Morning STW wisdom(s),

Firstly, all occupants OK, if nto a little shaken. On Sunday just gone a Bulgarian registered lorry decided that he needed to stay on the M25 and not go down the A22, unfortaunately for us he decided not to bother looking properly and promptly slammed into the side of my car. What can only be described as a perfect fit, the lorries front wheel lug nuts acted as wonderful milling machine to the side of the car and my alloy, it even lifted the car as the wheel was going round. Anyway, awesome driving skills, big BMW kept us safe and sound and managed to limp over to the hard shoulder. All details exchanged, a full set of insurance docs from driver etc etc – so i though OK should be realtively straight forward.. Clearly not.

My INsurance company Esure, said “as it’s a foreign vehicle it’s going to be painful and don’t hold out much hope” -well that’s an odd thing to say. Despite giving them lots of info seventeen times over, they’ve still not made contact with the insurers. I did, but they’ve passed it on to Dekra Claims in the UK – initial conversations seemed to be going OK – then nothing – can’t phone, no email replies.

I have a comprehensive insurance, but the car is 10yr old, and at 143Kmiles – but its a 5 series that sits on the motorway – regular service very good condition – my fear is it’s written off and ill be offered minimum from my insurance becuase they cant be bothered to go after the foreign company.. Hire cars are also a joke (my “hire policy like for like) wont kick in until it’s officially written off, so stuck with a courtesy car (fiat500).

Was supposed to be driving to the alps this firday in it – thankfully one of the group has his car we can use, but have the family hols end of july in Italy – so now pretty much screwed there..

Anywhos, anyone else with experience, or maybe pointers advise what to push who etc?

Sorry slight rant and ask for advise!

cheers,
Sui

First glad you’re ok. That’s the main thing.

No direct experience but damage you describe + 10 year old car surely that’s going to be an economic of not structural write off.

It’s been said on similar/accident threads before but you REALLY want to test the structural integrity of a 10 year old car that’s been sideswiped by an HGV no matter how good a runner it is?

Not sure I’d want to personally that’s some very big forces involved. A real potential to leave lasting damage I would think.

Good luck. 🙂

@garage-dweller – thats where the missus’ head is at, she’s a very anxious driver at the best of times, so this has done no end of damage on that front.

I am mixed minds about it, i liked the car, i was lucky to get it off a retired judge who only did the odd trip to Germany and back for not a lot – very well specd and i’ve put 95% of all the miles on it – trying to find anything like that is £££ that i dont have..

I got hit by a Polish car / driver years ago. The driver was evasive about his insurance details so I called the police.

The police has a chat with the driver and assured me it would all be ok and they were satisfied he had insurance.

The conclusion was that he didn’t have any insurance and got away with it. I saw the same guy driving round for years afterwards – still on Polish plates but the local police DGAF.

I have a comprehensive insurance

get them to to the job you pay the premium for, you shouldn’t have to do anymore than provide the details.

The fact it’s a foreign driver is a bit irrelevant in terms of process, your insurance handle your claim, you argue with them. The assess the damage and who’s at fault. The fact it’s a foreign driver may impact what they offer you but that’s something you take up with your insurer. The problem at your end of the market is they won’t pay out much for repairs so it’s likely they will write off what has otherwise and would have continued to be a reliable car for you. This will have been reflected in you premium.

Fully comp – just get the insurance to sort it ASAP and they can deal with it, you’ll loose out ether way so may as well get it done as quick as possible.

stumpyjon
Full Member
The fact it’s a foreign driver is a bit irrelevant in terms of process

that’s the bit that’s narking me – when i hit another car (ICE slow speed on a hill), their insurance company got in direct contact with me to asses what had happened- my insurance don’t appear to be doing that.. Maybe it’s too early on, but im already out of pocket for the Highways recovery (they wouldn’t let me wait for mine as they had to close the lane).

Related to the incident is something i wasn’t expecting… Abuse from drivers as they drove past. The highways people made a comment, “that if you hear any abuse, just ignore it” – i thought eh..???

So both pre and post the lorry driving off, I as well as the highways people got heckled/sworn at over a dozen times, people driving past with cameras out – i even had a ~5 year old lob abuse at me.. WTF…

So both pre and post the lorry driving off, I as well as the highways people got heckled/sworn at over a dozen times, people driving past with cameras out – i even had a ~5 year old lob abuse at me.. WTF…

welcome to tory uk plc

Based on my experience with a similar age and mileage 5 Series they’ll write it off. Mine was actually still drivable. They will then offer a desultory amount and dig their heels in. I managed to get a few hundred more out of them but it still wasn’t enough to buy a similar vehicle.

How damaged is the car? Could you put it back on the road relatively easily? Or is it a total write off? If it’s still safe to drive maybe worth buying it back when it inevitably gets written off and get a new door and wheel (assuming that’s the damage).

My advice is, don’t take the insurances first, second or third offer. I’ve only ever claimed once, but got an extra £1500 over their first offer by arguing my car was worth more. Be prepared to look for equivalent adverts. The details you described such as one owner do add to the value, so they have to take that into consideration.

There were a couple of stories on here a while back about people getting rinsed for the hire car. I don’t remember the details but make sure you’re not liable for inflated hire car costs.

doomanic
Free Member
Based on my experience with a similar age and mileage 5 Series they’ll write it off. Mine was actually still drivable. They will then offer a desultory amount and dig their heels in

yeah that’s my fear right there.

northerntom
Free Member
How damaged is the car? Could you put it back on the road relatively easily? Or is it a total write off?

not sure yet – possibly both door panels need doing and the rear quarter panel has been creased on the arch. Alloy was fully written off, but it’s the suspension im not sure about – it’s all air at the back.. Ideally i’d get my local garage (indy) to look at it as i trust them, but that’s not going to be easy..

@scuttler – yep i remember reading those – i did speak to a company to see what the crack was – but due to the 3rd party being a foreign driver they turned the claim down..

Glad you are ok, but your insurance company needs to up its game.

Same thing happened to me, Turkish driver, had no documents and no English, but I took his registration and told my insurance co (Esure co-incidentally) and they did all the rest,  got hire car, and my car (also BMW, but 1 series) was repaired – it had a lot less damage than yours though, a bit of bruising to the door skin and smashed mirror.

If you’re happy driving around with the damage and if the suspension is okay I’d keep it and run it to the ground. Keep the cash you get towards a new one when the time comes.

Happened to me several years ago. Very similar to your situation. I was insured with Tesco at the time fully comp. They pretty quickly paid me out for the write off but they held on to my excess until the recovered anything from the bulgarian’s insurance.

It went through an intermediary (MIB I think it was called). Took ages. He denied fault and said I was on my phone. I said, if he had seen me well enough to know I was on my phone (I wasn’t of course), why did he pull out and spin me into the central reservation? Eventually it got found in my favour and I got my excess back but was about a year all in from memory.

Many years ago I was rear-ended (ooh missus) by a Romanian lorry driver.

All settled as normal via insurance, including whiplash payout.

Update.. Out of the blue email this afternoon, they’ve written car off.. I’m going to challenge the valuation obviously. Its clear they are only doing the “car” bit, should I be chasing them for the possible premium increase, or chase this through the 3rd party (they’ve conveniently also responded today).. If i now talk to the 3rd party is that likely to upset my insurance company? Esure have also done me up like a kipper and said they want the hire car back in the morning despite supposed to be given 2 days notice.. Hmm

Mrs FB got hit by a German lorry, fortunately a police car was passing & helped deal with it. Clear fault with lorry driver but took about a year to be fully settled, ie get the return of the excess and the claim to be classed as no fault (not that it dropped the premiums but was better than saying a 50/50 claim)

Cheeky sods tried to tell me they emailed 5 days ago….. Emails don’t lie… Anyway hire car extended to give some breathing space.. I’ll shall now revert back to my whaat replacement car for a 5 series… 😢

Keep an eye on your hire car cover. It’s usually “up to 14 days” or something like that. But it’ll also say “ends x days after we settle your total loss claim” or “x days after we deem your car a total loss”.

Pay close attention to the exact wording and make sure you get full entitlement.

Watch out for the settlement figure. You’ll probably know how hard it is to find a suitable replacement. They’ll go low (it’s their job). So negotiate. Provide evidence of how good yours was. History, owners, etc.

Make sure you’ve kept records of all the extra costs you have too. Have you legal cover to claim it back? And your excess?

Thanks Rich.

Stoopidly no legal cover (that’ll teach me), so I think I’m going to have to after the 3rd party for my excess and increase premiums. I’ve got lots of receipts and stuff and I know the spec of my car is very hard to find, so I’ll be arguing this with them.

Ref the hire car, this is under the policy and they’ve confirmed it will come off on the 25th, I’ll hope to have everything sorted by then (I have to really as driving to Italy on the Friday…)

I’ve – long time ago – had a car written off.
Had a desultory first offer from insurance, responded with full “door” factor as my boss called it – service records, receipts, testimonial from garage, ads for replacement car of equivalent spec & mileage & condition. Got an OK settlement. Had to do the same with a previous car, which was stolen – so had the routine off pat by then.

I don’t think you’ll have much luck with recovering your increased premiums. It’s worth a try though. Does esure give your excess back for non-fault claims, so you don’t have to claim it?