Car Insurance and Claims!

psycho-sardine

Hey there,

Can anyone help me out on this one...

Two years ago I had a fender bender, where a woman with no head rest in her car got out and claimed she hurt her neck when half way through a junction she jumped on her brakes and I hit her back bumper!

I'm convinced she was out of money though, as she was asking me all sort of questions as to where I work and what I work as, which in reply upon answering she said to me - "Ah loads of money up there!!".

Two weeks later I got a letter from her solicitor looking for a Personal Injury Claim!! There are words for people like her...

I lost my 40 % no claims bonus and my insurance company said they would look after it.

However 2 years later its still not settled and I'm thinking of selling my car, canceling my insurance policy and going to Australia for a year with my girlfriend.

So this is my question, if I cancel my insurance policy after now two years, and the claim goes ahead while I'm out of the country, is it likely that my insurance company will do a U turn and end up not paying out for this crazy woman and I'll be stuck with a bill when they notice I've canceled my policy??!

So will my insurance company stand by me? Has this happened to anyone before?

All opinions listened to!!!

Thanks!

craichoe

psycho-sardine wrote:

Hey there,

Can anyone help me out on this one...

Two years ago I had a fender bender, where a woman with no head rest in her car got out and claimed she hurt her neck when half way through a junction she jumped on her brakes and I hit her back bumper!

I'm convinced she was out of money though, as she was asking me all sort of questions as to where I work and what I work as, which in reply upon answering she said to me - "Ah loads of money up there!!".

Two weeks later I got a letter from her solicitor looking for a Personal Injury Claim!! There are words for people like her...

I lost my 40 % no claims bonus and my insurance company said they would look after it.

However 2 years later its still not settled and I'm thinking of selling my car, canceling my insurance policy and going to Australia for a year with my girlfriend.

So this is my question, if I cancel my insurance policy after now two years, and the claim goes ahead while I'm out of the country, is it likely that my insurance company will do a U turn and end up not paying out for this crazy woman and I'll be stuck with a bill when they notice I've canceled my policy??!

So will my insurance company stand by me? Has this happened to anyone before?

All opinions listened to!!!

Thanks!

Of course not, your policy was in force for that period, the insurance company will cover your liability within the terms of your policy. You will need to tell them your going abroad though and probably give them contact details.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

All that matter is if your Insurance was valid at the time of the claim.

ian_m

You can suspend your policy for up to 12months so if you come back early you can continue on with that same policy.

Its not your fault the insurance claiming process is slow.

If you like you don't have to tell them you are moving to Australia and just cancel your policy. Let the process continue. Someone here can monitor correspondence and notify you.

If nothing has happened quickly by now, its probably not going to happen overnight when you are in Australia.

Accidents happen and thats what they are there for...

(Have a great trip! Good move to go to Oz for a while, did it myself)

unkel

psycho-sardine wrote:

Two weeks later I got a letter from her solicitor looking for a Personal Injury Claim!!

It might be too late now, but is there any way of exposing her for the fraud she is? Reminds me of this bloke driving a huge transit van who got rear ended by a Fiesta at 3MPH. He got £30,000 for personal injury after claiming whiplash :mad:

oleras

unkel wrote:

It might be too late now, but is there any way of exposing her for the fraud she is? Reminds me of this bloke driving a huge transit van who got rear ended by a Fiesta at 3MPH. He got £30,000 for personal injury after claiming whiplash :mad:

woahhhhhhhhh....... how do you know the victim is a fraud ? have you performed an exam on her ? The op hit her from behind, should have been paying attention, comes on here bitching about her, obviously knows nothing about how car insurance works, if he did he would not have asked a silly question re: will i have to pay ?

And as for the whiplash, miss a step on a footpath and you can get whiplash.....

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

unkel wrote:

It might be too late now, but is there any way of exposing her for the fraud she is? ...:mad:

Wait a minute! The OP was at fault. Have you ever been hit from behind. I have. Have you seen the injured person's medical report? No!
The OP has no say in the matter once it was passed to his insurers. OP seems to be completley lost when it comes to how the insurance system operates, as are you. You have no say in how the claim is settled and it is the job of the insurers to decide if a claim is genuine or not.

unkel

For sure, I don't know the case! This is an internet forum and the only info we have is from the OP. Based on that, the claimant looks like a con-artist though imho

Bailee Broad Flag wrote:

You have no say in how the claim is settled and it is the job of the insurers to decide if a claim is genuine or not.

Of course you can influence this process

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

unkel wrote:

Of course you can influence this process

No you can't. In fact once you have passed the claim to the insurance company you have little (usually nil) input in to whatever settlement is made with the third party. If you know otherwise for certain please let me know how, as I'm curious as to where such disinformation came from.

Duiske

psycho-sardine wrote:

Hey there,

Can anyone help me out on this one...

!

As Srameen pointed out, you were covered by insurance at the time of the accident. So even if you cancelled your policy an hour after the accident it would have no bearing on it. You were covered at the time.

As for you going away for a year, have the insurance company asked you to fill out any forms regarding the circumstances of the accident ? They will look for the usual info : Date, time, place, weather conditions etc. And will even ask you to draw a cute little diagram showing the position of the cars and the damage areas.

Once you have filled this out, it is unlikely you will hear from the insurance company again, except for a letter confirming the matter has been resolved.
If the insurance company suspect something is amiss with the claim, they may opt to let it go to court or arbitration, but in the unlikely event of any such action while you are away, it will be adjourned until you return.

Call your insurance, let them know you are going abroad, and ask them to send out any forms which need to be filled in.

psycho-sardine

oleras wrote:

woahhhhhhhhh....... how do you know the victim is a fraud ? have you performed an exam on her ? The op hit her from behind, should have been paying attention, comes on here bitching about her, obviously knows nothing about how car insurance works, if he did he would not have asked a silly question re: will i have to pay ?

And as for the whiplash, miss a step on a footpath and you can get whiplash.....

Thanks for the advice all.

As regards to the "victim" being a fraud! She is no victim!. The woman was driving around with no head rest in her car, though she can claim wip lash and blame me! Its illegal to not wear a seat belt but not to have any headrest. Anyway, if she had indeed hurt herself (which would be fair enough) from the accident, why would the first question she asked me when she got out of the car - is where do you work and what do I do?? Followed with a smile and "Ah loads of money up there!" ..Yeah she sounds hurt alright.

Yes I hit her from behind, I'm not arguing that fact. I was paying attention, but then you don't expect somone to jump on the breaks in the middle of a function with the road ahead free and the lights green! I wonder how quick you would be to respond on an afternoon in heavy traffic. The crunch for me is that, we had been stopped, the speed I hit her at would have been about 2 mph (pulling off from stopped in traffic), hense only a scratch to her bumper.

As regards a medical check, that was carried out, but as you probably know, X-rays or any other form of physical exam can't show or disprove "soft tissue injury" as its is known. Anyone who is in an accident can claim to be hurt, not even a bruise - no one can disprove it. This is why we now have the PIAB, to try and prevent solicitors going to town on it.

The bottom line is that if through my driving I caused injury to someone - I have no problem with that, but when people only see money, and ride the system and everyone for as much as they can get - that pisses me off.

Duiske

psycho-sardine wrote:

The bottom line is that if through my driving I caused injury to someone - I have no problem with that, but when people only see money, and ride the system and everyone for as much as they can get - that pisses me off.

Its sad really, but as the ad on the TV says : "You will be paying for her holiday". If you suspect she is making a false claim report it to the Irish Insurance Federation. But as you say, whiplash complaints are notoriously difficult to disprove.

unkel

Bailee Broad Flag wrote:

If you know otherwise for certain please let me know how, as I'm curious as to where such disinformation came from.

"For certain", "disinformation". Jeez, no need to be so formal here. Do you work in the insurance industry by any chance?

Just say if I was in the situation of the OP and I had a very strong suspicion that the claimant was a compo con-artist. Say nothing shows up in any investigation by Gardai and / or my insurance company, so my insurance company tells me they are going to settle for personal injury. Say I do my own investigation and can prove the claimant is a fraud. Say I hand over the evidence to my insurance company. You says that won't have any impact on the settlement my insurance company was planning to pay out? I says it will...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

unkel wrote:

Just say if I was in the situation of the OP and I had a very strong suspicion that the claimant was a compo con-artist. Say nothing shows up in any investigation by Gardai and / or my insurance company, so my insurance company tells me they are going to settle for personal injury. Say I do my own investigation and can prove the claimant is a fraud. Say I hand over the evidence to my insurance company. You says that won't have any impact on the settlement my insurance company was planning to pay out? I says it will...

The most you can do is report it to the Insurance Fraud hotline; but do you think you will be able to find proof that the Insurers can't? Will you have access to medical files showing the extent of the damage caused, or the level of restriction it has imposed on the injured party. Come in to the real world for a moment and forget about the Miss Marple stuff. The claim for damage if valid and the no-claims is lost regardless of the size of the claim. The OP was at fault and the injured party was in fact injured. The decision lies solely with the insurance company.

BTW: You don't have to work in the Insurance Business to have sufficient english to use "disinformation" or "for certain" , and a formal sentance can usually ensure clarity of meaning.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

psycho-sardine wrote:

The woman was driving around with no head rest in her car, ...

Just remember that there is no law stating that head restraints (head rests is a misnomer) must be fittied to cars. In fact, many drivers have them at the wrong height and actually pose a hazard in the event of a crash. Also you should always drive so you can react to any unexpected hazards on the road.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

psycho-sardine wrote:

The woman was driving around with no head rest in her car, ...

Just remember that there is no law stating that head restraints (head rests is a misnomer) must be fittied to cars. In fact, many drivers have them at the wrong height and actually pose a hazard in the event of a crash. Also you should always drive so you can react to any unexpected hazards on the road.

unkel

Bailee Broad Flag wrote:

do you think you will be able to find proof that the Insurers can't?

What if I did?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

unkel wrote:

What if I did?

See #14 above!

oleras

unkel wrote:

What if I did?

I remember this being covered on The Last Word a few weeks ago, some guy from the Ins Fed of Irl was on, and basically he was saying if your insurance company want to pay out there is sweet F.A you can do about it, they dont care about fighting a small case for 5-6k, they will just stick it on the price of next years premium.

Duiskie_lad; Do you honestly think a phonecall to the ins fraud dept will do anything for a whiplash claim for a few thousand ? I think they have bigger fish to fry imvho.

OP: you hit someone from behind, regardless of speed, traffic, you were wrong, plain and simple. And remember we are only hearing your version of events, and as my mother would say, there are 3 versions.... yours, hers and somewhere in the middle, the truth....

Duiske

oleras wrote:

Duiskie_lad; Do you honestly think a phonecall to the ins fraud dept will do anything for a whiplash claim for a few thousand ? I think they have bigger fish to fry imvho.

Ah sure, if its only a few thousand then its not really fraud, and not worth worrying about. Thats the attitude that has us paying amongst the highest insurance in Europe.

Given what this woman said to the OP, regarding the money, then maybe he feels he has a right to report it.

But, as you rightly say, there are different sides to every story.

unkel

Bailee Broad Flag wrote:

See #14 above!

Yeah, yeah. Insurance fraud hotline, insurance ombudsman, Joe Duffy

Do you really think my insurance company wouldn't want to know and would progress with a settlement if I handed over hard proof that the claim is fraudulent?

Oleras has a point though. There is the relative size of the settlement vs the administrative costs of disproving a case / proving fraud

Esel

unkel wrote:

Reminds me of this bloke driving a huge transit van who got rear ended by a Fiesta at 3MPH. He got £30,000 for personal injury after claiming whiplash :mad:

Hmmmn... cormie had a Fiesta, bought a banger of a Transit, spent a packet on it, then suddenly moved up to a newer, huge Transit which he has kitted out with couch, fireplace, home cinema, and top of the range hi-fi. Coincidence? Maybe.

oleras

Duiske_Lad wrote:

Ah sure, if its only a few thousand then its not really fraud, and not worth worrying about. Thats the attitude that has us paying amongst the highest insurance in Europe.

Given what this woman said to the OP, regarding the money, then maybe he feels he has a right to report it.

But, as you rightly say, there are different sides to every story.

Thats not the point i was trying to make, but maybe its a fact of life, the Guards dont investigate petty theft to the same extent they would a murder, both are a crime, but someone has to give priority to the more serious type, would you agree ? That does not make petty theft something to worry less about, but maybe its life in the 21st century.

Duiske

oleras wrote:

Thats not the point i was trying to make, but maybe its a fact of life, the Guards dont investigate petty theft to the same extent they would a murder, both are a crime, but someone has to give priority to the more serious type, would you agree ?

I actually do agree with your point that there are more serious, more costly cases of fraud that the IIF would rather investigate. And I can see the point about "the relative size of the settlement vs the administrative costs of disproving a case / proving fraud", as commented on by Unkel

Pity some of the lesser fraudsters can't be brought to book about it.