Pursuing a road accident claim

Absolutely not. The hire company may well ignore such an approach. The person who is liable for the costs of the incident is the driver of the vehicle, not the hire company or their insurers.

The initial letter, stating that the OP is holding the driver of the other vehicle responsible for the damage, should be sent to the other driver with a copy, for courtesy, to the hire company and to the insurers, if known. The letter should strongly suggest that the driver should pass it to his insurers. If the hire company or insurers respond and offer to make arrangements to repair the damage and meet any other costs, that's fine; if not, it's the driver who should be pursued, not anyone else.

Mike.

Get yourself to an accident not your fault company soonest and do not forget the serious whiplash injury

I as the guilty party, slightly shunted a Glasgow taxi at about 1mph (when the roundabout was clear I pulled away unfortunately he did not) There was no damage at all to either vehicle, we both pulled over and checked but he insisted on going to his garage Despite him coming to our office thirty minutes later to take staff home in the said taxi I (my insurers) got taken for Serious whip lash injuries Loss of earnings whilst the taxi was off the road Taxi written off and basically he got around £9k for his twelve year old sierra hand painted black, The injuries must have been serious. as he was still our staff taxi for ten more evenings until we stopped the account.

Do not be a fool, do not be honest, and get yourself to an" accident not my fault" company soonest

You still feel shaken and dizzy do you not?

Jimbo

Do you have an 'excess' on your policy? i.e. you must pay the first £100 (or other sum) of any claim.

If so you will need to chase the other insurance for this amount. Typically if you get the other insurance to pay the excess your own insurance wont reduce you NCB.

Michael Chare

I don't see how you can say this - most hire company's make it almost impossible for you to hire without using their insurance even if you have your own perfectly acceptable cover - and for comprehensive cover of the hire vehicle which they require you would need to have a very good policy or inform your own insurance company of the hire car details for the period in advance. And the hire company would want proof of this cover before you drive away.

So I would say that the with 99.9% certainty that the hire company was both the owner/keeper of the vehicle AND the insurered party. The driver would just have been a 'named driver' on the hire policy. So they are the party to chase.

Look at it the other way, if you were at fault it would be the hire company ins co chasing you NOT the driver/hirer of the vehicle.

So a claim for damages should be addressed to the owner/insurer of the car on the day in question (how do you know that the driver WAS Fred Bloggs

-it might have been his mate Jeff Smith) ie the hire company.

The point is that the OP doesn't need to know what insurance arrangements are held by the other driver; his claim is against the other driver. If it came to legal action, the OP could not sue the hire company or the hire company's insurers; he would have to sue the other driver (who may well be indemnified by an insurance company but that doesn't change who is legally responsible for the damage).

Mike.

Actually from 20th January 2003, by virtue of the European Communities (Rights Against Insurers) Regulations 2002 the insurer can be sued in lieu of the driver.

Simon

Thanks for the information. I wasn't aware of that. I do wonder, though, how a claimant can be sure that he's sueing the right insurance company.

Mike.

I was recently hit in the rear on the M1 by a driver who wasn't paying attention and driving far too close to me. And my car was only a couple of months old :-(

I've recovered all my costs but didn't claim for whiplash injury. Perhaps there are few honest people left in this compensation culture-saturated country.

Mike.

Well no, you're responsible for the vehicle whilst it's in your posession, it can get really tedious when somebidy else hits it & you try to reclaim your excess.

I have heard that it's illegal for someone to refuse to disclose their insurance details in the case of an accident, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. However, I think insurance companies and unrecovered loss claims companies try this on all the time.

It isn't illegal to refuse. I ended up on the wrong end of that.

there is an offence, of failing to supply insurance details where a claim is made

MH

That you didnt have??

- shame ive only ever been screwed by my policy on honesty!

No there isn't. I had this with the Police. I spent ages on the phone arguing with them because the other driver refused to give me his insurance details.

panto season ' oh yes there is' I will give you act and section ASAP, the police refusing is another matter

ok found it, section 154 of the RTA 1988 places an obligation on the insured following a RT accident ( including damage only) to furnish details of the insurance cover to a third party where a claim is made against the policy. this claim may be made months after the accident. If the insured refuses or fails to furnish these details he/she commits an offence.

and here's the link to back it up.

Nice. THanks. Guess Humberside Police were doing their usual top job of doing nothing.

So what is the real state of play then? A motorist only has to give his name and address to someone he/she has hit? Or that motorist has to give insurance company details too? I admit I though the latter was the case but I have been off the scene for a while. smicker