Car insurance claim hassle.
Posted by: manicatel on 15 August 2008
Back in January, my wife had a VERY minor incident. She was filtering to the right hand side of a small triangular traffic island in the road to turn right at a T junction.
As she initiated the manouevre, there was nothing coming from the other direction & so it was safe to move to the rhs of the road.
Another car then turned into the road my wife was on (from the left) & her front near-side bumper made a glancing blow to the rear nearside bumper of my wifes car. They stopped, inspected the damage. There was NO visible damage to my wifes car, & the only visible damage to the other car was that the rubber strip on the bumper had come "unpopped" from a couple of the retaining clips. Insurance particulars were swapped & off they drove.
That night, the other party phoned & said they were quoted £100 to fix their damage.
She declined to give them the money, being suspicious of the figure (nothing cost exactly £100 to fix on cars, we both thought) & my wife was convinced she had driven correctly & safely.
Now,7 months later, their insurance has now told us that its £900 to fix the damage & the other driver also is claiming to be suffering from whiplash! They wanted to go 50/50 on costs. Our car was independently inspected & the conclusion was that there was no visible damage was done, which we agree with.
We declined going 50/50, as we refute any blame & 50% of a claim which has gone from £100 to £900 & now with added whiplash sounds a bit fraudulent.We said it should be "knock for knock" as there were no independent witnesses to verify either parties version of events.
Our insurance co has said that as we refuse to go 50/50, the other party refuse to go knock-for-knock, so it'll end in court. They now are sending out an independent examiner to take pics of the location, & taking statements from the missus & the other party. Its all gone on too far!
Neither of us has had any claims for 10years+ & so are a bit out of touch with how things work now. Surely, if no fault on either side can be established (no witnesses, skid marks photos etc) it ends up Knock-for-knock?
Any thoughts?
Matt.
As she initiated the manouevre, there was nothing coming from the other direction & so it was safe to move to the rhs of the road.
Another car then turned into the road my wife was on (from the left) & her front near-side bumper made a glancing blow to the rear nearside bumper of my wifes car. They stopped, inspected the damage. There was NO visible damage to my wifes car, & the only visible damage to the other car was that the rubber strip on the bumper had come "unpopped" from a couple of the retaining clips. Insurance particulars were swapped & off they drove.
That night, the other party phoned & said they were quoted £100 to fix their damage.
She declined to give them the money, being suspicious of the figure (nothing cost exactly £100 to fix on cars, we both thought) & my wife was convinced she had driven correctly & safely.
Now,7 months later, their insurance has now told us that its £900 to fix the damage & the other driver also is claiming to be suffering from whiplash! They wanted to go 50/50 on costs. Our car was independently inspected & the conclusion was that there was no visible damage was done, which we agree with.
We declined going 50/50, as we refute any blame & 50% of a claim which has gone from £100 to £900 & now with added whiplash sounds a bit fraudulent.We said it should be "knock for knock" as there were no independent witnesses to verify either parties version of events.
Our insurance co has said that as we refuse to go 50/50, the other party refuse to go knock-for-knock, so it'll end in court. They now are sending out an independent examiner to take pics of the location, & taking statements from the missus & the other party. Its all gone on too far!
Neither of us has had any claims for 10years+ & so are a bit out of touch with how things work now. Surely, if no fault on either side can be established (no witnesses, skid marks photos etc) it ends up Knock-for-knock?
Any thoughts?
Matt.