MIB court claim - need advice

[jj69]

Hi All..

It has been some time since I have been on these forums but need some advice regarding a accident in June 2012.

 

A quick breakdown :

I hit a car in the rear just off a roundabout as the person in question had just stopped behind a queue of traffic that had just come to a halt off the roundabout exit onto a bypass.

I came off the same exit about 20-30 mph and was starting to accelerate when the traffic just stopped ( a lorry in front of her just braked suddenly) so I hit her car on rear bumper but she had a tow bar that took full impact.We both had estate cars , her car had minor scuffs to the rear bumper but no damage to the tailgate and tow bar was slightly twisted.

My car was written off due to radiator pushed into engine compartment etc, my wife who was a passenger got whiplash injuries while the driver of the other vehicle got out and seemed fine.

We all went to hospital and were given the all clear.

Ok now the nightmare bit ! I was uninsured as I took out insurance with More Than that same morning ( 7am ) accident happened later at 8.30am but More Than did not start policy till 9pm. I had a print out stating insurance date( that same day ) but not a time stamp, More than refused to honour insurance saying it was not in place.I went to FOS who agreed with More Than but said if I could prove via a time stamp they would agree with my complaint but I was unable to get time stamp where as supposedly More Than showed FOS their computed generated insurance screen etc.

As it turns out insurance got settled as my More Than was a sister company of the claimants so they settled between each other so I thought.

 

Today got a court letter from Northampton and defendant is MIB claiming I owe money. It reads as follows :

Claimants claim exceeds £5000 but does not exceed £15000 of which personal injury exceeds £1000 there are then a number of documents from her Dr plus a loss adjustors docs and a local garage giving details of repairs which apparently exceeded the cost of the current vehicle, these include :

Claimants car written off total loss £3800 ( I have photos showing very light damage )

Car hire charge for five days from claimant - £1832

Storage charge- £300

Incident / Expenses - £50

 

The garage ( a refurb outfit who specialise in repair work ) wrote claimants car off is stating the following :

New parts required -rear bumper,rear bumper armature,motifs,rear lower panel,rear panel,exhaust rear no plate surround and tow bar

Repairable parts bootlid/tailgate

No estimate for repair of vehicle but we have calculated -

Labour costs - £959

paint and materials - £245

New parts - £1565.99 + VAT £554

Total cost £3323.99 with a labour rate of £27.40

Car was a 2003 model and had an estimated value of £3800 - subject to consideration of mileage etc

Condition - Vehicle was found to be average condition

Steering - no excessive play

Brakes - Pedal travel satisfactory

 

 

The claim also states :

Particular of negligence: with my defence in brackets

Failing to keep lookout - ( roundabout had long grass in centre obscuring views)

Failing to look ahead or heed prescence of claimants car ( she entered roundabout from another entry to me I explained this to the MIB rep who was trying to say I was behind claimant all the time to which I was never until coming off roundabout)

Driving to fast ( I was going around a roundabout and had stopped first so was in 2nd/3rd gear just before coming off the exit to join bypass) , I was never charged with driving to fast or dangerous driving

Failing to allow sufficent breaking/ stopping distance - ( again as above claimant had stopped just off exit of roundabout next to white chevrons I might add and I was coming off roundabout from another entry point)

Failing to give sufficent warning of approach - ( Claimant was stopped behind a large lorry , it was a single lane bypass and I had nowhere to steer onto )

Failure to stop , slow down or steer to avoid collision ( see entry above again single lane bypass no passing points and backed up with traffic)

 

The Dr's report is laughable with soft tissue damage to her neck adding point 1 a hyperextension flexion injury to the spine and point 2 she was somewhat shaken

Apprantley later the claimant was anxious when approaching junctions/roundabout and noticed an increased useage in her rear view mirror.

Continues to suffer discomfort and symptons are aggravted over a long period of sitting down.

She suffers Psychological issues when approaching junctions/roundabouts in case the similar happens again

Claimant did not take anytime off work

He then adds the following findings - very healthy lady who enters consulting room easily without any sign of pain or discomfort. She sits in front of me with no discomfort.

Examination concludes that overall neck area is normal without spasm of deformity !!

 

It does state on the medical form that she went to out local hospital where the accident had occurred and they have stated as follows - Claimant was given a lift to the hospital , in casualty she was fully assessed and advised of the soft tissue nature of her neck symptons and given specific instructions regarding neck care and to use analgesia as required ( IN OTHER WORDS THE ALL CLEAR ! )

 

I was cautioned for careless driving and given a breath test ( passed with a zero rating ) and was then asked to produce insurance docs etc at local station which I did , explained the situation to police with More Than but they were happy to release my car from compound due to date stamp on my printout.

I was asked to go on a driver awareness course and if completed the Police would not prosecute . I passed and did not receive a fine , or court appearance for dangerous or careless driving !

So I will acknowledge the court claim to give me an extra 28 days but I need to know if I can defend this claim or settle with a payment arrangement.

The court claim does not appear to have a specific amount to be claimed it just says - does not exceed £15000

 

I believe some of these areas are spurious claims especially regarding personal injury and although I am not denying the accident happened and by a case of bad luck/timing my insurance was invalid I would consider myself at some fault.

 

So can I successfully challenge this in court or should I admit defeat and setup a payment plan ?

 

Thanks

JJ

[Ganymede]

Oh dear what a mess.

 

I'm not entirely sure the MIB will take installments but it's worth calling for a W.O.P chat.

 

If you can afford a solicitor you could get one but at the end of the day you rear ended the Claimant damaging their car and causing them mild injury .You will not win if you defend. The negligence allegations are standard RTA allegations and to be fair you were going to fast, failed to brake and failed to avoid the collision so trying to dispute them will get you nowhere fast.

[unclebulgaria67]

You should consult a Solicitors about this to see if it is worth defending. You do have some information it seems, to dispute the value of the claim. If you don't mind the court judgement, it may be better to go through the court process and agree to pay the judgement amount by instalments.

 

What I am not sure.

 

Why did you drive the car without knowing you had valid insurance ? Did you think that the policy started at the time you bought it online ? Is it standard for More Than internet policies to be started at 9pm ? What Insurance did you have on the car, before the policy with More Than ? Had the previous policy run out ?

[oddjobbob]

I have a feeling here that the OP has insured after the event!

 

 

Every time I've taken out insurance it starts there and then....

[unclebulgaria67]

I have a feeling here that the OP has insured after the event!

 

 

Every time I've taken out insurance it starts there and then....

 

Yes normally it starts straightaway or you put a date/time in the future.

 

If the OP had taken out a policy at 7am, I am confused why the OP or system caused a 9pm start time.

[sailor sam]

I too smell a rat. On-line insurance begins when you take it out in my experience. I'm pretty sure that you can even indicate exactly when you wish the policy to start. Having said that, the time will be indicated on the certificate when it's valid from and if the OP took it out on line, he should of been able to view the certificate which would enable him to check that he was insured. It maybe useful for the OP to scan his certificate, remove/obscure personal details and post it up.

[Slimm]

I think you need to revisit the court papers and work out exactly who is suing whom. At one point you state the defendant is the MIB (ie they are being sued) and then you say the MIB wants money from you. Have you been listed as a 2nd defendant or are the court papers just copies for a case that's already finished? In which case you should have been sent the judgement saying exactly the case settled for. If it's a live court claim for personal injury then it wont say what the amount claimed is, that's for the court to decide. If it's just copy paperwork from a settled claim then you have a very good chance of being able to agree to pay the MIB in instalments.

 

I cant really help too much without knowing exactly what you've received - is the first page a court sealed (and dated) summons or a letter from the MIB's solicitors saying 'you owe us, and here's the proof'. Are the MIB the claimant, the defendant or a joint defendant with you?

[jj69]

Ok just to update some of the replies on here.

In terms of the insurance More Than don't provide online docs it was ( or at the time ) a case of awaiting for documents which took over two weeks to reach me believe it or not after More Than sent me docs with the wrong policy number on at first so they had to resend the docs again and believe me they were in no hurry despite the police asking for a producer !

I ended up going through various departments who claimed I was covered they then claimed they had not processed the insurance straightaway , this would only happen if it was done via a call to their customer services.

More Than claim that they sometimes put the online insurance through in batches and the person should ensure it was in place. The conformation document I got on screen after completing online had my personal details, plus my car details but also had insurance date as the date of the crash , but there was no time next to it it just said 26th June 2012.

[jj69]

Ok just to update some of the replies on here.

In terms of the insurance More Than don't provide online docs it was ( or at the time ) a case of awaiting for documents which took over two weeks to reach me believe it or not after More Than sent me docs with the wrong policy number on at first so they had to resend the docs again and believe me they were in no hurry despite the police asking for a producer !

I ended up going through various departments who claimed I was covered they then claimed they had not processed the insurance straightaway , this would only happen if it was done via a call to their customer services.

More Than claim that they sometimes put the online insurance through in batches and the person should ensure it was in place. The conformation document I got on screen after completing online had my personal details, plus my car details but also had insurance date as the date of the crash , but there was no time next to it it just said 26th June 2012.

 

Just to add to this note More Than have overseas contact centers so that was bad enough going through various depts , when they eventually sent my documents in the post the policy number was wrong so they re-sent the docs with the correct policy but dated the policy start date from when they sent the second lot of docs so effectively about ten days later that was the sort of incompetence I was dealing with.

After about a fortnight I got the correct docs , with the correct policy and the correct date but with a start time of 9am.

The police excepted these documents as cover , initially after the crash when the police attended the car was showing as not mine on the DVLA data base and also not insured through the MIB this was because I had only had the car a week and V5 had not been sent from DVLA but was still in the name of the dealer , I also had courtesy insurance from the dealer but he disputed this and has since folded.

So all in all a serious of unfortunate events from my point of view !

I can understand peoples comments on here regarding insurance starting immediately but it did not in my case !

[jj69]

Oh dear what a mess.

 

I'm not entirely sure the MIB will take installments but it's worth calling for a W.O.P chat.

 

If you can afford a solicitor you could get one but at the end of the day you rear ended the Claimant damaging their car and causing them mild injury .You will not win if you defend. The negligence allegations are standard RTA allegations and to be fair you were going to fast, failed to brake and failed to avoid the collision so trying to dispute them will get you nowhere fast.

 

I can understand your comments but the MIB tried to state I was behind the claimant when I never was. The roundabout is large with a number of entries/exits on , I will try to explain best as possible but I came from the North side , the claimant from the East , claimant goes straight across then exits and stops quickly due to large truck stopping suddenly , I had gone three quarters around the roundabout, could not see claimant due to overgrown grass in centre of roundabout came off the same exit and was starting to accelerate from third gear ( the exit is on a sweeping bend) that is when I hit the claimants car at about 30ish mph.

Is still does not dispute the fact I rear ended the claimant and as I have found out that person is always at fault so except that !

The police initally said careless driving but that was dropped and I received no charges at all, no points on licence etc.

[jj69]

I think you need to revisit the court papers and work out exactly who is suing whom. At one point you state the defendant is the MIB (ie they are being sued) and then you say the MIB wants money from you. Have you been listed as a 2nd defendant or are the court papers just copies for a case that's already finished? In which case you should have been sent the judgement saying exactly the case settled for. If it's a live court claim for personal injury then it wont say what the amount claimed is, that's for the court to decide. If it's just copy paperwork from a settled claim then you have a very good chance of being able to agree to pay the MIB in instalments.

 

I cant really help too much without knowing exactly what you've received - is the first page a court sealed (and dated) summons or a letter from the MIB's solicitors saying 'you owe us, and here's the proof'. Are the MIB the claimant, the defendant or a joint defendant with you?

 

Okay it is from Northampton CC

Claimants name is the person involved in the accident

 

Defendants name is mine as 1st defendant

MIB , Linfood Wood House - MK14 6XT - 2nd defendant

 

Details of claim - damages arising from Road Traffic Accident that occurred in June 2012

 

So it looks like the claimant is the person in the accident , it has been raised by the same no win - no fee outfit that originally wrote to me asking for details of accident , I pointed them in the direction of the insurance companies.

 

So if i have this right , it looks like MIB have not paid out regarding the original claim ?

 

OK how does this work if two people are defendants ?

[jj69]

I too smell a rat. On-line insurance begins when you take it out in my experience. I'm pretty sure that you can even indicate exactly when you wish the policy to start. Having said that, the time will be indicated on the certificate when it's valid from and if the OP took it out on line, he should of been able to view the certificate which would enable him to check that he was insured. It maybe useful for the OP to scan his certificate, remove/obscure personal details and post it up.

 

Hi I can understand the suspicion but More Than are crap to be brutally frank please see my posted comments. Once I had paid for insurance only then did they let me know that documents were not available online ! Paper copies only.

[jj69]

Oh one other thing regarding the wonderful More Than , I was paying by Direct Debit and they never took the original first one off payment , I challenged this as obviously it could invalidate the insurance but after again going through multiple depts was told it would be taken the following month and not to worried I was still covered.

I raised all these complaints with FOS but although they agreed with my points , the time stamp was the deciding factor and they went with More Than unless I could prove otherwise. I also raised the issue with More Than via their complaints procedure but surprise surprise they went with their own computer generated timestamp.

 

Looking back now I should have pushed it further but just needed to move on quickly.

[jj69]

I think you need to revisit the court papers and work out exactly who is suing whom. At one point you state the defendant is the MIB (ie they are being sued) and then you say the MIB wants money from you. Have you been listed as a 2nd defendant or are the court papers just copies for a case that's already finished? In which case you should have been sent the judgement saying exactly the case settled for. If it's a live court claim for personal injury then it wont say what the amount claimed is, that's for the court to decide. If it's just copy paperwork from a settled claim then you have a very good chance of being able to agree to pay the MIB in instalments.

 

I cant really help too much without knowing exactly what you've received - is the first page a court sealed (and dated) summons or a letter from the MIB's solicitors saying 'you owe us, and here's the proof'. Are the MIB the claimant, the defendant or a joint defendant with you?

 

Ok Joint defendant , the claimant is claiming for damages that is why there are no figures but states claim exceeds £5000 but not £15000 and a claim for personal injury over £1000.

OK should I do the acknowledgement of service for a start off ?

[sailor sam]

Ok following your last posts i've made some checks.

 

According to More Than if you take out a policy at 7am it would be on line as that is the only facility available at that time. Once you purchase the policy (i.e. make payment), the policy is then live from that moment. And as far as your docs are concerned, they are available to print off on line straight away.... they do not send them out through the post unless requested. That is what they told me a few moments ago.

 

Remember, it is the driver's responsibility to ensure he/she is insured and I don't see how you can do that without having sight of the docs, particularly if you had no insurance to begin with.

 

If however what you are saying is that More Than did not cover you from the time you took out the policy and that the error was theirs, then you should forward the claim on to them and insist that they deal with it.

[jj69]

Ok following your last posts i've made some checks.

 

According to More Than if you take out a policy at 7am it would be on line as that is the only facility available at that time. Once you purchase the policy (i.e. make payment), the policy is then live from that moment. And as far as your docs are concerned, they are available to print off on line straight away.... they do not send them out through the post unless requested. That is what they told me a few moments ago.

 

Remember, it is the driver's responsibility to ensure he/she is insured and I don't see how you can do that without having sight of the docs, particularly if you had no insurance to begin with.

 

If however what you are saying is that More Than did not cover you from the time you took out the policy and that the error was theirs, then you should forward the claim on to them and insist that they deal with it.

 

Hi thanks for the reply, this was back in June 2012 so not sure if they have changed their policy , at the time after completing online I got a document showing policy number, date , car details and my details, their was an option to print which is what I did.

No time stamp was present and I did not check as I was heading to work with the sheet of paper as proof of purchase.

I asked customer services to email docs as police were chasing but they did not do that which is what they said to me at the time. I know it sounds far fetched but that is how More Than were operating as stated previous I was going through various depts and was being sent back and forth to get answers.

One of the reasons I thought that insurance may not have gone through straight away was because the inital down payment was not taken but again MT said I was still covered and payment would be taken the following month which it was.

[Slimm]

Hopefully you have a few days yet before you need to decide how to respond to the summons. It should have a date on and a list of options for response, although you should not leave it right till the last minute. You are right to say MIB have not paid out. The solicitors have hedged their bets by listing both parties as defendants, if you are not able to pay then the court will award judgement against the MIB and leave them to try to recover from you.

 

There's a lot of money at risk here, not just the claim itself but a lot of legal costs on top - if you are at all able to afford a solicitor you should seriously consider seeking professional advice. Failing that the Citizens advice bureau _may_ be able to offer some guidance.

 

Naturally the best thing would be to prove you were insured and bring More Than in as 3rd defendant, however I imagine that if that were possible you would have done it already. Realistically if the matter runs to trial as it is you will be held liable for the accident (based on your comments in this post), the only thing to be determined is the value awarded. The medical report will (almost certainly) be sufficient to get a judge to make a personal injury (technically 'general damages') award of some sort (over £1000 unless the symptoms only lasted 1-3 weeks). Without knowing your financial circumstances I'd say your viable choices are as follows:-

 

1) Bring More Than in as 3rd defendant - this will be difficult and if it goes wrong horribly costly. I would definitely not try this without your own lawyers.

 

2) Contact the claimants solicitors and make an offer to settle now. They will want money for the claim, plus their own costs to date (maybe 2-3K if you're lucky and they agree to take 'fixed' costs) plus a little for issue costs (say £500)

 

3) Contact MIB to discuss options. If you tell them you cannot afford to settle the claim it is likely they will settle before trial on your behalf if you agree to either reimburse them immediately or pay them back at a fixed rate every month. I would say this is by far the best option.

 

If the matter runs all the way to trial costs go up enormously - the claimants solicitors will definitely want full 'assessed' costs for the work done to date, plus potentially a liability hearing followed by a further hearing to decide the value of the award. I would suggest you definitely avoid this - as it stands the claim plus costs might come to around 10-12K, if it went all the way through it could two to three times as much (or even more). Naturally these are just guesstimates without having the papers in front of me. So my advice is to call MIB tomorrow morning, first make sure they have a copy of the papers (definitely should have but things do get lost in the post) and then discuss the options open to you both. Get a reference number from them plus preferably a name and number for the person in charge of this particular claim at their end. Keep notes for all calls you make, names, times and a brief summary of what's agreed.

[unclebulgaria67]

Given the amount you are potentially liable for, you should consider having the computer you used inspected by someone, who may be able to recover the files related to the Morethan internet transaction. If they can recover data which shows that the Morethan policy did start from the time you submitted your payment, then you can get Morethan to deal with this court claim.

 

As a little bit of support, I took out a Morethan policy a few years back. It took 2 weeks for the policy documents to be received, but the start date was not crucial to me, as it was a replacement policy for a future renewal date.

[jj69]

Hopefully you have a few days yet before you need to decide how to respond to the summons. It should have a date on and a list of options for response, although you should not leave it right till the last minute. You are right to say MIB have not paid out. The solicitors have hedged their bets by listing both parties as defendants, if you are not able to pay then the court will award judgement against the MIB and leave them to try to recover from you.

 

There's a lot of money at risk here, not just the claim itself but a lot of legal costs on top - if you are at all able to afford a solicitor you should seriously consider seeking professional advice. Failing that the Citizens advice bureau _may_ be able to offer some guidance.

 

Naturally the best thing would be to prove you were insured and bring More Than in as 3rd defendant, however I imagine that if that were possible you would have done it already. Realistically if the matter runs to trial as it is you will be held liable for the accident (based on your comments in this post), the only thing to be determined is the value awarded. The medical report will (almost certainly) be sufficient to get a judge to make a personal injury (technically 'general damages') award of some sort (over £1000 unless the symptoms only lasted 1-3 weeks). Without knowing your financial circumstances I'd say your viable choices are as follows:-

 

1) Bring More Than in as 3rd defendant - this will be difficult and if it goes wrong horribly costly. I would definitely not try this without your own lawyers.

 

2) Contact the claimants solicitors and make an offer to settle now. They will want money for the claim, plus their own costs to date (maybe 2-3K if you're lucky and they agree to take 'fixed' costs) plus a little for issue costs (say £500)

 

3) Contact MIB to discuss options. If you tell them you cannot afford to settle the claim it is likely they will settle before trial on your behalf if you agree to either reimburse them immediately or pay them back at a fixed rate every month. I would say this is by far the best option.

 

If the matter runs all the way to trial costs go up enormously - the claimants solicitors will definitely want full 'assessed' costs for the work done to date, plus potentially a liability hearing followed by a further hearing to decide the value of the award. I would suggest you definitely avoid this - as it stands the claim plus costs might come to around 10-12K, if it went all the way through it could two to three times as much (or even more). Naturally these are just guesstimates without having the papers in front of me. So my advice is to call MIB tomorrow morning, first make sure they have a copy of the papers (definitely should have but things do get lost in the post) and then discuss the options open to you both. Get a reference number from them plus preferably a name and number for the person in charge of this particular claim at their end. Keep notes for all calls you make, names, times and a brief summary of what's agreed.

 

Hi Slimm..

Thanks for the great advice.

Yes I would like to avoid court at all costs.

I could defend the supposed personal injury claim as there are discrepancies in the DR's notes to my knowledge but I don't want to drag this out.

Also the write off of car is a joke due to the very limited damage on the rear in my opinion.

Currently just lost job and will finish in the next week.

Looking for contract work but this is not going to be available for at least a few weeks for now.

Credit file is shot to pieces so cannot get loan and have a number of creditors to pay so the lump sum option is out.

I have a house but this has a secured loan and with the mortgage there would not be much left over if a sale was forced.

Could I be forced to sell the house ? Also could I be prosecuted for failure to insure vehicle correctly ?

I could force More Than to be responsible but this option has already failed under FOS..

[dacouc]

When the police attended the accident an checked the MID to see if you were insured, what did More Than tell them when they rang through?

[Slimm]

Unfortunately your home _could_ be at risk, however the courts are typically very reluctant to take that sort of action, especially if the sale won't release much money - this is the sort of thing they only normally level at people who hack them off or have deliberately done something seriously wrong. One more reason to get the MIB to settle this on your behalf and arrange a repayment schedule with them - if you are straightforward and reasonable they're likely to be fairly helpful with you. The CAB will give you assistance with working out a favourable budget as well and act as a go-between if there's a difference between what you think you can afford to repay and what the MIB does - the CAB are good at that. Plus you may find that if your situation improves in a couple of years the MIB _might_ clear the slate if you offer them a lump sum for say, 25% of what they paid on your behalf.

 

The good news is that a criminal prosecution for driving without insurance is incredibly unlikely now. If the police were going to do that it would have been within 6 months of the event. If they even knew about the problems they probably gave you the benefit of the doubt.

 

It's definitely not worth arguing about the PI claim or vehicle damage. Given that the impact was sufficient to twist the tow bar a write off is reasonable (repairers love to replace stuff if they get wind of an insurance job) and the discrepancies in the medical report again seem minor. It sounds like the expert is saying that she's mostly fit apart from some niggles every now and then. The all clear from AE doesn't mean she wasn't injured at all, just that they didn't think an X-Ray was warranted. The courts are very forgiving of claimants evidence - it's the sort of stuff the MIB will use to negotiate on value but arguing no injury could have been caused is just not likely to succeed (in the UK). Hire & storage on the other hand seems totally excessive if it was really just 5 days. £300 for 5 days parking is more than most people pay for their house/garage etc. Was it stored in Buckingham palace?

[jj69]

Okay to answer the last two questions , I explained the situation to the police at the roadside and all they asked is that I produce insurance docs within seven days, thanks to More Than's incompetence it was more 15 days later when docs turned up showing time stamp as 9am.

Took them to police station and I was given a form with a police stamp so my vehicle ( which was impounded ) could be released to the assessors, I showed doc to local impound , More Than sent it's external company to remove vehicle a couple of days later which it did and they duly paid the storage fees.Car was subsequently scrapped ( roof was cut off so it was a total loss at the roadside)

So the police were happy with my insurance document and More Than took car away and paid all fees, it was after when the claimants insurance approached More Than that things were disputed when time of accident was logged at 8.30am.

Claimants insurer was RSA and mine More Than who are the same company technically so I was told this would be settled between to the two companies.

[jj69]

I could post the pics up here for the miniscule damage to claimants car but understand what you are saying Slimm it is a lost cause due to my rear ending the other car, it does annoy me that they are claiming for new tailgate etc when it is clearly not damaged.

As for the PI her local doc took the examiniation four months after accident so not sure if this counts for anything ! Either way she will get compensation I am sure.

First call of the day is to MIB !

[jj69]

Forgot to mention timescale - docs were stamped 20th Feb so should give me till 5th Mar to acknowledge service and extend if required.

[jj69]

Ok so date of service is 20th , I have 14 days from them to submit Acknowledege of Service. Not sure on what I should put down ! I believe there is an option to leave blank but I must submit a defence within 28 days.

Spoke to MIB they were helpful and it turns out they are not admitting liability and it is with there solicitors who are contesting claim.I asked if I could not pay would MIB cover costs and claim back from myself to which she replied yes.

MIB solicitors have my contact details and will call me in a couple of days , so some progress being made.

I think the best course of action is to work with MIB especially after some of the great advice shared on the forum.

The next bit of advice is always check your insurance either by phone , email or text ! I always do now and this has been a hard lesson learned.