Been involved in a car accident and the situation is a mess

[Vegeta]

I was involved in a car crash that was not my fault - basically a car was in the wrong lane and to not miss its turn off cut into the left lane (a lane which I was occupying and it hit my rear door/wheel arch with the side of its front bumper and mostly it’s wheel and tyre leaving black tread marks on my car).

At the time of the accident I was happy to settle this outside of insurance to save me and him the hassle - but having getting quotes for my car it would run into several thousand (damage significant on my car but not on his). So we agreed to go through insurance.

Anyways I hear nothing for two weeks only to find out the other driver is denying liability! He is claiming I drove into his lane side swiping him. I am absolutely devastated as i’ve done nothing wrong and this is having a huge financial burden on me and stress at the wrong time of year coming up to Xmas.

My excess is £1,450 alone and my insurance have advised me I will need to pay this to get my car fixed and they will continue to try and prove liability onto the other driver. I have contacted the police/local council etc to see if there is CCTV there with no luck. My insurance renewal is coming up and if I factor in the crash and loss of no claims it goes from £500 to £1700... I have always paid it in full to save money! So the cost in the short term is close enough to £3000.

My question is how do i approach this?

1, I don’t want to settle for anything other than the other driver taking all fault can I push my insurance company to take this to court if they continue to deny liability? I have text messages from the driver the next day asking for quotes surely that admits some form of liability?

2, With my insurance renewal coming up soon do I declare absolutely no claims bonus even though I have over 5 years built up? (Before this I had company cars therefore never built any up).

3, If I finally do get to the point where they admit liability or it is deemed they are at fault will I likely be reimbursed for paying for higher insurance while the claim was in dispute? If it goes on for a year that’s an extra £1,200 loss for me.

Thank you for any help

 

[Vegeta]

In hindsight I would have had dash cam not such a high excess etc etc I actually have a dash cam but never got round to fitting it on this car what a huge mistake. I have sent the texts and the damage to me does indicate the other driver is at fault J think if they got any sort of independent expert to look at the damage it would be evident that the damage was mostly caused by the other drivers tyre when turning in harsh.

So just to confirm if it does goes 50/50 I won’t lose all my no claims?

 

[Vegeta]

I took pictures at the scene and exchanged details that’s about it. To my own naivety I thought the location of the damage was obvious and his admission at the scene I didn’t really think it could possibly go any other way with the damage being at the rear of my car and the front of his car. Expensive lesson learnt I will have to get a dash cam fitted when my car arrives and hope for the best outcome possible hopefully the texts could provide me with a bit of weight if it was to ever go to court.

 

[Vegeta]

These are images of the damage. I don’t want to fake a witness surely after over a month a witness suddenly appearing will look dodgy anyways just hope they don’t try and do it themselves wouldn’t put it past them. Like someone said I don’t see what they have to gain at 50/50 they will still pay excess higher insurance premiums but also cost me a lot of money.

Edit: What am I doing wrong? Images don’t seem to work posting using my mobile and clicking on image insert button

 

[Vegeta]

What did the insurance say when you told them you had text messages from him the day after asking for quotes?

They asked for the text messages so I sent them over. I need to ring them for an update on progress but everytime I ring Axa been a minimum of a 1 hour wait

 

[Vegeta]

Rehosted those pics for you @Vegeta

Thank you

My car being the BMW his the Ford Kuga

 

[Vegeta]

judging by the depth of the crease on your door, and the rubber from his tyre does indeed look like him cutting/turning into you, with his wheels turned left,
can't see how that would happen if you had turned across him ...
and doesn't look like a big speed difference, since the length of the damage is short, had you been unexpectedly undertaking him, as he moved across would have thought the damage on your rear quarter would be worse.

I think if there are professional who deal with what may have happened based on the damage I think it’s pretty obvious what has happened as you say the damage looks pretty obvious to me. Not to mention how badly damaged my car is and his barely has a scratch on it the brunt of the force was taken by his tire rather than the body of his car.