Scud – thats a lovely bit of comprehensive advice, hopefully get the insurers (RAC) to raise their game.

The main thing is it draws the vehicle owner into the game, which means mr achey neck and his solicitors have to play this game with an audience.

It’s taken me over a year to get a claim settled after someone ran into the side of my car. The third party admitted liability at the scene, but the police weren’t involved as there were no injuries.

I took loads of photos, and even included maps showing the various roads (there were no markings, but it wouldn’t have made any difference, because the third party never looked before pulling out). It was a good job I did, because shortly after I sent all this to the insurance company the third party claimed it was my fault.

The damage wasn’t excessive – about £2800 all in – and my insurance company initially wanted to go shared liability. I refused, as it was obvious who’d driven in to who because of the damage on both cars.

In the end a court date was set, but then the third party’s insurance company made a lodgement in court of 50% of the repair costs, which meant if I lost the court case then my insurance company would have been liable for any additional costs, plus the legal costs of the third party’s insurance company.

I refused again to accept shared liability – while muttering about insurance ombudsmen – and insisted that it went to court. A week later the third party finally admitted liability and the claim was settled in full, without going to court.

But, I suspect if I hadn’t pushed my insurance company so hard they’d have been happy to go with shared liability for the incident, at my expense.

Keep pushing them is my advice.

johndoh – Member
To which my wife’s response was “That’s handy, I’m a physio. I can assess it for you if you want” Never heard anything more about that….

Because a physiotherapist at the side of a road is best placed to diagnose a genuine whipwash claim…
Can I get my out please?
You do understand the principle of a bluff being called, I take it? 🙄

scud – can I contact you by email to discuss an idea we have had within my business relating to insurance claims fraud? Need an insiders view as to whether it is a pants idea or not.

Sounds to me that the letter is coming from a no win no fee solicitor? If the claim was coming from the claimants insurance company, surely they would just contact your mum’s insurer directly?

FWIW – she must get her insurance company to dispute this false claim. My wife had an accident on the M3, in the morning rush hour in September 2006. The traffic was more or less stationary and she lightly rolled into a Honda CRV in front but the cars no more than kissed each other! There was no damage to her car and “no visible damage” to the Honda. They exchanged details and went on their way. Months later my wife heard from her insurer that they had paid out over £8000. My wife didn’t ask what this related too, but at no point did her insurer contact her to confirm her side of events. Unfortunately that claim against her, has meant she has been paying stupid premiums ever since.

– whiplash to passenger (surname ending in an ‘ski’)

What relevance has the three letters at the end of the claimants surname got to do with anything?

Surely you can “find” a witness if you look hard enough .

I would pop down to the local police station. You might just find a police officer who is willing to pursue this. I wouldn’t warn or threaten the other side first. As presented by you it is clearly insurance fraud. A dilligent officer would be visiting the receptionist you reported it to, together with the ‘driver’ (who will need to explain why he didn’t report it to the police, and may collect some points (5 minimum!), the same question would be asked of your mother but even if it were found that there was someone inside (perhaps in the back of the van) she would have a reasonable excuse if completely unaware of it and left details with owner in the belief the van was empty. Even if they take NFA it might be enough to make someone ‘remember’ that they weren’t hurt afterall!

are you sure it’s not an ambulance chaser that just has notification of an accident contacting your wife to see if she wants to claim?

Back of her car damaged then did they not drive into her 😉

I really can’t believe some of the crap I’m reading on this thread, just report it do both insurance companies and police although they will probably wait for the insurance to go after the fraudulent claimant. It’s quite simple really.

What relevance has the three letters at the end of the claimants surname got to do with anything?

Eastern European in the SE, about the same as someone of a certain origin in Oldham…

– whiplash to passenger (surname ending in an ‘ski’)

Eastern European in the SE, about the same as someone of a certain origin in Oldham…

Seriously, if you have a racist point to make just do it, don’t be coy.

Seriously, if you have a racist point to make just do it, don’t be coy.

http://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news/31590/four-more-jailed-for-crash-scam

I can only give you our experience and the comments of friends/family. Its a problem and whether you like it or not more likely performed by certain minorities.

You’re doing it again.

Sounds to me that the letter is coming from a no win no fee solicitor? If the claim was coming from the claimants insurance company, surely they would just contact your mum’s insurer directly?

FWIW – she must get her insurance company to dispute this false claim. My wife had an accident on the M3, in the morning rush hour in September 2006. The traffic was more or less stationary and she lightly rolled into a Honda CRV in front but the cars no more than kissed each other! There was no damage to her car and “no visible damage” to the Honda. They exchanged details and went on their way. Months later my wife heard from her insurer that they had paid out over £8000. My wife didn’t ask what this related too, but at no point did her insurer contact her to confirm her side of events. Unfortunately that claim against her, has meant she has been paying stupid premiums ever since.

Can’t believe that an insurance company would pay out £8k with absolutely no input from the insured party. She must have reported it to them and also admitted liability at the same time, thus leaving herself open to any type of claim. Insurance companies do not just hand out cheques for no reason.

Can’t believe that an insurance company would pay out £8k with absolutely no input from the insured party. She must have reported it to them and also admitted liability at the same time, thus leaving herself open to any type of claim. Insurance companies do not just hand out cheques for no reason.

See my comment further above. I had a number of calls to my wifes’ insurance company on the subject – and they were paying out irrelevent of what we said.

Well b r, there is a number on the article you link to for reporting Insurance Fraud, take it you have done this?

My point above is that it appears that the insured party must have reported the incident to their insurers and admitted liability. The impression is that £8k was paid out just after swapping details.

All the above show’s that it may be a good idea not to admit liability at the time.

All the above show’s that it may be a good idea not to admit liability at the time.

You’re not meant to admit liability at the time… During lessons you should be expressly told not to admit liability in the event of a crash.

“You’re not meant to admit liability at the time… During lessons you sld be expressly told not to admit liability in the event of a crash.”

read the small print of any car insurance documentation. explicitly tells you not to admit liability regardless of situation.

So, if you do not admit liability why in the above cases have the insurance companies paid out thousands without any further input from the client? i.e. no liability admitted, then surely the full circunstances need to be determined and the party at fault determined, and informed/agree?

Neice jusy had crash with passenger. Lucky to be alive really after hitting wall and few piroettes.

Of course insurance company cite mistakes in documentation to avoid paying out. They are demanding another grand (its a racket) apparently the dvla put the wrong engine size on the reg docs.

Anyway two weeks later neice just let on her mate has said her mums told her to claim whiplash which she is going to do as “it will pay for my holiday, you should do it too, we can do it together”

It is absolutely gauling given the the insurance has hinted this may lead to another more serious demand from the policy holder.

Can’t believe that an insurance company would pay out £8k with absolutely no input from the insured party. She must have reported it to them and also admitted liability at the same time, thus leaving herself open to any type of claim. Insurance companies do not just hand out cheques for no reason.

AIUI insurance companies don’t challenge whiplash claims and just pay out. The insurer doesn’t lose money as our premiums have all gone up to cover the huge fraudulent rate in the UK (highest incidence rate of whiplash in the world apparently).

Insurers often don’t challenge, because of the cost of doing so. There’s no standard for medical or physical examination for whiplash, costs are high for what there is, fast track legal processes for small personal injury cases doesn’t work, and legal precedents are stacked up against the insurers when trying to defend against fraudulent claims.

There’s work ongoing to resolve these, but obviously it’s not going to happen overnight.

All you wanted to know and more:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmtran/writev/whiplash/m38.htm

And, as a whole, the UK motor insurance market hasn’t made money for 20 years.

Holy thread ressurection batman!!

Isn’t it?

I was hoping there’d be a happy ending update. 😕

oh hello

Hadn’t noticed this had been revived – things dragged a bit which is why I’ve never updated and the insurance have never actually said “OK this is finished” but is seems to have finished.

In summary the driver (but not owner) of the other vehicle was claiming for injury in a tiny collision during which he wasn’t actually in the vehicle. He was making the claim independently of the vehicle owner/employer but not for any damage to the vehicle (which has a cracked light).

The insurers were initially going to roll over – our course of action was: (thanks to advice from here)

we photographed the rear of my mums car – replete with no damage at all from the collision

asked the insurers to contact the no win no fee solicitors representing the claimant and forward the photo to them. We requested that the claimant took this picture and any evidence of damage to his works van to the doctor who assessed his whiplash and ask that doctor to confirm that collision of that magnitude correlated with the whiplash he’d diagnosed.

time passed

the claimant then submitted a new claim – forgetting all about the whiplash, but claiming instead for the broken light

we reminded the insurers that the claimant wasn’t the owner of the van

no further response from the claimant so presumable the situation is settled.

Good work, well done.

Edit: add to my list of reasons above: “lazy claims handlers and/or crappy claims handling departments dealing with volume, not well set up or suited to developing independent thought and critical analysis.”

Hardly rocket science, batting that back, was it? If he’d got away with it, he’d do it again and be another “Claim for whiplash, I did, and got £3K!”