• This topic has 24 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by LHS.
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  • Defending a car insurance claim, should I just give in?
  • D0NK
    Full Member

    Mrs was involved in a bump, she was stationary at the time and we had 2 witnesses so initially it was looking good, insurance company told him to do one which his insurance company seemed to accept (not the same insurer). He then went to no win no fee who are taking us to court for a whiplash claim, our insurer’s solicitor never wanted to go to court in the first place and has been heavily pressuring us to sign a consent form to pay the whippy claimant off. Somehow she lost the details of one of our witnesses* and informed us on the day of submitting the court papers, that the other had pulled out.

    So we’ve got no witnesses, the other guy has one who quite frankly I reckon is on drugs, his version of events is complete bollocks and the physical damage supports my view, but that’s 1 more witness than we have.

    TBH we’re pissed off with it all and the longer it goes on the more pissed off we get. I suspect “our” solicitor is either incompetant or is just engineering it so we don’t go to court. Was originally of the opinion it’s the other guys fault so we’ll battle him every step of the way, but now I’m not sure it’s worth it. Our solicitor reckons there’s a good chance in court even if judge belives us he’ll say we’re atleast 1% to blame so there will be a claim against us (and due to court costs the total cost – passed on to the public – will be more than just paying out now)

    So should I sack it off as a screwed up system, fire off a complaint to the legal ombudsman and just let it go?

    *I managed to get our insurers to supply them to her again but by that time it was too late.

    brakes
    Free Member

    can you ensure that if you do give in that your no-claims is protected and that you won’t suffer an increased premium as a result?

    Pawsy_Bear
    Free Member

    No idea mate. I was rear ended on the M5 in Oct hitting the crash barriers and writing my car off, clear roads, no other traffic. After taking months to get any reply from his insurance they now claim that I drifted into him! I will fight mine. I have no idea how this might pan out.

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    crankboy
    Free Member

    fight it . based on a total lack of knowledge of the facts of the case and the evidence. I would guess a no win no fee solicitor will also be reluctant to go to a disputed trial where he could end up with nothing.

    What does the other sides witness say ? Did you get your witnesses evidence in writing?

    D0NK
    Full Member

    nah no offer to keep no claims brakes, I’d lose it in the 1% scenario that solicitor described aswell. Got another none fault claim recently aswell so I’m probably already down as an unlucky driver too 🙁

    What does the other sides witness say ?

    we have the witness statement, it’s pretty damning but as I said the physical damage suggests he’s spouting complete drivel and he’s definitley lying about his post crash behaviour but as we have no witness it’s my wife’s word against his. The driver who hit us has also changed his story from his preliminary statement but our solicitor said this would have been a fill in the blanks pro forma that no win no fee will use for all their cases.

    Did you get your witnesses evidence in writing?

    we didn’t personally they both verbaly backed up my wifes version at the scene (and during initial phone call from insurers), no idea what the solicitor/insurer got in writing.

    I would guess a no win no fee solicitor will also be reluctant to go to a disputed trial where he could end up with nothing.

    that was my hope, they’ve already agreed to a 50% payout (solicitor asked, and has told us to consent or insurers will just override our decision anyway, dunno how true this is), I guess it’s a who blinks first thing, but they don’t look like backing down so far.

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    Speak to your insurer and register a complaint about their solicitor and go from there. Losing witness details is completely unacceptable.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Your premium will go up in future anyway as you’ve notified them – doesn’t seem to matter whether you are at fault or not nowadays.

    Without knowing the full facts it hard to know if you’ll win or lose. At whose cost is all this, yours or insurance company?

    D0NK
    Full Member

    Speak to your insurer and register a complaint about their solicitor and go from there.

    already brought it up with claims handler before the witness details thing, been pretty shoddy from the start, claims handler said they use this firm all the time and are happy with their work. I kicked off again when the details thing happened, no response other than to get the details sent out again, guess I need to put in a proper complaint in writing.

    At whose cost is all this, yours or insurance company?

    insurers

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    given it made about 20 quid a year difference to my premium when my mrs was hit by a driver who seemed to have constant amnesia about what her version of events was and still looked to be winning …. i gave in .

    my times not worth saving 20 quid.

    Although it has meant that she cannot drive any of my modified cars – insurance on those are crippling but on her noddy mobile its 20 quid

    br
    Free Member

    My Missus ran into a van a few years ago.

    It was at walking pace in a queue up a hill, and she was looking elsewhere… She managed to get her Freelander exactly between the rear doors, pushing them in.

    There was no damage whatsoever to her car.

    The bill for their hire van was greater than the repair costs, and both claimed for whiplash…

    We said that the insurance company shouldn’t pay out, but in the end they did as the two guys had ‘Doctors’ evidence and as no doubt would have cost more to fight (plus still a chance of losing).

    Didn’t impact her insurance, and no excess loss as no damage to her car.

    globalti
    Free Member

    This kind of story boils my wee. I would tell my insurance company that I will not authorise them to pay a single penny and I look forward to seeing the other driver in Court.

    Can you say that?

    RamseyNeil
    Free Member

    So he ran into the back of your wife and is claiming for whiplash , that sounds pretty unlikely , it should be your wife who is claiming for whiplash if anybody .

    amedias
    Free Member

    she was stationary at the time

    we had 2 witnesses

    He then went to no win no fee who are taking us to court for a whiplash claim

    his version of events is complete bollocks and the physical damage supports my view

    based on all the above, do the words “I believe this is attempted insurance fraud” have any weight in cases like this?

    ie: rather than just a dispute about blame

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    “Can you say that?”

    Not with the shower of shit that are admiral.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    One should always fight for truth and justice

    I would be complaining about the solicitors to have lost a witness which may well mean the case is presumably somethign that the standards/regulatory bods will care about

    If you know the other side are BS then , as we all have to pay for insurance, the right thing to do is hold on

    D0NK
    Full Member

    B r yeah insurance guy I spoke to said basically the system is screwed, if they get a doc to approve their whiplash claim it’s down to arguing over how much to payout.
    as the vast majority of incidents can be argued endlessly over who was to blame as soon as you/the defendent can be considered 1% to blame the court costs mean it costs less to pay than defend.

    So we go to court fight it, a load of aggro, time off work for court, get a 1% scenario, lose no claims, other party gets a smaller payout maybe but increased cost to insurers (and us the insured public) means starts to look a lot like a pyrrhic victory to me.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    We made a whiplash claimant go away by asking the whiplash ‘sufferer’ to take the photos of the damaged vehicles (no visible damage on one vehicle, a cracked indicator lens on the other) to the GP that had diagnosed the whiplash and ask the doctor to give written confirmation that the circumstances and symptoms described by the claimant to the GP were consistent with the severity of the accident in those photos. That on its own was sufficient – we never heard from them again, but the next step was going to be to ask for a copy of his employers accident book as the accident, the guy wasn’t even in the vehicle during the shunt, happened in a company vehicle on company time.

    Ultimately the person is making a fraudulent claim – that gets more and more difficult for them to face up to doing that the more they have to discuss the fraud they are committing with other people. So ask for things that they in turn have to ask other people for – ask for doctors to confirm the symptoms, ask for them to get their employer to confirm the amount of time absent from work due to the terrible injuries and what concessions they are having to make for their ongoing symptoms etc etc. The more they have to get others to collude in the lie the less enthusiastic they’ll get.

    D0NK
    Full Member

    as we all have to pay for insurance, the right thing to do is hold on

    like I said there’s a good chance of a 1% so my insurers pay a fortune to defend the case and still have to payout, end result is fighting for us all means costing the insruers (and therefore us) more money.

    I think it needs a system change not argumentative **** like me/us 🙂

    do the words “I believe this is attempted insurance fraud” have any weight in cases like this?

    I’ve said as much, response was as above, “unfortunatley it’s the system we have, we don’t call doctors liars.”

    maccruiskeen when you say “we asked”, did you do the asking, your solicitor or did you ask your insurer’s solicitor to do it? Not sure what our insurers solicitor has done but she doesn’t seem keen on questioning anything about the case, dunno if she doesn’t believe our side or she’s under pressure and just wants to payout and get this case off her books. Unless something changes I’ll be heading to legal ombudsman once it’s over – tho as I haven’t instructed them myself I’m not sure I can do that.

    philjunior
    Free Member

    I’m not sure I’d give much credance to the 1% comment. This sounds like the insurer/their solicitors can’t be arsed (as it’s cheaper in general for them to pay out) and are taking their can’t be arsed to very high levels.

    Complain to the insurers, insurer’s ombudsman and police (as you have witness details they will be able to chase them up to show fraud.) or this sort of piss taking will continue for everyone.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    unfortunatley it’s the system we have, we don’t call doctors liars.”

    You are not accusing the dr of fraud but the person and their witness
    As the damage does not tally with the account one would assume this is not that hard to at least raise the possibility of this

    I have to say the solicitors sound, at best inept, and at worst totally inept. I suppose you have to ask yourself if you trust them in court . I think we know the answer to this one

    scuttler
    Full Member

    I have to say the solicitors sound, at best inept, and at worst totally inept. I suppose you have to ask yourself if you trust them in court . I think we know the answer to this one

    To me they sound either stupid, lazy or incompetent, none of which are ideal. I have no experience of this but maccruiskeen’s unraveling of the lies by forcing collusion sounds like the way to go.

    Keep at it OP. Any one of us could be on the wrong end of this and the more it’s accepted the more prevalent it becomes both on the part of the perps and the insurance companies.

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    To clarify – was it your solicitors that lost the Witness details?

    Have they been instructed through your insurance company?

    If they have and are via your insurance you should be making a fuss to the solicitors about how your case has been handled and to the Insurance company that the solicitors are not undertaking the case in a way that serves either your or the insurance companies interests – i.e. claim payout.

    You can Get details of how to complain about a solicitor here: http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/for-the-public/faqs/complaining-about-a-solicitor/

    I had a fraudulently excessive car insurance claim against me where the solicitor appointed didn’t even ask me for my version of events and was going to accept a claim of £30k plus against me with out question. Subsequent to my complaint the solicitor was fired from the practice however because the damage had been done by that point the claim still went against me, fortunately due to finally being able to clarify the correct location(!) and images of the actual damage the claim ended up (only!) being £10k. Which increased my premiums by nearly £400 per year for 5 years. Had I known what I know now I would have sued the firm using my home insurance legal cover.

    oliverd1981
    Free Member

    Insurance companies claims departments/solicitors see to take great delight in escalating claims. They certainly seem to get rubbish rates on hire cars (especially seeing as they can provide much cheaper insurnce for the hiree) I reckon all victims of non-fault crashes shouldbe paid back a set sum of about £500 if they decide to to persue any further claims.

    br
    Free Member

    So we go to court fight it, a load of aggro, time off work for court, get a 1% scenario, lose no claims, other party gets a smaller payout maybe but increased cost to insurers (and us the insured public) means starts to look a lot like a pyrrhic victory to me

    Agree, and it won’t be you deciding this but your Insurance Company – so lose no more sleep/time/cost over this.

    LHS
    Free Member

    Every case is different so go on your gut feeling, life is a bit too short to let it bring you down…however…I had something similar where a truck went into the back of me on a slip road as I was joining a motorway. Their version of events wildly differed depending on which way the wind was blowing they claimed I cut in front, I braked too hard etc etc, fact was it was a single lane and I was stationary due to an accident ahead.

    Took 20months as they kept elevating the legal claims, first it was just for damage to the vehicle, then whiplash, then out of work expenses then I think he died….it got ridiculous. It is all designed to make you cave in and fold. I eventually got to the point where I instructed my solicitor to set a court date and to stop all discussions on blame.

    2 weeks later they admitted liability and paid up.

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