Getting sued for an accident that wasnt my fault

[srichards27]

What is the world coming to when people can claim an injury on a rta that wasnt even my fault. does anyone know that if your insurance covers legal expences does this stupid womans compensation get paid by me or my insurance?

[kalniel]

It's an option on your insurance usually - sometimes it's included, sometimes it's extra. Check with your insurance.

The litigation involved in most parts of life now is quite sad, but all you can do is make sure you're covered then hand it off to the experts (your insurers) who will make enough noise that the other person might back off. If your insurance doesn't cover you then ask to be upgraded straight away.

[srichards27]

i do have legal cover on my insurance, im sure it wont go to court anyway as i have an independant witness to say i want at fault. I just think some people will try anything. So say shes after 10,000 pound, my legal cover should cover that?

[joshwa]

Legal cover would cover your legal expenses (solicitors etc)
The Insurance would cover her claim (say it's £5k for car write off, £5 for injuries etc).

Write everything down - street names - draw diagrams - date everything - take photos of the junction - take photos of any damage to your car - all this will help you explain your side of the story to whoever is looking at it whether it's the insurance company or whether they assign solicitors to look at it.

What happened?

[steve threlfall]

i do have legal cover on my insurance, im sure it wont go to court anyway as i have an independant witness to say i want at fault. I just think some people will try anything. So say shes after 10,000 pound, my legal cover should cover that?

Dont worry about it

Just pass on anything you recieve on to your insurer.

[srichards27]

i was waiting to turn right at a box junction, but wasnt actually in the yellow box. she was coming from the opposite street ahead of me to go up the road i had just came from. instead of moving slightly to her left, which she had to do as we were facing each other, she hit me head on when i was stationary. I was not in her way whatsoever and also have an independant witness which backs me up. This claim has been ongoing since april last year and only now has she decided that she wants compensation money.

So will i have to pay anything at all if i have legal cover?.....bearing in mind shes after ten k!! for a whiplash injury.

Also she is a reverand, and apparently cannot be capable of lying! or so she seems to think.

[steve threlfall]

i was waiting to turn right at a box junction, but wasnt actually in the yellow box. she was coming from the opposite street ahead of me to go up the road i had just came from. instead of moving slightly to her left, which she had to do as we were facing each other, she hit me head on when i was stationary. I was not in her way whatsoever and also have an independant witness which backs me up. This claim has been ongoing since april last year and only now has she decided that she wants compensation money.

So will i have to pay anything at all if i have legal cover?.....bearing in mind shes after ten k!! for a whiplash injury.

Also she is a reverand, and apparently cannot be capable of lying! or so she seems to think.

If everything is as exactly as you say then a Reverand should know better than making fraudulent claims. With regard to the timescales invloved in these things, i feel your pain . Takes an age to sort out

If you have legal cover, you wont have to pay a penny. Afaik, you just pass any communications from them to your insurer and as Josh advised, supply them with as much info/evidence as possible. With an independent witness corroborating your story, shouldnt be a problem

[srichards27]

the claim is still ongoing. She has been to see one of these no win no fee compensation people. it just sickens me!!

[srichards27]

and it gets worse than that, the accident happened on the 1st, april fools....... she didnt seek medical attention till the 23rd, was then told she had whiplash. she then went back to the doctor on the 11th of june saying she was still experiencing pain. why was she not referred to a specialist? and is it possible for her to be so injured and i walk away perfectly fine?

[joshwa]

Whiplash tends to be quite a long term injury taking several months to heal / go away fully. You can still walk etc but if you move your head a certain way then it can be painful, and it can restrict your movement.

Have you spoken to your insurance company about it? They should assign you a solicitor to deal with the claim from the 'no win no fee' people.

[Nick]

Well you're probably not going to like this but it needs to be said:

in my mum's case, where we got heavily shunted by the car behind whilst waiting to turn right off the main road, the case for compensation was only settled about 5 years later... and then it was because the severity of her form of whiplash meant that she would be awarded a huge payout... (it knacked her back and she's now basically going to suffer for the rest of her life with lower back pain).

As the cause of the injury was obvious and she was hurting at the time of the crash, it was easy to prove it was a result of the crash. Not so much for me. I suffered unexplained headaches and ear ache about two years later and eventually a specialist traced it to a very slight misalignment in my neck which could well have been caused by the crash but seeing as I felt fine at the time and had played rugby and had a few more car crashes, I would have been on very shaky ground had a I tried to claim.

But here's some good news. The guy who hit us tried to claim for thumb and wrist damage and whiplash, claiming against my mum's insurance despite the police taking him to court and him being banned for dangerous driving. The basis of his claim was that though he was at fault for the crash, he wasn't at fault for causing the crash as, iirc, "a Sierra Estate is a very heavy car to drive and not as responsive as other cars". Basically he was saying it was the cars fault and not his.

Needless to say, this was dismissed out of hand by the insurance company and the only reason we knew of it was because they contacted my mum to inform her of his claim and check a few details.

So if the accident happened as you described, then your insurance company will deal with it appropriately. Either way, if it was a 'no fault' accident for you, you need to make sure that this is noted on your file and that it doesn't let your premiums go up.

[srichards27]

thank you very much for that, i just dont know what will happen because although i know im not at fault, my insurance company have put my premiums up anyway cos since claim is still open and no liability has been accepted by either party.

So i take it solictors can take on any claim? like in your mums case, that was really bad like. The solicitor that took the case on must have known it wouldnt be granted compo?

god ive got years to go then?

[Nick]

It depends on how the case was explained to the solicitor as until they get their client to allow them access to all the details, they only have the client's word for what happened.

Sadly, having an open claim WILL make your premiums go up. That happened with the missus and her insurance even though the claim was actually settled as far as we knew, it was still open as the underwriters for the bloke that hit her were niggling over something. So the premiums reflect that until the case is closed. As it was we only had two months of high premiums until it was sorted, the premiums were adjusted and we got a discount of the premiums equivalent to what was overpaid.

For this reason your insurance company will want to get it sorted asap. Just let them deal with it but remember to remind them that this is a NO FAULT claim and you will not accept something like 50/50 knock for knock etc.

Oh, and I wouldn't be at all worried about her being a reverend, religious professionals have hardly had a good track record for honesty, proving that they're just as conniving, duplicitous and untrustworthy as us mere mortals. Do what joshwa says, take photos, draw diagrams thoroughly EXPLAIN the accident and you should be fine.

[srichards27]

im more worried that il have to pay 10 k of my own money to this woman, are you's sure i wont have to pay?

Suppose you cant exactly get blood from a stone, i still live with my parents and they own my car, i dont have a well paid job either, i scrape by as it is!

Aw im scared folks, im only 20 and shes like 68, she just wants to ruin my whole life to end hers greatly !!

she thinks her rev status is at stake, and also prob thinks that shel get away with it because she is a rev. makes me angry, im a good young girl.

[tigerboyce]

Just do what's been said with the photo's etc just to get as much evidence as you can to back your claims up and you should be fine.

Obviously being a young driver is going to be your main problem, but if you have the evidence to back yourself, then you wont have a problem.

Dont be scared or afraid of your position though, that wont do you any good. If your claims are true which im sure they are, then you have to make sure you act as if they are true

[Nick]

First off, although she's lodging a claim against you, it's NOT you who will ever have to pay, that's what your insurance is for.

The only time you may become personally liable and have to pay out of your own pocket is if you're uninsured and she takes you to court... even if she takes you to court, as long as you have insurance then they will cover the costs AND any compensation... all you'll suffer at worst is points on your license or a ban and increased premiums.

But, from what you've told us, it's highly unlikely that it'll get anywhere near court and any solicitor even marginally decent at their job will not have any trouble defending your case.... even if some daft solicitor reckons she can get some money out of you.

By the way, do you have fully comprehensive insurance? And more to the point, does she? If she's third party only, that means that she will not be able to claim for any damage she causes to her car if she is at fault... which might be her motive behind trying to claim for injury...

In any event, as long as you were insured at the time of the accident, the car was taxed and the MOT was in date, from what you've said it's very, very unlikely that she'll get any money out of your insurance company.