OT: Who's car insurance should deal with this?

First.Aspect · July 2011

Bit of an idiot question** -

My partner was driving my car today. In a Beadle's About incident, the car was written off* in a car park, because someone further up a slope got out of their car without putting their handbrake on properly - you can guess the rest.

I have fully comp for anyone driving the car, 3rd party.

She has fully comp to drive any car 3rd party.

Clearly its the other person's fault, because no one was in my car at the time.

My understanding is that she reports to her insurance company and we report to ours. But should it be my insurance company, or my partner's because she was in charge of the vehicle at the time?

I'm a bit nervous about calling an insurance company if I don't have to because the last time I asked a general question about something someone else did (and paid to repair, in the end) they called it a "claim" and put my premium up.

*(probably - because its an old clunker and some wheels aren't in the right place any more)
**for which I excuse myseslf because I've not made a car insurance claim for a looong time

alfablue · July 2011

If the other person is at fault they are liable for your damages; their insurance company may cover that liability for them, but the bottom line is the other party owes you.

You should call your insurers but say you are reporting an accident (which you should do) but state you don't wish to claim. They may still put up your premium / remove NCB temporarily until the issue is resolved because they can't assume the other party won't counter claim (or that your version is correct).

Do you have any legal cover? If so this can help at times like this.

sketchley · July 2011

3 options

1. Buy yourself a new a car and use your legal cover to pursue the other companies insurance for the cost.

2. Get your insurance company to pay out for a new car, they will then pursue the other parties insurance company to recover the loss. This has to be your company as you will be making a fully comp claim on your policy that will then be recovered.

3. Go to third party claim management company. They will make there money by hiring you a car at high rate them claiming it and other fees back.

Of course for the first one you need the cash lying around for a new car.

The second option will result in an increased premium if your next renewal if the claim is not settled in full by third party insurer. You can either argue the point with the insurance company when they try this or claim the money back again once the claim is settled. This happened to me, wife was driving car, hit by bus. Bus company accepted liability and paid for everything including hire car, taxis etc and all settled. 6 months later renewal jumped up as about £500 of legal fees were still waiting to be repaid by third party insurer. Insurance company said don't worry pay the extra and it will get refunded when settled, I argued that liability had been admitted and the rest of claim would be paid and they "waived" the uplift.

Option 3 try to avoid that if you already have a fully comp policy.

spen666 · July 2011

You are required both by law and your insurance company to report to the insurance company any issue that may affect your insurance and the cost thereof.

Technically you must therefore notify your insurance company of the incident

MattJ88 · July 2011

Somebody hit my car once while I was parked in the carpark at work - I was not in the car at the time. Driver drove off but since I worked with the idiot a few phone calls and he owned up!

Despite me contacting his insurance company who dealt with the claim in full, paid out fully, my car was repaired - my premium still went up the year after. They will get you any way they can!

First.Aspect · July 2011

Well, I managed to talk to a sane person at the insurance company and the answer is:

Partner's insurers are the ones to call, either directly or by the 3rd party's insurers. Accident record becomes appended to the record for my vehicle (and thus me) in due course.

I could also report to my insurance company, but I figure that this risks somoene creating what appears to be a separate incident record and gives another operative the opportunity to cock something up and quadruple my premuim and necessitate large and painful arguments.

nation · July 2011

Sketchley wrote:

Option 3 try to avoid that if you already have a fully comp policy.

Seconding this. Any claim from a credit hire firm or accident management company will get a going over with a fine tooth comb. You will not get the benefit of the doubt about anything., and they will be trying to extract the maximum possible money from the insurer (note that you will not necessarily see any of said money).

The more disreputable ones will let you/encourage you to keep racking up charges without warning you that the other insurer is contesting or disputing some or all of them, and then will try to get the money back off you when the insurer refuses to pay.

Heard about some poor bugger who had a credit hire firm after him for a couple of grand in hire charges because the "like for like" hire car they'd provided him to replace his 1995 Audi 80 for the month it took to sort out his claim was a brand new BMW 3-Series at a rate of over a hundred quid a day.

navt · July 2011

This would not have happened if she used the bike

.

First.Aspect · July 2011

spen666 wrote:

You are required both by law and your insurance company to report to the insurance company any issue that may affect your insurance and the cost thereof.

Technically you must therefore notify your insurance company of the incident

Which is wha the call cenre person said initially, until I drilled down a bit and discovered that the duty of disclosure would be satisified providing that the incident was reported by someone.

spen666 · July 2011

First Aspect wrote:

spen666 wrote:

You are required both by law and your insurance company to report to the insurance company any issue that may affect your insurance and the cost thereof.

Technically you must therefore notify your insurance company of the incident

Which is wha the call cenre person said initially, until I drilled down a bit and discovered that the duty of disclosure would be satisified providing that the incident was reported by someone.

I don't think person at call centre knows the law

Failing to disclose to insurance company is also a criminal offence-S3 Fraud Act 2006
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/d_to_g/fraud_act/#a12

First.Aspect · July 2011

spen666 wrote:

First Aspect wrote:

spen666 wrote:

You are required both by law and your insurance company to report to the insurance company any issue that may affect your insurance and the cost thereof.

Technically you must therefore notify your insurance company of the incident

Which is wha the call cenre person said initially, until I drilled down a bit and discovered that the duty of disclosure would be satisified providing that the incident was reported by someone.

I don't think person at call centre knows the law

Failing to disclose to insurance company is also a criminal offence-S3 Fraud Act 2006
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/d_to_g/fraud_act/#a12

Failing to disclose IS a criminal offence? Don't you mean may be a criminal offence? How have you made out the 4th element o f fraud, "intending, by that failure, to make a gain or cause a loss" with such certainty?

Taken literally, which insurance companies are wont to have a stab at now and then, you should report every single near miss you or your vehicle ever have, every stone chip, every time you have had to use the horn. There's no de minimis princple, you see. Accordingly, I believe from the advice you have provided that I'm a serial offender?

There's no potential gain to me, and so no potential fraud, until I renew my insurance (or cancel it, I suppose) at which time they will have been notified of the incident.

The main thing is to figure out who argues with who, and who gets to inspect my vehicle and so on. i.e. who should I telephone in the morning. I don't imagine that it would be helpful to have three insurers playing pass the parcel.

OT: Who's car insurance should deal with this?

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