Got knocked of Jan 26th and I’m still waiting for the other insurance company to admit fault.
Guy pulled out from parked position on other side of road to do a 3 point turn.
Came over my side of road.
There was a Witness
Police attended.
Photos taken
Nothing up in the air about it.
Fully com and go the full payout with no excess taken from it.
My insurers have been saying that they’re waiting to hear back from Admiral since about 6-8 weeks ago. Dont know why its taken them that long to do their bit and pass it over.
What are peoples experiences with the claims process? Length of time it takes and any tricks for speeding it up.
Even with all your bases covered, the third party will always try and employ delaying tactics in the hope that they can apportion some contributory negligence thereby mitigating some of their losses, and in injury cases this is particularly prevelant.
If the Police attended as it appears they did, the favourite trick is to apply for a copy of the Police report (which can take anything from 6 weeks to several months after the case has been closed) to arrive and then base thier decision to try and go for some contrib based on the contents of the report and what the witnesses have said.
If you were injured, they will also know that the statute of limitation is 3 years before proceedings get issued, and so they will use this to their advantage, (5 years for damage only claims), and they will contest (or more to the point, not admit) liability until they have wasted everyones time and exhausted every possibility of finding that degree of contrib in the hope that they can reduce the amount of money they have to pay out.
But bear in mind, it is worth pointing out to the insurers that the clock is ticking and you are incurring additional costs because of their refusal to admit liability, and that as a consequence, they become liable for those costs (which is standard practice in personal injury cases anyway).
Just keep on their case, they will cave in eventually, but as many here can testify to, insurance companies are a law onto themselves, and I think that some believe they are above the law, but that is a seperate issue.
I think that any insurance that diliberately drags their feet like this should be sanctioned by the regulater, and the compensation that they have to pay out doubled.
When I got clobbered by a 19 driver, who admitted to me, the police, and witnesses it was entire her fault. Her insurance company drag it out for over a year.
I did mention to the insurers to pass on the message that I had made an effort to keep the cost of the claim down, but was reconsidering that.
Anyway I got an email back from my insurers, (see below) that might make it easier getting insurance in the meantime.
I have spoken to the third party insurers and whilst they have received our
witness statement it has not yet been reviewed.
Having reviewed your file and the fact that we have a independent witness
on file it has been agreed that we will be allowing your no claims bonus
for this claim.
I got knocked over by white van man on 5 January 2011 and despite him admitting it was his fault and my having a witness, it took until October 2011 to get sorted.
There was personal injury involved so that may have added at least a couple of months while I waited to be given an appointment to see his insurer’s doctor for an assessment, then for Maydie Hospital to send in their A&E report.
…wish u good luck with it. i have an ongoing claim since july last year i believe. time to time i am bombarding my solicitor with emails but not sure if its speeding it up :Whistling:
Jesus. That stuff TC says is pretty grim… I really hope I don’t ever have to make a claim. Waiting a year for a payout when you have a witness and a driver fully admitting fault?
I’ve had 2 claims go through and both took approx 6 months give or take from start to end. You can speed things up by giving your solicitor instruction to give a 21 day reply time (which I think is the minimum by law), if they haven’t already done so, and then hope they miss one.
However, if you are claiming for your loss of wages, loss of use and similar things its better that it takes as long as possible so that the cash just keeps rolling in. Be wary of doing this though as the costs have to be ‘reasonable’. Ie, if you are claiming loss of use for 6 months but you got a payout for the bike in 3 months this would not be ‘reasonable’, you’d only be entitled for the 3 months. OR if you are saying you want £60 per day loss of use when an equivalent bike costs £30 a day to rent this is not ‘reasonable’.
To add, the downsides of speeding up personal injury claims is that you don’t know of any long term pains or side affects from the accident. What if that broken leg stops hurting for a while and then gives you unbearable pain in 8/9 months time?
Also, if you go to court the judge’s word is more or less final.
Even with minor injuries, 10 months from crash to settlement is pretty dammed quick.
Usually even realatively minor injury claims take over a year to settle to ensure that you have made a full recovery or you have at least recovered as best as you are likely to thereby ensuring that your claim is not under valued as is often the case.
Accident date Nov 2010, Court hearing now scheduled for Nov 2012! My insurers paid out on my fully comp policy in a matter of days, and left my no claims bonus in tact. They want their money back and I want £1000.00 for uninsured loses. We are both claiming for interest on our loses too.
7 years for trial and/or settlement normally only applies in the most catastrophic cases, and there are a whole number of reasons as to why this is often the case, but for most personal injury cases, even serious injuries, settlement is usually shortly after proceedings have been issued when statute of limitation has been reached.
I know some case that have taken 20 years to settle, but they are usually brain injury at birth type cases which although medical negligence is still a personal injury matter.
