Car accident advice

[peejay1977]

Hi all, apologies for the waffling but I felt it best to give all the facts. Tuesday evening after work myself and my wife were travelling home along a 40mph road in the wet, approaching a right hand bend, when a car coming the other way appeared from around the bend clearly exceeding the speed limit and going too fast for the bend, before I knew it he understeered out of control into my lane, hit the kerb and then we had a head on crash. I didn't have much time to react as I was almost on top of the corner.

 

He admitted full liability at the scene to myself and to the Police. In fairness he couldnt really not considering the circumstances. Here are some pics :

 

 

We were both breathalysed and checked for insurance etc and all came back ok etc.

 

His insurers (Admiral) phoned me the evening of the accident whilst we were both at the hospital and again twice the following day being quite heavy handed in their approach to get me to agree to let them handle the situation in its entirety which annoyed me somewhat as they offered me £1200 on the spot to agree to settle the personal injury element of it which I kindly told them was too early in the process as myself and my wife are both badly bruised from the seat belt and are both genuinely having back and chest problems.

 

The lady from Admiral even told me their client had admitted liability to them and she was very keen to infer that they wanted to do anything for me they could and they didn't want me to involve my insurance company.

 

Due to the way she tried to "threaten" me with legal terms and warnings of how it will be worse if I delay and go through my own insurance and it will take months and months etc I told her I wasn't interested. Her attitudfe offended me to be honest, I understand their position, they want to minimise costs and thats fair enough, I certainly dont't want to milkt the situation as I'm not like that and I'd rather not add to the list of people that cause my premiums to rise every year but their methods left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

 

I informed my insurers who stated under the circumstances they would waive my excess and that they would instruct their claims team to sort out a "non fault" hire car in the mean time but they needed to confirm with Admiral they weren't going to contest blame. I got a call Friday stating that Admiral were now "considering their position" on the matter and until they admit liability my insurers won't provide me with a replacement car.

 

I'm somewhat annoyed by this as I need to get around and if they decide to contest liability then I won't get a hire car AT ALL which could mean months without transport and I physically can't get to work without a car.

 

I'd rather not get an accident management company involved but I am really starting to lose faith in the whole process as noone seems to be fighting my corner adequately.

 

FYI I have the legal cover addition to my policy (I'm with AXA).

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Paul.

Edited July 22, 2012 by peejay1977

[heliosuk]

Wifey might not appreciate being called "wide"!!!

[peejay1977]

Good spot! Haha

[renegadeimp]

It seems to be happenign a lot lately. A claim is put in and the first thing the insurer does is say theyll give £1200. Knowing full well that in reality the claim could be much higher. This means the insurer doesnt pay out much, but still increases the premiums dramatically.

[T.C.]

Are you the same PeeJay as PJ on the MCNNinja forums?

 

If so, I thought this had been covered in quite some depth?

[peejay1977]

Are you the same PeeJay as PJ on the MCNNinja forums?

 

If so, I thought this had been covered in quite some depth?

 

Hi TC, yeah I just wanted to get some advice on here too, I didn't want to bother you too much with this, I know you're a busy man etc

[Ganymede]

Hi,

 

You should not accept the £1200 without being seen by a medical expert. Odds are your PI claim is worth a lot more than that considering the damage to the car.

 

Don't use an accident management company as they are leechs in my opinion. Go directly to a solicitor as some can arrange credit hire replacment vehicle for you, the cost of which is recovered from the fault parties insurers and won't cost you anything upfront.

 

Ignore the threats from the TPI, they are trying to bully you into accepting less than you deserve.