Motor Insurance:Lorry vs Car - Truck not admitting liability,should I get a solicitor

MuffinsDa

Hi,

My wife had a minor fender-bender accident last week (damage less that 1000 - no injuries) in which she very clearly wasn't at fault. It was a 2-lane right turn and she was in her lane (right lane) in the middle of the turning when large articulated lorry hit her on front left wing by partially encroaching to her lane, due to the truck not going wide enough in the turning, or neglecting to take into account the trailer swings or whatever technical term they have for it. The attached picture shows their approximate trajectories with green indicating my wife's car and red indicating the lorry.

We rang the guards at the time but they said they won't be able to attend the scene. We took a number of pictures but they were after moving cars as they were blocking the junction. To me it looks like it's a clear case of negligent driving from the lorry, but there are no witnesses and no cameras on that junction.

We made a claim with their insurer but today I have (verbally) heard from third party's broker that they are not accepting liability. I haven't heard from the insurer directly yet if they are paying out or not.

The question is, is there still a possibility that their insurance will pay for repairs or should I now start thinking about getting a solicitor on the case now before it's too late?

surpy

you should talk to your own insurance.
they will probably split liability with the other side 50:50 as its a very low claim and impossible to prove your wife didn't move out of her lane instead of the truck moving into hers.

end result is likely to be 50:50 split with no one admitting liability
i think this means you will get half the damage less your excess (assuming no damage to the truck)

may work out better to just pay yourself and have a no fault accident with no claim value on your policy but check with your insurance

MuffinsDa

sorry forgot to say she has only TP.

It's a claim against third party, with no damage to third party, so I don't know how her insurance or excess come to it at all. Surely in that case the third party will pay their half - if it were the case.

But I think it should be easy to prove fault considering the location of the damage.

dobsdave

how can your wife prove she didnt go outside her lane?

ravima

photo shows a lorry and a car. Where was the impact in the photo?

MuffinsDa

ravima wrote: »

photo shows a lorry and a car. Where was the impact in the photo?

That's not a photo that's Google Maps. Don't worry about the vehicles in it. The green line (my wife) and red line (the truck) is all that matters.

They were both turning right. She had no reason to veer left as it would have made her turning circle wider. There was also no room to veer left with a lorry on the junction already, she was driving right up to the kerb. Whereas the lorry would have naturally made incursion to her line considering the angle of attack (front passenger side wing, bumper PULLED out not dinged in!).

pow wow

Are there any independent witnesses? It's essentially a he said/she said and without footage/witnesses I wouldn't be too hopeful or recovering against the truck insurers.

MuffinsDa

No independent witness.

Spoke to my solicitor. She thought it may be possible to prove liability from location and angle of impact. But yeah I don't think there's a 100% way to prove.