SFAIK an insurance company cannot refuse to pay out on a 3rd party claim, regardless of the circumstances re driving licences, etc However, you still have problems re the repairs to your own car and any possible police involvement in the legal situation

Skidpan's post covers the situation pretty well but has one minor error.

In the long run the claim is unlikely to affect your no claims bonus as your Insurers will be looking to recover their outlay to any third parties eg the building from their policyholder.

If they recover the money the no claims bonus will not be affected, if they don't recover all the money from you then it will affect your no claims bonus.

How will the insurers recover their costs from the building. It was not the buildings fault. It was the driver of the Honda Jazz that was to blame by hitting it, they do not deny it. The building did not hit the Honda Jazz did it.

my wife has been convinced by the friend who actually crashed the car to tell insurance company that my wife was driving and her foot slipped.

Didn't an MP and his ex wife go to jail for lieing about who was driving.

Saying she was driving would be insurance fraud if she was caught.

Not much of a friend your wife has.

my wife has been convinced by the friend who actually crashed the car to tell insurance company that my wife was driving and her foot slipped.

I can't seem to get her to change her mind, so will the insurance company ask for the CCTV from the company or would they just accept the pictures from the company of the damage of the accident?

Careful there - that's fraud and perverting the course of justice - with potential of a jail sentence, like Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce.

from my point of view, i think

we should see what company have for the quotes to repair damage. (they have our insurance details now)

if the cost is low to medium, we can pay for building and pay to get our car fixed (costs spilt between us and my wife's friend)

if the cost is high, we contact insurance company - I'm hoping they will pay the damage to the building and we have to pay the cost of our car and increased insurance costs for the future (at present we pay £25 a month).

Im hoping the police don't have to be involved as that will mean they will know who was driving and my wife will get a fine and 8 penalty points on licence. (Not sure if Insurance company has to inform police that uninsured driver was involved)

thanks

Chock

so I'm better to arrange insurances under my name in future. the car is in my wife's name.

so it really comes down to how much the bill is going to be from the building owners (might be better getting a loan and paying them through that route) rather than let our insurance co deal with it.

thanks

Chock

Road Traffic Act, section 151, subsection 8 is relevant here:

Where an insurer becomes liable under this section to pay an amount in respect of a liability of a person who is not insured by a policy or whose liability is not covered by a security, he is entitled to recover the amount from that person or from any person who—

(a)is insured by the policy, or whose liability is covered by the security, by the terms of which the liability would be covered if the policy insured all persons or, as the case may be, the security covered the liability of all persons, and

(b)caused or permitted the use of the vehicle which gave rise to the liability.

further info

we contacted our insurance co. who said that they would not pay any claims due to the driver was not on the named policy for the vehicle and that the driver was uninsured so that we would have to settle out of insurance.

We phoned the company again to get an idea as to the estimate of the costs. They were speaking to their insurance co. who advised them to go down the insurance road as the damages were unlikely to be in the hundreds of punds range, more than likely thousands. We advised them that our insurance co. wasn;t going to pay any claims, and that we would have to cover the costs.

They will phone back with details of the damages and give us a copy of the quote when it comes in, we can get a comparison quote.

My work offers legal advice and the legal team advised that they think the co. would get their insurance co. to pay damages and that their insurance co. would seek to recover costs from my wife and her friend. It could go to court if the costs do run into thousands of pounds, but the insurance co. may not pursue if they feel they aren;t likely to get the costs back, but the legal team said that was uncertain, the fact that both my wife and her friend (who is declared bankrupt) don;t have much in the way of assets, may make it not worthwhile chasing us for costs.

Basically, we have to wait to see what the costs are likely to be.

Chock

The person you spoke to at your Insurers is mistaken, they do not have any option but to pay any valid claims as they are duty bound by the Road Traffic Act.

The Buildings Insurers will almost certainly be aware of your Insurers obligations and pursue them for payment. As Brit in Germany has highlighted the RTA means your Insurers can then look to you or the driver to reimberse them. They are most likely to go after you for payment which may involve.

Your Insurers will normally pursue you for payment as they do not like paying claims out under this part of the RTA.

Seeking legal advice would be a good idea.

Don't hold your breath about the other Insurers not pursuing the money, the staff in charge of these types of claims know that if there is an insurance policy in place and the driver has been identified then they have a slam dunk chance of recovering their outlay from the vehicle's Insurers.

It's a no brainer for the buildings Insurers as they have the law behind them

I was starting to get worried about all the costs adding up and the police officers said don;t worry, yes my wife will probably get 6 points on her licence and a fine, but in his experience, it will be a small fine of a few hundred pound rather than thousands.

Getting insurance with a conviction for no insurance might prove costly as most Insurance Companies take a dim view of this. After all you in their eyes you have tried to avoid paying them a premium.

I was starting to get worried about all the costs adding up and the police officers said don;t worry, yes my wife will probably get 6 points on her licence and a fine, but in his experience, it will be a small fine of a few hundred pound rather than thousands.

Getting insurance with a conviction for no insurance might prove costly as most Insurance Companies take a dim view of this. After all you in their eyes you have tried to avoid paying them a premium.

If you take into account that the OP's car Insurers will not be happy about having to pay out under the RTA in these circumstances and that there's a very high chance that if they do pay out under the RTA that they will subsequently decline to offer renewal. This will make buying any type of Insurance (Including Home Insurance) for whoever is the policyholder very diffilcult to obtain currently forever (Read expensive)

If the OP were my customer, I would be recommending they cancel their car insurance at least two months before the renewal date to prevent the car insurers going through the renewal process and declining to offer renewal thus avoiding having a declined insurance on their record, If you go down this route the car Insurers will still be liable for the accident under the RTA, will still have the right of recovery from the OP and there would be no refund of any balance of the car premium due to the accident

this good advice on the refusal to renew because that would make other insurers refuse to insure you aswell but be warned cancelation fees can be as much as your policy was

Nothing to do with this case but I just cancelled my insurance with two months outstanding-no charge.I thought that was the end of it but the next week I received a refund cheque for the two months. NFU!! not a cheapo.