Motorist Incident with Pedestrian

Hi,

I'm looking for a little bit of advice on a situation my other half has gotten herself into. Being from a country that doesn't have a suing culture, I find it very hard to offer her any advice.

To keep things a bit brief and vague, my other half was in an incident with a pedestrian where she accidentally collided with the pedestrian in our car. I won't go into reasons why it happened, but I will say that she is 100% in the wrong. When the incident occurred, the pedestrian was 'bumped' in her words. There wasn't sufficient force to knock the pedestrian over, but enough to put them off balance. She was apologetic at the time, swapped details etc. Later that night, she sent a text out of courtesy to make sure the pedestrian was OK, and she received a reply that they were in hospital. I think at that point we knew what was coming.

My other half called a guard she knows, and he said that the pedestrian is a person well known to the police, and also well known for telling tall tales, so she should just forget about it. This didn't stop her from having sleepless nights about a potential lawsuit coming her way.

Fastforward a couple of months, and the inevitable letter from a local injury solicitor has arrived in the post. This leads me to a few questions.

• Are we obliged to inform our insurers? We didn't at the time because it was a non-incident where there was insufficient force to cause any kind of injury. Can we just make a decision not to use our insurance?
• Is there any way that we can find out what exactly the damages are that the pedestrian is claiming for? We assume €100 for a hospital visit, but what else?
• My other half signed for the recorded delivery of the solicitor's letter to our house, but it was actually addressed to the wrong address, so I don't know how it actually came to us. Can we just deny receiving it? I know this isn't a smart move, and only delaying the inevitable.

My main thing is that I don't want to lose our no claims bonus and have our premium affected by what is essentially a scam. I spoke to a solicitor I know, and she said that our insurance company wouldn't even fight it, they would just pay out a few grand to the claimant and be done with it.

Do we have a leg to stand on? Can we ask them to tell us exactly what losses through injury the pedestrian is claiming, and settle from there?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Stheno

Basil3 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm looking for a little bit of advice on a situation my other half has gotten herself into. Being from a country that doesn't have a suing culture, I find it very hard to offer her any advice.

To keep things a bit brief and vague, my other half was in an incident with a pedestrian where she accidentally collided with the pedestrian in our car. I won't go into reasons why it happened, but I will say that she is 100% in the wrong. When the incident occurred, the pedestrian was 'bumped' in her words. There wasn't sufficient force to knock the pedestrian over, but enough to put them off balance. She was apologetic at the time, swapped details etc. Later that night, she sent a text out of courtesy to make sure the pedestrian was OK, and she received a reply that they were in hospital. I think at that point we knew what was coming.

My other half called a guard she knows, and he said that the pedestrian is a person well known to the police, and also well known for telling tall tales, so she should just forget about it. This didn't stop her from having sleepless nights about a potential lawsuit coming her way.

Fastforward a couple of months, and the inevitable letter from a local injury solicitor has arrived in the post. This leads me to a few questions.

• Are we obliged to inform our insurers? We didn't at the time because it was a non-incident where there was insufficient force to cause any kind of injury. Can we just make a decision not to use our insurance?
• Is there any way that we can find out what exactly the damages are that the pedestrian is claiming for? We assume €100 for a hospital visit, but what else?
• My other half signed for the recorded delivery of the solicitor's letter to our house, but it was actually addressed to the wrong address, so I don't know how it actually came to us. Can we just deny receiving it? I know this isn't a smart move, and only delaying the inevitable.

My main thing is that I don't want to lose our no claims bonus and have our premium affected by what is essentially a scam. I spoke to a solicitor I know, and she said that our insurance company wouldn't even fight it, they would just pay out a few grand to the claimant and be done with it.

Do we have a leg to stand on? Can we ask them to tell us exactly what losses through injury the pedestrian is claiming, and settle from there?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Tell your insurers asap. Personal injury claims go through an injuries board and even seemingly Minor injuries can result in payments of thousands

ED E

Basil3 wrote: »

Are we obliged to inform our insurers? We didn't at the time because it was a non-incident where there was insufficient force to cause any kind of injury. Can we just make a decision not to use our insurance?

It seems to be common for many(most?) policies to have a mandatory reporting clause for any collision, you don't have discretion in whats serious or not. They touch, you call.

Have a read of your documentation but not reporting could now cause you a right headache.

nuac

Mod
Sympathies on your OH's problem, but it is a standard provision in most such policies everywhere that any incident which could cause a claim be immediately reported to the insurer.
OH should also consult a solicitor
Good luck
Closing thread