paul b:
theres no way i’ve hit a car and not known about it, i was only driving a little four wheeler. the claim is i’ve swerved across the motorway and colided with this blokes car and yet not stopped, not exhanged insurance details or anything else yet this blokes not rung the police and the solicitors hav’nt contacted me until five or six weeks later
DEFINITELY A CON.ASK THE DRIVER OF THE CAR TO DESCRIBE YOUR TRUCK !!! AND ASK THE DRIVER TO DESCRIBE YOU! THEN ASK FOR THE WITNESS TO DO THE SAME! THEN SUE THEM FOR FALSIFYING A CLAIM!!!
Sounds as if the car may have been in a hit and run, the driver of the car hasnt caught the details and then you have passed so hes took a note of yours! and passed it on to claim from you
We’ve just received a letter from NU (not our insurers) stating that they have received a claim for an incident…
dated 13/08/05 at an unknown location.
Could you please contact the office to discuss the incident circumstances and liability
Phone call later they coould not tell us what the registration of our vehicle was or where it was. However they could tell us that it happened at approximately 20.10.
Now we had 2 hire vehicles on the road at his time probably about 15 miles apart tops somewhere near the junction of the M25 / M1 heading clockwise then north.
When the 2 vehicles were returned there was no new damage on them since we took them out on hire.
Does this sound like another scam to anyone?
Any suggestions as to what to do?
If the vehicles are hired go to the hire firm and get them to inspect and certifie the condition of the vehicles,ask the drivers to make a statement of events for that day as a record because if they continue with this claim and it is months later no one will remember anything get the statement done by a lawyer/soliciter so every thing is legal check withyour local police force and ask thier advice state that you belive some one is trying a insurance scam and you are worried about these false statements that some one has made against you and your establishment, also check if there was a cctv coverage of the area in question and see if you can be shownthe recording for that day mentioned,
Phone call later they coould not tell us what the registration of our vehicle was or where it was. However they could tell us that it happened at approximately 20.10.
Any suggestions as to what to do?
Yes, phone them back up and tell them to go play with themselves!!!
So I phone your insurers and tell them you have hit me. I didn’t get your registration and don’t know where it happened!! How blinking stupid
just an update, norwich union has put a solicitor on the case, he says it’s highly unlikely it will ever get to court as the claimants not got a leg to stand on and will run the risk of losing some seriouse money if it goes against them.
theres been one or two things said about NU but to be fair they’ve been very good.
NU like all insurance companies will look after themselves and thier shareholders first, but these scams are getting to common and it’s the insurance companies who pay out, so they are more likely to fight them and even try and get those who try to claim prosucuted for fraud.
I hope for you sake they chase these people through the courts.
Sorry to hear about what has happened to you Paul,i hope it get’s sorted soon.And i just wish the law could come down hard on these chancer’s.Good luck i’m sure it will run in your favour.
the plot thickens, had a visit from an NU accident investigator on Tuesday and get this, there’s a government body set up called the insurance bureau that pays out of a fund for uninsured accidents, to claim the money you first have to show that either the person who is liable is uninsured or you have to show that no one can be traced for the liability! so basically they take me to court, the court throws out the claim and then that then gives them the opportunity to claim from this fund
i’m just a pawn in a game that they can’t loose!
how (zb) wrong is that?
this is government incompetence at it’s very best (or worse).
they get a few people that are involved in accidents with uninsured drivers or hit and runs etc. (ok some may have sustained serious injuries or even death) and the government go into legislation overkill and ■■■■ everything up with massive loopholes in the legislation that allows scumbag freeloaders to take what they have no right to.
at the end of the day third party and tpft should only be allowed on cars that are not used on the road.
every car driver/owner should have to have a fully comprehensive insurance policy to drive a car on the road.
that way if they have an accident with an uninsured driver they will still get payed out by the insurance company.
what next?
how about uninsured drivers that are involved in accidents that they are to blame for getting paid out for the damage to their own vehicles?
this government are absolutely useless when it comes to common sense policy making.
This scheme has been around for a number of years.
I was knocked off my motorbike by an uninsured driver but the scheme would not pay out.
I got the details of the driver but they said there was a loophole that meant they didn’t have to pay.
I think it was the excess is around £500 and there is a minimum claim amount.
My claim came to less than the excess so I had to pay out for the repairs.
When I asked to my insurance claims company to sue the third party foir my losses they said they couldn’t trace him even though I’d given them his business card with his name address & phine number.
I was also hit in January in a non fault accident and I’m still waiting for my vehicle to be repaired. (a total of around £250 worth of damage)
johnny:
this is government incompetence at it’s very best (or worse).
they get a few people that are involved in accidents with uninsured drivers or hit and runs etc. (ok some may have sustained serious injuries or even death) and the government go into legislation overkill and ■■■■ everything up with massive loopholes in the legislation that allows scumbag freeloaders to take what they have no right to.
Fully agree with that Johnny, but:
at the end of the day third party and tpft should only be allowed on cars that are not used on the road.
every car driver/owner should have to have a fully comprehensive insurance policy to drive a car on the road.
How would that help? It doesn’t protect innocent parties anymore than the present system, only more evidence of Nannystateism. Why should I not be free to take my own risk as long as I’m not risking others?
this government are absolutely useless when it comes to common sense policy making.
Agreed, and your suggestion above is just the sort of thing they would propose.
well, it’s all done and dusted, the outcome? a joke in my opinion, the solicitors hired by my insurance firm, having looked at it closely came to the conclusion the case carried an element of “risk” as they put it, if we went to court. apparently it’s generally excepted in law that a hgv can possibly hit something with out the driver knowing! so basically it was my word against the claimants even though he could provide no witnesses, the upshot was, after a day of phone calls from the solicitors to myself and my insurers, they made the claimant an offer which was excepted, on my part, i would only agree if it was guaranteed that it would not effect my no claims, which i’ve since had in writing.
so the long and short of it is, someone drives their car into a lampost at the local supermarket, they then go to an msa that night and take details of a parked wagon, leave it a couple of weeks and then put a claim in stating the wagons hit them on the motorway and caused x amount of damage and stand every chance of getting paid at least part of the claim!
complete madness!
Our family business does Home Delivery with 7.5T and 12T rigids, and we get at least one every other month trying it on, we usually send one of the guys round first thing in the morning to photograph the damage. Most of them produce a scrappy receipt for £300 for a new motorised wing mirror, usually supplied buy a dodgy garage who has been bunged £50 quid. We always report them for fraud straight away, but the Police never follow it up. But it does make them dissapear. They make my blood boil, it’s a case of we are the largest thing that they have seen down their street, when it either has never happened or that some blind granny in a X reg fiesta has clipped it on the way past.
We don’t bother reporting it the the insurance anymore as they pay out more often than than the DHSS.
I wonder if there is any correlation (long word alert ) between the premiums being cheaper on the continent & the fact that their insurances co’s are less likely to pay out just because sombody has filled out a claim form.
Maybe if they kept a central record of individuals & their addresses when they make a claim they may see a pattern appearing at a particular address.
ie
3 or 4 claims a year for damage done by a lorry that didn’t stop then use t is in evidence to prosecute for fraud.
north surrey haulage:
Now we all know why we pay so much in premiums.
Maybe if they kept a central record of individuals & their addresses when they make a claim they may see a pattern appearing at a particular address.
They do. There is currently two systems. CUE (Claims and Underwriting Exchange, which logs most PI claims (PL/EL/RTA) and house hold claims. If used properly it also logs fault drivers who can’t claim for PI but it shows they were in an accident
MIAFTR 2. This tracks claims by address and by vehicle. But this is fairly limited as only total loss vehicles (both comp AD and TP claims) go on it. But it does throw up some nice results occasionally.
Also most the claims investigators, Brownswords, Ravenstones, KRS etc have there own databases of dodgy people they have looked into.
And then there are the private databases of the fraud investigator solicitors/insurance units, but they are limited by there own experience.
CUE if used right is the best and there will soon be a new one which will be even more detailed.
interesting that all involved took the moral high ground at first, the insurance company assured me they take a dim view of fraudulent claims, the solicitors said the claimant didn’t stand a chance etc etc, until it came down to it, then it’s damage limitation and all about paying out the least amount of money, no matter the rights and wrongs of it.
as has been mentioned, it’s no wonder premiums are so high, i’ve just paid 3.5 k to “insure” a wagon that cost 7k for a year, that’s not insurance, that’s putting a big lump of money in someone else’s bank account in case you have a bump, of coarse it’s got to be a good’n because of the excess and your no claims etc so chances are they get to keep that money untouched and then you give them some more in twelve months time, wheres the risk in that? basically i’ve just paid three n half grand for a piece of paper that the law requires me to have and no more.
to be fair, third party insurance is more than a piece of paper the law requires you to have. As to the cost compared to your vehicle, that isn’t that important. It’s the cost of third party claims that is high.
Average PI claim costs £5000, average property claim costs £1500. So if you hit a car with one person thats £6500. If you hit a car with 4 it’s £22,000. If you wipe someone out because lets be honest, thats a big truck, thats £500,000.
Theres a lot of competition out there. If you have an NCB speak to different brokers and get a few quotes. You’ll probably get different quotes with the same insurer through different brokers. Ask the brokers exactly how the quote is made up. Insurance premium, tax, before the event legal cover, brokerage fees to see where your money is going.
As for scam claims, they are difficult to defend. It’s even harder to prove a crime. To stand up, point a finger, and call someone a criminal in open correspondance or court is not easy especially when they are already represented by a bent solicitor who will happilly sue you for lible as well as whiplash. It’s getting the evidence of criminal intent thats difficult. But even then the police are not interested.
and yet not stopped, not exhanged insurance details or anything else yet this blokes not rung the police and the solicitors hav’nt contacted me until five or six weeks later
