Hyundai i20 - Insurance claim

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Mon 4 Oct 2010 15:36
Hyundai i20 - Insurance claim - Eif

Hi i'm a new member on the site and was hoping for some advice relating to an insurance claim. Here goes.....

Last December (2009), my girlfriend has a small accident while pulling out from a junction. Our car made contact with the side of an oncoming vehicle. We exchanged insurance info, etc, and on inspection, the damage to our car was minor - cracked head light and paint scraped in front bumper. During the accident there was no real impact, we just heard the sound of the scrape and that was it.

Upon resolving the claim with my insurance company in the following weeks, I was informed that, in addition to the car damage, there was also a personal injury claim from the 3rd Party claimant. I disputed this and told the claims advisor that for us to have shunted the car sidways to cause any kind of injury, we would have had to have been travelling with some force and, at the very least, enough force to have set my airbags off (which it did not). In addition, it would also be likely that we would suffer from similar injuries (which we did not). The advisor took all of the information from me and told me that he would be launching an investigation into the validity of the personal injury claim.

I have just recieved a letter adressed to my girlfriend from the 3rd party claimants insurance company stating:

''Your insurers have failed to settle our claim''

''Please accept this letter as notice under Section 152 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 of our intention to issue proceedings against you''

Obviously I was a bit taken aback by this but after contacting my insurer, I have been told that the matter is being dealt with by the legal team. I am going to forward the letter to them, along with a request for a summary of the legal proceedings, thus far.

My real question is, is it common practice for opposing insurance companies to contact people in this manner? For me this seems quite underhand as it seems like scare-tactics. If i'm honest, I had to stop myself from phoning the company directly, which could have had negative effects on the case being dealt with by the insurance companies.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

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Mon 4 Oct 2010 16:01
Hyundai i20 - Insurance claim - LucyBC

If your insurer believes the claim is not valid then they can oppose it but the action nominally remains between the two people involved (ie they are the named parties) with their insurers subrogated to pay out if the case is lost.

Thus if your insurer disputes the claim then everything will be served on you but you need to pass it on to your insurer if it is a fault case.

Third party insurers like serving in this way as the policy holder inevitably boots the insurer towards dealing with it but if you are convinced the injury is dubious you should press your insurer to hold out on the basis that the claim needs to be proven not to be fraudulent.

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