Small bump..........problems with insurance company.........advice please

[odie345]

Mrs had a small prang in the car while reversing to allow a car to come past her on a heavily congested road due to parked cars. She checked all around and started to reverse when she felt the crash. A driver had reversed out of his drive across the path and across his side of the road and into the rear of Mrs car. The other driver got out and insisted that Mrs had hit him and being naive and never had a crash before the Mrs was a bit shocked and just accepted liability. She then rang MY insurance (aviva) as the car is owned by me, I am the policy holder and mrs is a named driver to start the ball rolling so to speak in regards to repairs to the car. The insurance company took basic details and accepted the fact Mrs had initially accepted liability and confirmed this to the third party insurance. When I got home from work and sat with the Mrs it was apparent to me that the other driver was at least as much to blame for this as the mrs and rang the insurance company to state the facts. I was initially told that I would need to consult with the broker company for a claim pack. Did that, no claim packs issued, need to speak with aviva about the claim. I finally got through to aviva again and I was told that it was too late as they had already accepted blame and there was nothing more to do. I pointed out that all the facts were not included in the report, to the extent that no reference was made as to the direction of the other vehicle or the direction of travel of the other vehicle. I also pointed out that Mrs called them while still in mild shock and could not be 100% accurate as to the info she gave them.

Any advice please......

[unclebulgaria67]

Unfortunately your mrs totally compromised the Insurers position and when she phoned the Insurers with the details, they have gone ahead on the basis of it being a fault accident.

 

In those circumstances, yours Insurers did not have much choice. It is a condition of Insurances that you never admit liability to a third party, as to do so firstly compromises the Insurers position and secondly your risk the Insurers refusing to cover the loss due this breach in the conditions of the policy.

 

It is a shame that this happened, as from your explanation of the accident, it would appear the other driver was at fault. My understanding is that it is against highway code to reverse on to a public highway from a driveway and that the driver moving on to the highway is the one that should check the road conditions before moving onto it. If your wife was already on the highway and moving the car, the other driver should have been paying more attention.

 

You could investigate this further to see whether it is possible to take the third party driver to court, but given the position of your Insurers, you might struggle.

[Wulfyn]

Even if you didn't admit liability I'd be surprised if this was anything other than 50/50 given that both parties were reversing. Just too difficult to prove anything otherwise (a lot of liability decisions don't seem to make sense, or are fair to most people's views).

 

Did the other vehicle go into the side of yours, or did you go into the side of theirs?

[WanderingGirl1210]

I can totally relate to this