car insurance claim help needed

superscholesy

Hi

I Got an email yesterday from my insurance company saying:
We were sorry to learn that your vehicle was involved in an accident on the above date.

A claim may be made against you and we need more details about the incident so we can decide how best to protect your interests. Costs may be increasing daily so we ask that you telephone us as soon as possible and treat this matter as urgent.

In addition, please complete and return the enclosed Accident Report Form in the prepaid envelope supplied.

Please ensure that all correspondence received from any other party or their representatives, any legal proceedings or notification of an inquest is passed to this office immediately upon receipt. If you receive a Notice of Prosecution from the Police, you should reply to this as required and notify us immediately of the alleged offences.

We look forward to your call.

I was not invloved in an accident on the date they have said or another date. I emailed them back last night and have rang them this morning. I have been told the other persons insurance company sent them a letter saying i had amitted fault for the accident and was wondering why i/the insurance company havent replied. They have forwarded this to there rapid response team (lets see how they live up to there name) to sort out. I asked the man about the details of the accident, time and location, he said there should be a letter in the file but it was missing (great start) So at the moment i am waiting for them to get back to me, just looking now for some adivce, do i keep ringing them to sort this out or what are my other options?

sorry this is a wee bit long

thescouselander

According to my OH who used to work in motor insurance this happens occasionally. It could be that someone is trying it on and has said you have hit them when you haven't. If this is the case it can be quite difficult to sort out. I can't give you much advice other than your insurance company are probably the best people to help you out here. Hopefully you will get a good cliams handler who will help you, if you dont escallate it to someone higher.

Hintza

The only other thing that springs to mind is a cloned plate?

You need the time and place to help sort it out. No doubt it will be a supermarket car parkwhich you were probably at, at the time so you might need to be careful (he says you say scenario) but until you have a time and place its impossible to sort anything out.

Good luck.

Edit:- Please keep us informed as this is interesting on how they sort this sort of thing out.

V_tricky

Hi,

When you talk about the Rapid Response unit, it sounds like you might be talking about Morethan - if so, any third party claim would be dealt with by their Pipeline 1 (no injury) or Pipeline 2 (injury) department.

Regardless of who or which insurer might be dealing with it, your no claims discount will be affected by this third party claim until the file is closed (unless you have a protected bonus).

Unfortunately, some people don't report accidents - either because they didn't realise they had to (?) or because they are trying to avoid taking responsibility.

The third party has to prove that on the balance of probabilities (as per the Civil Court) that it was your car, and you were the driver at the time of the incident.

It may be just that the third party took down an incorrect registration number (which is quite common, and easily resolved - they will check the make, model & colour of your car against the one the third party claims was involved, also if you are in Dumbartonshire and the incident happened in Dorset, then there is less probability that it was your vehicle involved and the third party insurers are likely to stop pursuing your insurer.

The burdon of proof rests with the third party & their insurers to prove that it was you/your vehicle involved - this could be by witness evidence, police report (if there was injury) or CCTV/photographic evidence.

If they have none of those things, then they are unlikely to get anywhere.

It's probably just an incorrect reg number been taken down, however if this is ruled out, and they still insist it was you/your vehicle, then they will need to disclose their evidence.

One thing that your insurer MAY want to do is have your vehicle inspected to prove that it's neither suffered any accident damage, nor had any recent repair work done. This might get it resolved a little quicker.

Also, although it is up to them to prove you were involved, again, to resolve it quickly, if you can prove that you weren't in the area at the time (ie get a letter from your employer, receipt from the supermarket etc showing that you weren't there) then you can get your insurer to forward this to the other side & ask them to withdraw their claim.

HTH

superscholesy

Thanks for the replies.

I did think about the cloned bank thing so will have to wait and see where the incident happened and time.

Good job i can remember my movemments that day becasue it was the father in laws birthday, so in the morning i would have come home from work (i work nights) then gone to bed for a bit, then got up and went round there in the late afternoon. If this is when it has happened i am sure someone in the car would have noticed, 4 of us including 2 kids who like to point every little thing, so i think someone would have noticed if we had hit something.
Will wait until tomorrow to see if anyone gets back to me and will keep you all updated.

superscholesy

Just a quick update

I have rang my insurance company a few times asking about the letter from the other insurance company, was told at first its not on the file and no one knew why not, then i spoke to another bloke and he said it wouldn't have been scanned yet as they dont do it straight away! to me this is crazy surely you should get all the paper work in order first! He then said they have written back asking for more information about the accident and they will get back to me. Going to give them another ring today to see whats going on. But they did say if they didnt hear back soon they would close the claim but surely this wont make it all go away will it??

C_Ronaldo

superscholesy wrote: »

Just a quick update

I have rang my insurance company a few times asking about the letter from the other insurance company, was told at first its not on the file and no one knew why not, then i spoke to another bloke and he said it wouldn't have been scanned yet as they dont do it straight away! to me this is crazy surely you should get all the paper work in order first! He then said they have written back asking for more information about the accident and they will get back to me. Going to give them another ring today to see whats going on. But they did say if they didnt hear back soon they would close the claim but surely this wont make it all go away will it??

Not really, surely if you insurance company were close it then that would be it, if i were you id be interested to know what the other party are playing at,

superscholesy

sorry for delay, all sorted now, it was a mistake, didnt give me much details apart from the claim is closed. Thanks for all the advice