This may sound odd but in 20 odd years of driving I dont have any experience of insurance claims, the only accident until yesterday was a drunk driver who was not insured and had a list of creditors as long as your arm.

Anyway happened on a roundabout (one of the painted ones). the other person decided not to bother to drive round it but to take the shortest route from a to b without looking anywhere other than right (by her own admission). What worries me is that I have been told there is a good chance the insurance companies will just say that it was knock for knock as it was on a roundabout. I do have a witness who said he will back me up, so I would be spitting mad if that happened. So question is have any of you had a similar experience and if so did you manage to contest it with the insurance?

In my very little experience with any insurance company, they will do their best to pay either nothing or as little as they can possibly get away with.

We had a woman reverse into our car's open back door (I was stood there putting our son in his car seat!) she missed me by about 2 inches, but hit the door, we had (an albeit poor) CCTV evidence show a white car hit our door, she had given us her details, everything was clear cut except she then decided she didn't hit our car, her insurance took her word for it, and we were left with the bill for the repairs ourselves - all £800 odd of it!!! We could have claimed on our insurance, but we, at the time, had a £250 excess and knew the next years cover would go up, hubbie would loose his NCB etc. so we paid for it ourselves

I know this is nothing like your accident, but just wanted to say that they will do anything to get out of paying a penny!

Good luck with it though, I hope you have a better outcome than we had! :)

Oh heck... Well I have insured NCD BUt £450 excess, although there is at least a couple of thousand damage to my car, the entire front, one wing and the bonet :(  I also have legal cover, so if the worst came to the worst I guess I could sue. But it is all hassle that I realy dont need when it was in no way my fault.

Still insurance being OK so far. Just had a call from their recomended repairers and they wanted the excess up front and if I paid by credit card they would charge me 4% extra, so called and have been given an alternative and the first option repairers have been marked to be taken off the approved list!

By my calculations I have paid various insurers about £10k over the last 20 years without getting anything back, so Im due to have all of my claim properly covered.

I must admit all of the hassle it caused bothered us more than having to pay for it, we spent weeks on the phone, ringing the shop's car park it happened in to try and get them to give us the CCTV, then another week or two trying to convince the silly woman that she did hit our car, and we had the evidence and everything else, then a couple of weeks on to her insurance trying to convince them, then of course the three days without our car whilst it was in the garage, :rolleyes: LOL It was ages ago now but it is still getting my blood pumping!!! LOL

My dad was driving down a lane (2 cars wide).  A car had parked up for some unknown reason.  The parked car was on the opposite side to the lane my dad so my dad had right of way.  Howeer,  another car coming in opposite direction decided to try and overtake the parked car and crash into my dad's car and you would have thought that was cut and dried.  The insurance companies decided to go knock for knock.  I was furious and thought my dad should have fought it harder, but obviously I don't take after him :D

I can't believe that, that's disgusting.  Maybe it's time that the insurers looked at the driving code and updated themselves.  Surely if you are driving correctly and someone is driving against the rules then they should be done for it.

I've only had an incident on a motorway where a dog ran infront of me causing quite a lot of damage to my car.  The insurers were great with me and dealt with it straight away.

What are we paying for then???????

>What are we paying for then???????

Don't ask me. My son's car was hit by a woman trying to undertake while he waited to turn right, she admitted she was in a hurry, but they didn't even go knock-for-knock and stung my son (because he was only 19) for the lot.

Oh no not the Scooby Do :( :(

If she was over the limit then her insurance will not have a leg to stand on as your insurance can say she was not in control of her car?

Blimey your excess is alot

Hope you didn't get hurt :0

Lucy
xx

Yes Lucy the beloved scooby :shock:

This girl was not drunk, it was the last a***hole that hit my car who was drunk (that must have been 15 + years ago). Hence I thought it was worth keeping premiums down by taking a high excess!

She was just in a hurry/ not paying any attention. Fortunately the seem to be reasonable people, having spoken to her mum and she was really upset/ shaken. I dont think that she even breaked before impact. I know I was very nearly stopped, having seen her and braked hard, unfortunately there are not many places to go to get out of the way on a busy roundabout :(

But what matters is that we are all OK and Tescos appear to be sorting it all out OK.

The best way of maximising your chances of success with a claim is to do sufficient preparatory work at the scene of the accident so that you can demonstrate, when asked, that you were fully aware of your surroundings and other drivers etc when the accident occurred.

A few tips:

Carry a pre printed form (you can type your own) with:

Weather conditions including low sun etc
Road conditions
Did you have your lights on
Space to draw a map include cars, signs, trees, direction,
Air temperature
Time
Reg plates of other cars

Keep a pad on your dashboard with a pen or, if stuffed, use your mobile to store the text, or at a pinch if you write things like number plates down on your window, if you breathe on them later they show up ;)
Instant disposable camera is good too.

Unfortunately Tohme you are assuming that everyone is honest.  In the accident that my dad was involved in the other car said that he was already overtaking the parked car and my dad just kept coming and crashed into him.  This was a blatent lie because my dad had clear right of way and clear vision ahead and was already too close to passing the parked car and the other car hit my dad's car.  There were no witnesses (driver of the parked car got in his car and shot off, why is anyone's guess).  My dad's insurance company weren't interested in fighting for the claim.

I am not assuming anything, the reason I gave the tips is for just such incidents!

Tohme I didn't mean to make it sound like a criticism.  They are good precautions to take.  Just highlighting that there are no guarantees.  The insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank aren't they?  They couldn't care less who wins, it's probably all swings and roundabouts to them. The people who end up worse off are the drivers who have increased premiums through no fault of their own.

A disposable camera is a useful tool to get evidence of road/weather conditions positions of cars, signs, numberplates etc.

Hi Bluebell, I only have one experience of an accident.  I was sat stationary, no engine running in a carparking space, when a lady reversed into me and started to drive away.  I jumped out of my car banged on her window to stop her and she did'nt even realise she'd hit me.  The damage done amounted to two thousand pounds and no damage to her Jeep at all.  I had to pay my excess of three hundred pounds which was totaly unfair, insurance said knock for knock as well, how they came to that conclusion god only knows.

Unfortunately they will try and go for knock for knock because it's the cheapest way for them.  The car insurance business is now so cut throat that the companies will follow the cheapest route (for them) to get the repairs done, who is in the right / wrong is irrelevant.  So unless you make a fuss and push the company by refusing to accept knock for knock you will end up paying.  Even then they will try and get away with as little as possible.

Steve