Insurance claim 6 months after 'incident'

[Shnozz]

ZOLLAR said:

Shnozz said:

ZOLLAR said:

hora said:

Yes- there must be some sort of time/period that is reasonable to put in a claim. It just smacks of a small garage scam to me. The guy could be geniune but how the hell does he know who parked against his car overnight/used his car for parking distance control/how he parks etc.

Anyone who gets out and starts shouting at a woman doesn't colour himself well.

I've been rear-ended twice. First time quite heavily in my old MX5. I got out and the lad apologised. Gave me his details and I was calm.

Secondtime was the accident management Honda Jazz whilst the MX5 was being repaired. I was sat at lights in Rochdale and a young asian lad belted me. I got out (calmly again) and he said 'oh no not again'. I laughed long and hard and didn't explain the irony, got it and drove off.

Anyone who gets out shouty- hmmm. Anyway.

3 years.

Don't you work for an insurer?!

Yeah why?
You can bring a claim within 3 years of the incident.

Indeed.

And 4. And 5. And up to the 6th anniversary.

[ZOLLAR]

Shnozz said:

Indeed.

And 4. And 5. And up to the 6th anniversary.

Never knew injury was up 6 years, not an area I've ever dealt with.
For some to think 6 months is short is quite surprising.

[Mound Dawg]

julian64 said:

While thats undoubtedly true I thought there was a european directive to say all car manufacturers had to produce cars where a bump <5mph would cause no damage. I could of course be wrong.

Irrespective of what EC rules are, it's quite possible to cause major damage without this being immediately obvious. My last Alfa was written off after being rear ended, the bumper popped back out and looked fine but the boot floor had ripples in it and the fuel tank split. It was the fuel pissing over the floor that alerted me to the fact that everything was NOT ok and that I should take the other person's details.

The car involved may not have "rolled" into the other car, it might have "thumped" into it, none of us were there so we don't know. That's the problem the insurers will have in dealing with any sort of claim, people tend to understate speeds and impact forces if the accident was their fault and overstate them if it wasn't.

The way I see this is that the insurers will be stuck with some sort of claim however large/small so the premium stands. The best solution for the OP is to move on and let them deal with it and use his time more profitably trying to reduce the premium by shopping around.

[Shnozz]

ZOLLAR said:

Shnozz said:

Indeed.

And 4. And 5. And up to the 6th anniversary.

Never knew injury was up 6 years, not an area I've ever dealt with.
For some to think 6 months is short is quite surprising.

Injury is not up to 6 years, but vehicular damage is, which is all that is referred to here.

Injury is 3 years, reinforced at regular intervals by the repetitive drone of advertisements and phone messages.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

julian64 said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

In this case there is no his word v hers. She was at fault and admits it.

Given that young drivers are statistically going to be at fault for about 95% of the accidents they are involved in, the last thing I'd want in their car is a recoding device. The police can and will seize it in the event of an accident and thus it will provide evidence for prosecution that they otherwise might not have pursued.

Well yes you do have to consider your child isn't some sort of car driving loony. But applied to the op, it would show a minor bump mismatched to a large degree of rear end damage.

If I had the lack of trust you speak of, I wouldn't fork out to allow my children in a car in the first place.

It's got nothing to do with honesty, but a lack of ability. Your kids are far more likely to cause an accident than to be the victims of someone else's stupidity. That's a fact, even for decent young people. They make stupid errors. If and when they do, your recording device is giving the authorities the evidence they will need to hit them with a careless driving charge, when without it, they may not have pursued it.

[JEA1K]

Ok update.

Called the insurance company so find out whats gone on. His claim was lodged last week, although they hadn't managed to call her about the claim (slightly odd ...). Because the damage was underlying apparently the claimant didn't need to provide an engineers report on the damage (again I find strange). In my step daughters conversation with them, her insurance company say that she admitted fault (during her teary call with them last night) and the claim has been settled between the two insurance companies. The damage was the total of £832 (for what they couldn't tell me) but her premium would now be £5.4k.

Managed to go on some comparison websites, entering the claim against her and she can get cover for around £1,100, so saving her £3.3k on her current insurers premium. Her first year was over £2k, so all in all, the outcome is probably not quite as bad as first thought.

[ZOLLAR]

Shnozz said:

Injury is not up to 6 years, but vehicular damage is, which is all that is referred to here.

Injury is 3 years, reinforced at regular intervals by the repetitive drone of advertisements and phone messages.

Interesting, again not an area I deal with but always useful to know.

[Mound Dawg]

JEA1K said:

Ok update.

Called the insurance company so find out whats gone on. His claim was lodged last week, although they hadn't managed to call her about the claim (slightly odd ...). Because the damage was underlying apparently the claimant didn't need to provide an engineers report on the damage (again I find strange). In my step daughters conversation with them, her insurance company say that she admitted fault (during her teary call with them last night) and the claim has been settled between the two insurance companies. The damage was the total of £832 (for what they couldn't tell me) but her premium would now be £5.4k.

Managed to go on some comparison websites, entering the claim against her and she can get cover for around £1,100, so saving her £3.3k on her current insurers premium. Her first year was over £2k, so all in all, the outcome is probably not quite as bad as first thought.

Seems a reasonable outcome. I can't see why the insurers would want to add to their costs by insisting on an engineers report on a repair bill that sounds consistent with the accident described to them by your daughter though. If there's underlying damage meaning a new bumper and a couple of days in a loan car, a bill of around £800 sounds about right tbh.

[PurpleMoonlight]

JEA1K said:

The damage was the total of £832 (for what they couldn't tell me).

Cars are made of cardboard these days ....

[Drawweight]

I hope you would have been shopping around for insurance regardless of whether she'd had an accident or not.

[Mound Dawg]

PurpleMoonlight said:

Cars are made of cardboard these days ....

Plastic actually, but the effect is much the same.

[spikeyhead]

Mound Dawg said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

Cars are made of cardboard these days ....

Plastic actually, but the effect is much the same.

Would you prefer the olden days when any car that made it past 12 years old without rusting away would make headlines?

[anonymous-user]

Cars are designed to crumple on impact, absorbing energy rather than transmitting it to the occupants. I don't know where the idea of an EU rule providing (impossibly) for cars not to be damaged by impacts at below 5 mph comes from. The EU General Safety Regulation 661/2009 (partly implemented) calls for cars to have impact resistance sufficient to protect their occupants.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 16th October 08:10

[pork911]

JEA1K said:

Ok update.

Called the insurance company so find out whats gone on. His claim was lodged last week, although they hadn't managed to call her about the claim (slightly odd ...). Because the damage was underlying apparently the claimant didn't need to provide an engineers report on the damage (again I find strange). In my step daughters conversation with them, her insurance company say that she admitted fault (during her teary call with them last night) and the claim has been settled between the two insurance companies. The damage was the total of £832 (for what they couldn't tell me) but her premium would now be £5.4k.

Managed to go on some comparison websites, entering the claim against her and she can get cover for around £1,100, so saving her £3.3k on her current insurers premium. Her first year was over £2k, so all in all, the outcome is probably not quite as bad as first thought.

So presumably a complaint will now be made about the premium going down and an offer will be made to pay more?

[Grandad7184]

There is a guy on here who is a motor claims investigator I think? Motorclaimsguy he is called maybe a quick PM

[Eclassy]

Not too bad a result. One only learns from these things.

I once called my home insurer to enquire about what they could do about a water leak that had messed up my roof. After they gave their options, I said not to bother. They told me sorry, but its going to be registered as a claim against you even if you choose not to carry on. I argue I was only making an enquiry but they wouldnt back down.

Okay I say and I go into my loft and retrieve broken Tablets, e-readers, phones and cameras and I put all of them on the same claim. They even overpaid and kept chasing me for a part refund. I ignored them.

[anonymous-user]

Honesty not really your thing, I gather.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Eclassy said:

Not too bad a result. One only learns from these things.

I once called my home insurer to enquire about what they could do about a water leak that had messed up my roof. After they gave their options, I said not to bother. They told me sorry, but its going to be registered as a claim against you even if you choose not to carry on. I argue I was only making an enquiry but they wouldnt back down.

Okay I say and I go into my loft and retrieve broken Tablets, e-readers, phones and cameras and I put all of them on the same claim. They even overpaid and kept chasing me for a part refund. I ignored them.

So, having got away with insurance fraud, and happy to boast about it, I take it you have no issue with dodgy whiplash claims and cash for crash scams.

[Eclassy]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

So, having got away with insurance fraud, and happy to boast about it, I take it you have no issue with dodgy whiplash claims and cash for crash scams.

I was waiting for the first clueless one to say this.... You are obviously smarter than my insurer's claim handlers who decided to pay out... Even overpaid.

I have buildings and contents cover and decided to claim back my damaged contents which I wouldnt have claimed for if a claim wasnt dubiously pinned on me.

Can you tell me where the fraud took place?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Eclassy said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

So, having got away with insurance fraud, and happy to boast about it, I take it you have no issue with dodgy whiplash claims and cash for crash scams.

I was waiting for the first clueless one to say this.... You are obviously smarter than my insurer's claim handlers who decided to pay out... Even overpaid.

I have buildings and contents cover and decided to claim back my damaged contents which I wouldnt have claimed for if a claim wasnt dubiously pinned on me.

Can you tell me where the fraud took place?

The items you claims for were all already broken and up in the loft. If they were broken by wear & tear then they are not covered, and if they were broken by other means then you were liable for the policy excess on each and every occurrence. But you told them the items were damaged as a result of the water ingress, which is fraud.

Unless I misunderstood your story.