emailed me the following:

To summarise you have the following options:

1. Claim directly under your policy – we will need all the attached documentation. Note – your policy excess will apply. 2. Contact Right Choice Broker - 01708 336519 – They may be able to pass you through to QDOS who deal with non fault incidents outside your comprehensive policy with no excess.
3. Contact the third party insurer directly - mksmotorpiclaims@allianz.co.uk / XX/X/ /XXXXXXX  //  01483 260904

That doesn't leave me with any sensible option other than to go with QDOS. So I've signed the agreement, hoping they are at lease going to handle things efficiently.

My question is who would QDOS look to claim from?

The drunk driver in his Ford Ranger collided with a Ford Fiesta (the driver says she was temporarily parked up - lights and engine still on). The Ford Fiesta then hit my car which was parked up all day outside my home.

I would assume that either the Ford Ranger is to blame or the Ford Fiesta is to blame or the insurers will decide that they share blame. I assume I get paid my costs either was as both have 3rd party insurance. Just wondering who my insurance company would go after?

The lady in the Ford Fiesta is very helpful and has given her insurance details and is possibly under the impression that I should be claiming from her.

I have tried to call my claims handler directly but they are out of the office and will speak to them later.

Thanks in advance for the help.

DullGreyGuy

Susieee said:

Hello, just following up on this with you guys, thanks for all the help so far.

QDOS (the accident management company) got in touch to send a credit rerpair agreement last week. But after posting on here I decided to do away with them and go to the underwriter. The underwriter (Wakam) seem to be abroad and use another company to manage their inhouse claims. Things went well on the initial call but then they emailed me the following:

To summarise you have the following options:

1. Claim directly under your policy – we will need all the attached documentation. Note – your policy excess will apply. 2. Contact Right Choice Broker - 01708 336519 – They may be able to pass you through to QDOS who deal with non fault incidents outside your comprehensive policy with no excess.
3. Contact the third party insurer directly - mksmotorpiclaims@allianz.co.uk / XX/X/ /XXXXXXX  //  01483 260904

That doesn't leave me with any sensible option other than to go with QDOS. So I've signed the agreement, hoping they are at lease going to handle things efficiently.

My question is who would QDOS look to claim from?

The drunk driver in his Ford Ranger collided with a Ford Fiesta (the driver says she was temporarily parked up - lights and engine still on). The Ford Fiesta then hit my car which was parked up all day outside my home.

I would assume that either the Ford Ranger is to blame or the Ford Fiesta is to blame or the insurers will decide that they share blame. I assume I get paid my costs either was as both have 3rd party insurance. Just wondering who my insurance company would go after?

The lady in the Ford Fiesta is very helpful and has given her insurance details and is possibly under the impression that I should be claiming from her.

I have tried to call my claims handler directly but they are out of the office and will speak to them later.

Thanks in advance for the help.

QDOS will do the repair and provide hire on a credit basis and then attempt to recover their outlay from Allianz, assuming thats the insurer of the drunk driver. 

With option 1 your excess would apply as standard, some insurers choose to waive it in certain circumstances, but it is recoverable from the drunk driver's insurance as an uninsured loss. If you have Legal Expenses on your policy then they'd appoint someone to assist in recovery of all your uninsured losses. However as you've decided to go down the accident management route they'll deal with that instead, though they aren't typically interested in ULR unless it involves an injury. 

Susieee

Thank you for your reply, very kind of you.

Aretnap

Susieee said:

I would assume that either the Ford Ranger is to blame or the Ford Fiesta is to blame or the insurers will decide that they share blame. I assume I get paid my costs either was as both have 3rd party insurance. Just wondering who my insurance company would go after?

Cars aren't to blame for accidents, people are to blame for them (at least, in 99% of cases that's true). Your claim is against the driver who was at fault for the accident, or his insurance company. Not against the specificobject that hit you, or its innocent owner.

DullGreyGuy

Aretnap said:

Susieee said:

I would assume that either the Ford Ranger is to blame or the Ford Fiesta is to blame or the insurers will decide that they share blame. I assume I get paid my costs either was as both have 3rd party insurance. Just wondering who my insurance company would go after?

Cars aren't to blame for accidents, people are to blame for them (at least, in 99% of cases that's true). Your claim is against the driver who was at fault for the accident, or his insurance company. Not against the specificobject that hit you, or its innocent owner.

Can't think of a single scenario where the car itself would to be blame, there are cases where the manufacturer or servicing garage are to blame for failures but that still comes down to being a person responsible. You also get no blame scenarios where a road freezes and a car parked before the freeze slides down the camber but even then you can query weather reports etc and if the driver took reasonable precautions when parking etc

Aretnap

DullGreyGuy said:

Aretnap said:

Susieee said:

I would assume that either the Ford Ranger is to blame or the Ford Fiesta is to blame or the insurers will decide that they share blame. I assume I get paid my costs either was as both have 3rd party insurance. Just wondering who my insurance company would go after?

Cars aren't to blame for accidents, people are to blame for them (at least, in 99% of cases that's true). Your claim is against the driver who was at fault for the accident, or his insurance company. Not against the specificobject that hit you, or its innocent owner.

Can't think of a single scenario where the car itself would to be blame, there are cases where the manufacturer or servicing garage are to blame for failures but that still comes down to being a person responsible. You also get no blame scenarios where a road freezes and a car parked before the freeze slides down the camber but even then you can query weather reports etc and if the driver took reasonable precautions when parking etc

Yeah was thinking of the sudden mechanical failure as a situation where there might be no driver to blame... depending on the circumstances it might not always be easy to pin any blame on a mechanic or manufacturer either. Colloquially speaking you might blame the car in that situation, though as a legal principle you can't ascribe culpability, still less negligence, to an inanimate object.