Car insurance claim - other driver refusing to provide evidence

[emeeeh]

Hello all,

 

I was hit by another driver a few months ago. At first he admitted liability (both to me in person and to my boyfriend over the phone) and offered to pay for the repairs (new plastic bumper). When we discovered that the front wing was bent and the cost jumped from £50ish to £400+ he changed his tune so I had to put a claim in to my insurance company.

 

They put me in touch with their preferred garage who wanted me to sort the details out with the insurance company before carrying out the work (the damage doesnt affect driving, just cosmetic).

I have submitted drawings, photos, a map of the incident and contact details for a witness who agrees that the other driver was 100% at fault. The other driver has said he thinks its not his fault but he will not provide any drawings, evidence or even an explaination, now he is refusing to answer calls from the insurance company full stop.

 

My insurance company (Swiftcover) have been rubbish at answering my questions throughout the process. When pressed about the status of the claim they say there is nothing they can do as I have not suffered any financial loss (by paying for the repairs myself) so they will not take any further action to settle the claim, they wont even tell me how often they have tried to contact him.

 

In short I'm stuck - the garage would rather I get the liability sorted so the insurance company pay them direct but Swiftcover wont resolve the liability issue unless I stump up the money. That means the other driver has been allowed to get away with causing £400 worth of damage to my car by not answering any calls from his insurance company! It would be a real struggle for me to pay the whole lot up front, especially with no guarantee for when I could get it back. This is the first time I have ever had to claim on my insurance so I dont really know what I should be doing.

 

Sorry to ramble, what I want to know is - are Swiftcover correct in saying they dont have to do anything unless I pay for the repair or is there further action I should be pushing them to take to get the claim resolved?

 

Thanks all

[crem]

My daughter have a non fault accident before Christmas and also was getting no help from Swiftcover as her insurance company. After a couple of weeks she ended up giving it to one of the "claims handling companies" you can find on google (other search engines are available) and it progressed somewhat quicker using them.

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=non+fault+car+accident&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

[TillyGT]

Hi

Are you covered TPF&T or fully comprehensive. If comp, is your excess higher than the repair costs?

If so, then your insurance company will not pay for the cost of your repairs but they should be helping you to settle with the at fault drivers insurance. I would call them to give yo the details of the at fault insurer and contact them directly. If you have an independent witness holding their insured at fault, they will deal with your claim regardless of the other driver refusing to answer any calls or provide an incident report form. Your insurer is obliged to provide you with the other drivers insurance detils for you to persue a claim direct from them. Goos Luck