Claiming on other driver's insurance

[wildbeeste]

A bit of advice wanted.
The family car was parked in the road and was scraped by a passing driver.
No injuries. Both Cars still can bedriven
Anyway, he has admitted it is his fault and wants to go through his insurance.
I now have his insurance details and broker etc.
Is it best to tell my insurance company (John Lewis) and let them sort it out?
Claim direct from his insurance company? (and tell my own insurance company risking losing NCB)?
Or use one of the third party agents who say they will protect my NCB and deal with the whole matter on my behalf and it will not cost me a penny?
Any views
BTW I am retired and was a lawyer so I do feel a bit stupid asking these questions

 

[Daffy]

Julie had a lad driving his dads van run into the back of her almost new Audi - the dad comes to see us and admits liability and gives us his insurance details.

We contacted their insurers who knew all about it and saw it through to the end, we wanted an Audi approved repairer and they went with that.

We did inform our insurer but it was just a call , no forms or anything.

It was very painless and the car was repaired to a good std.

I would quickly make sure that the insurer was aware and happy to accept liability/ repair to an acceptable std, if it’s not straightforward then get your insurer involved asap.

I didn’t think it saved us anything or gave any other advantage other than 1 less party involved to complicate it.

 

[Teamin]

I may be being a bit daft here, but I thought that if you had an insurance claim that wasn't your fault and the other person admitted liability.
Then your NCB is safe.
It is only if you are at fault, the NCB protection comes into effect.
If this is the case, then I would claim direct with his insurance company and tell your own insurance company.

On an additional note, what time of the day did the accident happen?
Just in case you recorded that it was kept on the driveway or garage overnight.

 

[wildbeeste]

Thanks both of you.
I have now called up and started a claim with the other driver's insurance company and informed my own company by email.
I think I just needed reassurance about the processes and potential consequences.

 

[Big-G]

Be aware of your own insurance policy increase next year as you have a no fault claim. Even though it’s not your fault it will be logged on your policy. If you search for a new policy next year it will ask if you have had any accidents in the last 5 years. Been there and done that.

 

[littleade]

I may be being a bit daft here, but I thought that if you had an insurance claim that wasn't your fault and the other person admitted liability.
Then your NCB is safe.
It is only if you are at fault, the NCB protection comes into effect.
If this is the case, then I would claim direct with his insurance company and tell your own insurance company.

On an additional note, what time of the day did the accident happen?
Just in case you recorded that it was kept on the driveway or garage overnight.

They'll get you one way or another if you have an accident, whether it's your fault or not, their rationale being if you've had 1 accident you're more likely to have another. NCD is a No Claims Discount, not No Blame Discount. From personal experience if you claim you can expect your premium to got up too. My wife had someone reverse into her while she was stationary in a supermarket car park which was caught on her dashcam. The bloke admitted it was his fault which the dashcam recoreded and other insurance company accepted liability. She has protected no claims bonus, but on renewal her insurance went up as they loaded if up at the front end before applying the discount. We both have our insurance with the same company, renewable on the same date, before her accident her insurance was less than mine, now it's more and all other details for both of us remain the same.

 

[verona]

As above

Be aware of your own insurance policy increase next year as you have a no fault claim. Even though it’s not your fault it will be logged on your policy. If you search for a new policy next year it will ask if you have had any accidents in the last 5 years. Been there and done that.

 

[wildbeeste]

I suspected that I will lose out littleade. (and verona)
Heads you lose. Tails they win

 

[verona]

You will also have to declare it to your bike insurance for 5 years

 

[littleade]

Thanks both of you.
I have now called up and started a claim with the other driver's insurance company and informed my own company by email.
I think I just needed reassurance about the processes and potential consequences.

You've done the correct thing IMO as not telling your insurance company can then give them the oportunity not to pay out in future as you've not been honest with them. Should you then need to make another claim in the future this could potentially leave you uninsured as your renewal was based on an inaccurate disclosure and could open a whole can of worms depending on the circumstances. Honesty is the best policy where insurance is concerned.

 

[SBD]

Ok, your premium will go up, so is it possible to claim for that from the other party’s insurance?

Seems to me that you’re suffering a loss (twice if your bike policy takes a hit) so it should be covered.

Dont suppose the insurers will say,”ooh, yes, we’d love to pay for that”, nor do I have a good idea of how you could quantify your future loss, but nevertheless…

 

[Wapping]

Ok, your premium will go up, so is it possible to claim for that from the other party’s insurance?

You have no idea whether the OP’s premium will go up, down or sideways at next renewal. Nor have any idea as to why it might move.

You cannot pass on any increased renewal premium costs at next renewal, as a part of the overall claim against the third party. You could, I guess, launch a separate civil proceeding against the third party, in order to seek recovery of any additional costs aledged to have resulted from the third party‘s vehicle coming into contact with yours. Good luck with that one.

 

[trebor]

You have no idea whether the OP’s premium will go up, down or sideways at next renewal. Nor have any idea as to why it might move.

You cannot pass on any increased renewal premium costs at next renewal, as a part of the overall claim against the third party. You could, I guess, launch a separate civil proceeding against the third party, in order to seek recovery of any additional costs aledged to have resulted from the third party‘s vehicle coming into contact with yours. Good luck with that one.

Quite.
Many years ago another car reversed, at speed, into mine whilst my wife was driving. The third party accepted responsibility, I contacted my insurance company with the third party's details, and let them deal with it.
It made no difference to my premiums the following year (though I believe some other insurance companies may have loaded my policy for having a 'no fault' claim).

Regarding not passing on any increased renewal premium to a third party.
In May 2022, my current car was involved in an accident which caused £15,000 worth of damage, again my wife was driving. I'll not go into details but neither of us think she was at fault, but the third party is not accepting responsibility. Fortunately, a nearby house caught the accident on video. On showing this to my insurers they agreed to take it to court if the third party continued to deny responsibility. We are still awaiting a court date.

When my insurers Solicitor contacted me asking for the details of my out of pocket expenses he was quite clear that I could not claim any increased insurance costs due to the accident. I would have to take civil action against the third party for these and, as Wapping intimates, this could be a bit hit and miss.
Which is a shame as last March and April, when my Bike and Car renewals were due, I got a double whammy as both policies were increased due to a pending claim against me. Both policies doubled costing me about £500 more than it should have done.

Annoyingly, each insurer has differing policies on what happens if we win the court case. Some will pay back the increase in insurance in total (if settled in the same year as the policy), others will pay back on a pro-rata basis depending how far into the policy you are when the case is settled.

Even more annoyingly, it looks like I'm am not going to get a court date before both policies are due again. So it looks like I'll get hit for another £500 meaning I'll be £1,000 down due to this potential 'no fault' accident.

 

[SBD]

You have no idea whether the OP’s premium will go up, down or sideways at next renewal. Nor have any idea as to why it might move.

You cannot pass on any increased renewal premium costs at next renewal, as a part of the overall claim against the third party. You could, I guess, launch a separate civil proceeding against the third party, in order to seek recovery of any additional costs aledged to have resulted from the third party‘s vehicle coming into contact with yours. Good luck with that one.

I clearly have no idea one way or the other, and I was merely responding to the helpful comments that seem to pervade these threads, suggesting that there would, in all probability, be an increase in the OP's insurance costs as a result of suffering a no-fault accident.

So really, I was seeking some kind of enlightenment from "them as know" (that's you, that is), as to whether this extra cost (if it were incurred, and if it were directly attributable to the said no-fault accident) could be recovered from the party at fault - as it would seem to be a reasonable expense to recover.

And your response, and Trebor's, suggest it might be a bit of a fight - I guess the courts are the only way - and the other party is unlikely to accept willingly.

Does beg the question that if you are the "guilty" party, and your insurance pays out, what stops the injured party from coming after you for this or any other expenses they might have suffered?

 

[trebor]

Does beg the question that if you are the "guilty" party, and your insurance pays out, what stops the injured party from coming after you for this or any other expenses they might have suffered?

There is, as far as I can see, nothing to stop the injured party making a claim through the small claims court (or whatever it is called nowadays). This is one path I'm considering but I'm going to see if I can get some legal advice first. The biggest problem I will have is proving the increase is due to a potential 'at fault' claim pending.

As it happens, for last year, I do have renewal quotes from my broker which I could use as evidence to show how much my policy has increased. The problem is, I won't get the full difference back as I use IAM Surety and they invariably increase the quote by quite a bit each year, I then find quotes for comparable policies to get the broker to 'price match' and get the quotes back down to slightly more than I paid the previous year, sometimes less.

I'll not have a chance of proving I would have got a lower quote for last year. Though I do have quite a few on-line quotes for the cost of comparable policies for both 'no fault' and 'at fault' declarations and these show how much the difference is in both case, which is similar to the increase I have had to pay.

This years renewals will be a different matter as my renewal quote will include the pending 'at fault' claim, I think it's unlikely they'll tell me what they'd charge if there was a 'no fault' accident declared. I'll probably have to rely on getting on-line quotes for both scenarios again.