Thanks for the replies. Yes county court, small track

I was waiting for an answer on the court/track question before wading in but my first thought reading this was same as Brit in Germany; is the claim part of a dispute between the insurers?

If his own insurers are picking him up then it sounds as if they've 'got his back'. He's there as a witness.

If it's to be heard on Wednesday it'll most likely be settled today, tomorrow or in the court corridor while you're waiting for the Judge to deal with the routine stuff at the start of their list.

The costs of a court case really go through the roof once the clerk calls the case on and Solicitors or Barristers get up on their hind legs, as Horace Rumpole would say, to address the court. Both sides play chicken with each other until one has a vision of Counsel's fee note and they get serious.

Hopefully the admin have some other cases otherwise the Judge will be on the golf course after lunch.

Edited by Bromptonaut on 12/07/2021 at 15:40

Many moons ago I had a court case - 3rd party insurer was playing up.

2 years almost to the day.

They settled, without admitting anything at 4pm on the eve of the court case.

If Norwich Union had agreed to settle 2 years previously I would have taken £1000 + car damage.

The lawyers bill was roughly £1500, I got £4,500 and the car damage on top around £1250 IIRC.!

Insurers seem to lose all sense of reasonableness - I had my wing mirror smashed by a truck, it was a fairly high tech mirror with camera inside so about £1500 for replacement - I tried to get the truck owner's insurer to pay directly but they baulked at the amount - so I passed it to a claims handler who added their fee plus £1000 for like-for-like car hire - it's a crazy world sometimes.

What made my case drag on a bit was that there were 3 cars involved

Car 1 - mine - 2 weeks old (stationary red light)

Car 2 - ancient MB - insured by Norwich Union via Swintons (stationary) - unsavoury background of driver & passenger

Car 3 - new MB - insured by Norwich Union - woman driver related to Glasgow gangster driving a "loan car" from MB dealer - she had signed a waiver saying she had her own insurance cover and did not pay the daily charge for day cover insurance. NU was the fall back insurer as the car was on the MB garage block policy.

Car 3 hit car 2, car2 hit me!

Neither NU Retail customer division claims or NU Corporate Insurance claims would accept blame. My claim therefore was against 2 x NU policies.

In the words of my lawyer I was the only one that was deemed honest - the background reports on the other drivers was they were from different sets of well known criminal backgrounds.

£1000 excess payable by car 3 driver was possibly the reason for denial of blame but Perjury & possible Sphincter issues had them change their story a day or 2 before the court date.