Car insurance 'no fault'

Ciprico

Just before Christmas my car was in a designated parking space and a drunk driver crashed into it. In fact she crashed into several cars and shunted them all together.

The police came and hauled her off

My insurance paid for a hire car and for my car to be repaired.

So far so good

The problem is the defendants insurance company haven't paid my insurance company so I still have an active claim against my policy.

My insurance company are pursuing the defendants insurance company with a solicitor through the courts.

The defendant was insured via admiral. The police told me this...

So In the meantime I have to pay higher car insurance premiums on account of this active claim...

Is there anything I can do...

The accident took place in December 2025,....

Lorian

I had similar recently when my car was written off. I had to insure my new car showing an at fault claim while it was still open.

6 months later when the 3rd party eventually paid up I sent the letter from the then Insurer stating they had reclaimed costs to my new insurer, and they changed it to no-fault on my new policy and refunded the difference in the new policy straight away.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6675710/car-insurance-no-fault

Almost all insurers these days exclude cover when a driver is unfit to drive through alcohol or drug use.

Section 151 of the Road Traffic Act requires Admiral to ultimately settle claims against their driver despite the exclusion (as the RTA Insurer) but technically only after there is a court judgement against their driver. S152 also stipulates they must be informed within 7 days of the proceedings started. Some insurers will put their hands up early to say they are the RTA insurer and avoid court costs. Others require the third party to follow the requirements of the law.

The companies I did claims for were in the first camp, never worked at Admiral and never did recovery work in claims so cant say what their policy is. You can see that some may have decided that requiring TPs to follow the law may mean some dont bother, sometimes their policyholder may settle the claim themselves and sometimes people will mess up and fail to meet the S152 requirement. Are these frequent enough to offset the additional cost incurred for those that do see it to the end? Clearly some insurers think so.

Even if Admiral do pay up they will have a right to recover their outlay from their insured… if that makes you feel any vbetter

Realistically there is not much you can do, the law sets out a process and that process takes time.

Aretnap

If you stay with the same insurer they should eventually refund any difference in premiums and restore your NCD when the claim is eventually settled in your favour and the costs are recovered from the third party insurer.

If you change insurer in the meantime however, you should check first whether the new insurer will do this for you - some will for moving customers, some won't. You should also be prepared to do a bit of legwork yourself in terms of chasing the old insurer for details of the claim, as they won't automatically tell the new insurer when it's settled.

Beyond that as above there's a process that takes time, you can keep calling your insurer and asking for updates to apply a very little but of pressure but ultimately there's not a lot you can do to force a speedy outcome.

hey_andy_h

Frustratingly there's not much you can do but to contact your insurer to see if they will lower it and take into account. But they are entitled to do this.

I was a personal injury Paralegal and these things are disgusting, we can't even reclaim them as part of the case.

And insurers (Admiral being one of them) are just awful… all defendant side are horrible, they fail to respond to the claimant but when they want information to reduce the amount they want to give they're so demanding.

The only thing to do is to sit tight and wait for the hearing, hopefully you have a date now? I know the courts are ridiculously backlogged!

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82071135#Comment_82071135

The defendant side often feels very similarly about the claimants paralegals… as always people are coloured by their own experiences and points of view.

Remember one of our customers cycled (manual not motorbike or electric bike) into the back of a third party's Range Rover. No damage to the bike, about £150 to polish out a small scratch on the bumper but the paralegals were trying to get us to pay £6,000 for whiplash and £10,000 loss of earnings and of cause their fees on top (pre-whiplash reforms)… a 7kg bike going into a nearly 3 ton car at 5 mph is going to be 0.2Kj of energy. Most arent even going to feel it let alone claim it causes an injury lasting over a year and requires a month off work from a desk job