Letters from solicitors

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
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Location
Finchley, London
I received two letters today from a solicitor appointed by my insurers Covea (underwriters for Swinton) to represent me regarding a minor incident I had last september where my car hit the back of a golf. I had made a thread here about that last year. These letters come now just as I cancelled my renewal with Swinton. I thought the whole incident was pretty much finished.

After the incident last year, Covea had sent two investigators to my house, one to look over the car and the other who interviewed me and took statements. The guy who looked at my car estimated impact under 10mph as there was no damage to my car and didn't think it was hard enough to cause personal injury. A few months ago I had called Covea and they said they weren't paying any money to the other party at that stage because they thought the other party was trying it on with personal injury claims. They gave me the impression they thought the other party were trying a scam.
So I don't know how this will eventually turn out, suffice to say it's a bit depressing getting these letters. They're both multiple pages of information, it might go to court, blah blah. I've skimmed through them but guess I'll have to waste an hour or two reading them through fully. The opening sentence on one of the letters says "we understand from your insurers that you may wish to dispute liability". I remember covea once saying to me on the phone that if a car goes into the back of another then it's the driver's fault (ie, me). So until I speak to them, I can't determine what their view is on the incident as far as blame and responsibility of costs to the other car.

Anyway I can't call Covea till tuesday now due to the bank holiday.

I'm hoping I don't need to go to court for such a minor incident and assume the solicitors will do that on my behalf.

I'm assuming if we lose that I'll have to pay my excess which I think is £350.

I'm assuming that even when I'm with my new insurers next month and leave Covea, that doesn't change Covea's responsibility as my insurer to cover costs of damage.

I'm wondering if I'm meant to tell my new insurers of this case being open. If we lose and my insurers pay out, if it's important to inform the new insurers of the cost? In all my quotes for new insurance, I've declared the accident, only I've put damage unknown and cost unknown.

What are your thoughts?
 
Try not to worry, if there was no damage to your car you know they are trying it on, it annoys me that people try it on like this and a lot of it is these personal injury solicitors.

You will be required to go to court if it gets there as a witness just go and tell the truth, it will be a small affair in a room with the judge, you and the other driver and your solicitors, that's what happened when another driver refused to admit responsibility for hitting me.
 
Voicon said:
Try not to worry, if there was no damage to your car you know they are trying it on, it annoys me that people try it on like this and a lot of it is these personal injury solicitors.

You will be required to go to court if it gets there as a witness just go and tell the truth, it will be a small affair in a room with the judge, you and the other driver and your solicitors, that's what happened when another driver refused to admit responsibility for hitting me.
Click to expand...

The investigator who inspected my car said there has been slight movement in some metal piece but nothing to worry about and certainly nothing visible cosmetically. Well, the damage to the other car was scratching or grazing to the paintwork along the bumper on their silver golf. I don't recall seeing any dents though. I'm assuming that paintwork scratching was due to me hitting them.

What I'm particularly wondering about is if I should inform my new insurers-to-be that this case is still open, or just leave it since I already declared a claim through compare the market? I'm due to change insurers on the 23rd september, which is when my insurance with Swinton/Covea expires. At the moment, RAC with Zenith underwriters seems likely to be my choice. Their quote through compare the market site is decent. But if I tell them a few months into my monthly direct debit payments that the case is now closed and my insurers had paid out xx amount, will that suddenly increase my premium by much?

edit: here's the thread from last year. It was a polo not golf.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18443125&highlight=scam
 
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It will all be covered by your insurance, it just looks like they're refuting the injury claims of the other driver. TBH if it was <10mph its going to be hard to prove an jury, i got hit by a truck going faster than that and I had a sore neck that felt no worse than I'd slept funny that lasted a few hours tops and it was gone.

MW
 
If it were me then I would simply pass out right back to the previous insurance company to desk with. I assume you told the new insurance company about the incident when you moved to then so I would be inclined not to mention it further until something material changes. If you didn't advise them previously then you may want to consider doing so now. Just my opinion obviously.
 
For a second I thought it was my Golf you had run into, until I read it was Silver, mine is Black :)

A BMW 1 series driver, clearly too busy on his iPhone ran into the back of me in March this year whilst I was stationary. My rear bumper was damaged as was the rear parking sensor system.

Like yourself I thought it was straight forward. It wasn't. An accident repair company took over my claim, provided me with a courtesy car and got my car repaired by a bodyshop of my choice (Individual Specialist Cars in Bham, absolutely awesome service and repair!). To cut a long story short, the other party's insurance first disputed liability and it was only when the claim company submitted a claim to the Court did they accept all costs and liability.

Cost of repair - ~£500
Cost of solicitors - ~£1000

Complete waste of time and inconvenience. The insurance companies don't care because they will reclaim the solicitor fees through us anyway. Such a waste of money for something that can only be their driver's fault!
 
Thanks guys, your comments puts my mind at ease a bit more.


Hades said:
If it were me then I would simply pass out right back to the previous insurance company to desk with. I assume you told the new insurance company about the incident when you moved to then so I would be inclined not to mention it further until something material changes. If you didn't advise them previously then you may want to consider doing so now. Just my opinion obviously.
Click to expand...

I've not actually signed up with anyone yet but my intention is to use RAC insurance with Zenith underwriters from the 23rd September when my Swinton/Covea insurance expires. I've declared the incident in all online quotations, whether through compare the market or directly on an insurers website. What I've not been able to say is what the damage or cost is.
 
eatcustard said:
Anything over 2.4 MPH (I think) (this is according to the Gov) can cause whiplash.
This was on Top Gear last year
Click to expand...

If my insurers paid say a £1000 for just car damage, or several thousand including personal injury, does the higher the amount paid out affect how a new insurer calculates my quotation, or does the amount of payout not matter? Example, if a £1000 paid made my quote £450, would £3000 increase my quote to say £600, assuming I told them the amount paid out by my previous insurers?
 
I spoke to Covea today who told me I wouldn't need to pay my excess, that's only if I was claiming on my own car. Had a long chat with the guy there who was very nice and helpful. Then I rang the solicitors, spoke to a very pleasant woman who was in charge of my case and she asked me to recall various facts about the case.

Interestingly, she told me that their Polo which my car hit was classed as a write-off in 2011, the year before my incident. Solicitors are investigating to see if these people bought the car after or before that, and any other accidents they may have been involved in, to strengthen their case of possible scamming. I will have to go to court to give evidence if it come to a court case, but she assures me that 95% of these cases are usually settled before it gets to court. The whole thing could take months before that happens. Covea my insurers have refused to pay anything to the other people as they fairly confidently believe it may have been a setup to make money. The other party are claiming £1000 for car damage, £30 for correspondence, and I think she said £2000 for personal injuries. The engineer, sent by Covea to assess my car, also assessed theirs and estimated their car damage at just over £500, it was light scratching of paintwork on the bumper.

I hope we win this case and that the other party gets cold feet and drops it. If we lose, I think it means I lose some of my protected no claims bonus, which means a higher premium.


eatcustard said:
Anything over 2.4 MPH (I think) (this is according to the Gov) can cause whiplash.
This was on Top Gear last year
Click to expand...

The solicitor told me that anything over 5mph is classed as the threshold for which whiplash can be caused. So yeah, in my case, the engineer told me he thought it was around 5 to 10mph, I can't quite remember. It seems he didn't specify that in his report but just put down very low impact or something like that. The owner of the car, a woman, was a passenger in the back seat at the time and is claiming some pain or discomfort.

Oh yeah, I just remembered something else. The solicitor told me that the engineer was suspicious of a couple of the Polo reg plate screws missing. He thinks they may have removed them to make out they were dislodged by a stronger impact.
 
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Hey guys, good news. Solicitors for Covea acting on my behalf suspected foul play and it turns out to be true. There was evidence of a scam with some company, euro claims management or something like that, where there had been a few other almost identical scenarios (driver does emergency turn, driver behind stops suddenly and unsuspecting driver behind that car makes contact) within a few months period either side of my incident. Solicitors had provided me with various copies of the defence they had put together which was very detailed and brilliantly done, and I was to attend court in July. Don't need to now.

We won. Case closed :)

 
Good result
I drove I to someone a number of years ago. £250 damage to my car £2500 alleged damage to theirs and £7500 personal injury. Not a happy chappy but insurance Co wouldn't contest it as I had obviously hit them.
At time of accident I asked her was she ok to which she replied yes then asked if we should get police at which point I said I didn't think they would show unless someone was injured. Suddenly her back was sore.
 
So what does she get for fraudulently claiming and increasing everyone else's premiums? Not to mention victims' stress levels and costs?
She drops this case and continues on her merry way with x number of other people's lives?
What a female dog.
Good outcome for you at least OP.
 
miniyazz said:
So what does she get for fraudulently claiming and increasing everyone else's premiums? Not to mention victims' stress levels and costs?
She drops this case and continues on her merry way with x number of other people's lives?
What a female dog.
Good outcome for you at least OP.
Click to expand...

Basically, yeah

IMO there should be far harsher (read: "any") punishments for people who are proven to have committed/attempted to commit insurance fraud.

When I had some *** try to ride his bike into my boot, he claimed I had been speeding, overtaking, and suddenly turned right before he hit me. What actually happened, was I was stationary waiting for oncoming traffic before turning right, and he decide to overtake a queue of stopped traffic to drive into me. Of course if he'd actually admitted to the truth, it would have been obvious it was his fault, so he lied. Did he get any kind of repercussions for this? **** no, of course not, poor ickle motorcyclist. ****ing ****.
 
Just remembered to mention something. 4 days after I posted about the case being closed, I was in my car on my way somewhere when I got an anonymous phone call.
Man with a foreign accent says "Is that xxxxxxxx?"
I said "yes, who's this?"
He said " I'm gonna **** you up"
Then he disconnected before I could say anything.

Was a bit worrying tbh :p and people said I should have reported it. I never bothered thouggh, and haven't heard anything more since. But presumably it was these fraudsters trying to scare me.
 
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