Vehicle insurance liability question
Discussion
I feel I should know the answer to this, and it is purely of hypothetical interest and not related to an actual event! Probably one that Loon is best placed to answer?
If you're happily driving along, minding your own business, and an object falls/appears on the carriageway in front of your vehicle in a way that you cannot avoid it, and which causes damage, how do UK insurers generally deal with it?
I can imagine there's a number of scenarios depending on negligence or not i.e. load on a roof rack which overloads it, or isn't properly attached, or conversely an HGV tyre failure which may be due to foreign object damage on that journey so not necessarily negligent, as opposed to a bald tyre waiting to self-destruct?
This assumes it's clear which vehicle the object originates from and that you get the registration, rather than the situation where 10 cars drive over something, all suffer damage and nobody knows where it came from.
Thanks in advance - I did try searching but didn't find anything directly relevant.
Adrian
If you're happily driving along, minding your own business, and an object falls/appears on the carriageway in front of your vehicle in a way that you cannot avoid it, and which causes damage, how do UK insurers generally deal with it?
I can imagine there's a number of scenarios depending on negligence or not i.e. load on a roof rack which overloads it, or isn't properly attached, or conversely an HGV tyre failure which may be due to foreign object damage on that journey so not necessarily negligent, as opposed to a bald tyre waiting to self-destruct?
This assumes it's clear which vehicle the object originates from and that you get the registration, rather than the situation where 10 cars drive over something, all suffer damage and nobody knows where it came from.
Thanks in advance - I did try searching but didn't find anything directly relevant.
Adrian
Adrian E said:
If you're happily driving along, minding your own business, and an object falls/appears on the carriageway in front of your vehicle in a way that you cannot avoid it, and which causes damage, how do UK insurers generally deal with it?
Exactly the same as if your car's damaged while parked and you can't prove who did it.In answer to the OP, it all depends, much as has been written already. If a lorry has a blowout then you've got virtually no chance of claiming off them, as they will be able to demonstrate a track record of thorough inspection on a frequent and regular basis, so negligence will be difficult to prove. The opposite probably applies to a private motorist. How many of us do a full safety check daily before driving? Claiming off then will be a right PITA though.
Random debris in the road with no way of telling who left it there means there's nobody to claim off.
We often get I to these debates after some stormy weather when someone finds a tree on their car, or some roof tiles amd we go round and round in circles with the discussion. Put simply, unless the homeowner / tree owner knows that it's likely to fall off / over then they will not be negligent and therefore not liable. There will always be exceptions, but these ar much rarer than the norm that I've described.
Ooooooo look it's windy
Random debris in the road with no way of telling who left it there means there's nobody to claim off.
We often get I to these debates after some stormy weather when someone finds a tree on their car, or some roof tiles amd we go round and round in circles with the discussion. Put simply, unless the homeowner / tree owner knows that it's likely to fall off / over then they will not be negligent and therefore not liable. There will always be exceptions, but these ar much rarer than the norm that I've described.
Ooooooo look it's windy
grumpyscot said:
And if you only have 3rd party, fire and theft, then you'll wish you'd paid the extra for fully comp!
Or quite often bought the lower priced fully comp policy. Before anyone asks, the reason is fairly complex but revolves around impact of early notifications vs fully crystallised costs when notified. majordad said:
I had a hire car from Gatwick and was on the M25. A piece of metal was thrown up by a truck in front of me and it ruptured the fuel tank. Cost me £500 as I had that as an excess on the hire.
Which is fair enough, if you'd thrown up some debris amd it hit someone behind would you be willing to pay for their damage?majordad said:
I had a hire car from Gatwick and was on the M25. A piece of metal was thrown up by a truck in front of me and it ruptured the fuel tank. Cost me £500 as I had that as an excess on the hire.
You can usually pay a surcharge to reduce or remove the excess. You must've chosen not to pay it as you were happy to pay £500 in the unlikely event of damage.Forums | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff