Insurance claim

elsien

So have you told your friend about the bill and that you expect him/her/they to pay? 

DullGreyGuy

As it was your car your insurer is the RTA Insurer for the vehicle. Your friends DoC was invalidated by the use of the vehicle and as they are not the RTA Insurer for the vehicle they can then walk away. 

The 151 of the Road Traffic Act requires an insurer of a vehicle to settle any claim which would have been covered had the policy been an Any Driver policy. It however gives them the right to recover their outlay, similarly your own policy wording will state they have a right of recovery if you allow someone not covered by the policy to use the vehicle. So in these circumstances where you did consent the insurer has the choice of recovering it from you or your friend and will typically pick the one which represents the best prospects. 

An expensive lesson on lending vehicles... see many similar cases where someone sells their car but decides not to cancel the insurance because its cheaper to let it run than stop it early.

ThorOdinson

I don't think it is too late to report it to the police. They may not act on it, but you are only required to report it.

It sounds like your insurance company has botched this by not giving you the correct advice at the time, and then taking it all the way to court and racking up big costs. Had they established that your friend didn't have permission to drive your car to work at the outside, much of this could have been avoided.

OP, did you make it clear to them early on that your friend didn't have permission to use the car for commuting?

You could make a formal complaint and then escalate it to the ombudsman, but we really need to know the full details first.

DullGreyGuy

ThorOdinson said:

I don't think it is too late to report it to the police. They may not act on it, but you are only required to report it.

It sounds like your insurance company has botched this by not giving you the correct advice at the time, and then taking it all the way to court and racking up big costs. Had they established that your friend didn't have permission to drive your car to work at the outside, much of this could have been avoided.

OP, did you make it clear to them early on that your friend didn't have permission to use the car for commuting?

You could make a formal complaint and then escalate it to the ombudsman, but we really need to know the full details first.

We obviously dont have much to go on based on the brief description from the OP but having dealt with many similar cases in the past...

In each of those cases there had been no discussion on what the friend could and couldn't do with the vehicle, they had said why they wanted to borrow it (theirs is in the garage, OPs is bigger and they need to drive friends round etc) and so whilst they hadn't explicitly consented to other use nor had they explicitly stated it could only be used for X or Y. 

Accident happens, claim initially looked at under the DoC and then rejected as DoC doesn't apply and as that insurance is on a different vehicle thats the end of the story for that insurer. 

Third party insurer checks MID, MID reveals OP's insurance policy as the RTA insurer, TP now already !!!!!! off/worried pushes for things to be resolved quickly and OP insurer has a legal obligation to deal with it (though they can make the TP go through the process as stipulated in the RTA which is they need a judgement against the driver).

Policy wordings are typically simply that you consented to them using the vehicle, it's not as nuanced as to say you consented to them using it for this very explicit purpose and no other purpose etc. 

Police are highly unlikely to be interested, given its 2 years ago they probably won't believe the OP if they try to allege the car was effectively stolen by the friend by virtue of not using it as intended but it won't meet the legal definition of theft because the car was always intended to be returned. Having the driver prosecuted for theft is one of the few ways out of having to repay your insurers when someone else uses your car without insurance. (For the avoidance of doubt, if a theft uses it and remains unidentified then the RTA insurer doesn't have to payout but the injured party may be able to claim from the MIB Unidentified Driver agreement). 

Sure put a complaint in and take it to the ombudsman but all youre doing is increasing everyones premiums

bottles

Thank you all for the advice I have received an email from my insurance company to say they are sending the invoice to my friend and if they need any more information from me they will get In touch 

ThorOdinson

That's a positive development. Good luck.

Yorkie1

Just to add that it's 3 years for the police to start a prosecution for TWOC; no limit for Aggravated TWOC (which this technically could be owing to the accident and injury).