Insurance claim

ClaireCMS

Hi, I had an accident back in early November, I drove into the back of a car with a front seat passenger. Accident was my fault no guards called. The other driver did not own car it was courtesy car from garage while he was getting his own fixed. Other driver is a restaurant owner and his front seat passenger was his chef. Both where working at the time returning to restaurant from outside catering event. At the time driver was happy enough to drive off with my number as only few scratches. Approx week later he phoned for insurance details as he needed them to cover himself with his employee. Got quotation from garage and €3500 to fix other car. Would prefer to put through insurance as own car is €1500 also. To date I have not notified insurance company of accident. Will this be a problem? If they don’t pay out based on time lapse from accident to reporting of accident and passenger claims for injuries, will this be a claim against me?

Liam McPoyle

ClaireCMS wrote: »

Hi, I had an accident back in early November, I drove into the back of a car with a front seat passenger. Accident was my fault no guards called. The other driver did not own car it was courtesy car from garage while he was getting his own fixed. Other driver is a restaurant owner and his front seat passenger was his chef. Both where working at the time returning to restaurant from outside catering event. At the time driver was happy enough to drive off with my number as only few scratches. Approx week later he phoned for insurance details as he needed them to cover himself with his employee. Got quotation from garage and €3500 to fix other car. Would prefer to put through insurance as own car is €1500 also. To date I have not notified insurance company of accident. Will this be a problem? If they don’t pay out based on time lapse from accident to reporting of accident and passenger claims for injuries, will this be a claim against me?

It's a massive problem.

You are bound by the terms of the policy to inform your insurer of any accidents / incidents as soon as is practicable after the accident.

Not only did you not do that, you admitted liability which completely prejudices your insurers position.

They would be within their rights to not pay the damages to your car and I would expect you are going to get HAMMERED at next renewal.

ClaireCMS

Business Cat wrote: »

It's a massive problem.

You are bound by the terms of the policy to inform your insurer of any accidents / incidents as soon as is practicable after the accident.

Not only did you not do that, you admitted liability which completely prejudices your insurers position.

They would be within their rights to not pay the damages to your car and I would expect you are going to get HAMMERED at next renewal.

Hi thanks for reading and getting back to me. I forgot to mention in the post my reason for leaving it so long is that my partner had just found out he has cancer ( prob where my concentration was ) and I’ve been off on sick with stress since. Do I have any come back with this? And if not and they don’t pay out and I cover the cost of cars, what happens if passenger has personal I just claim, do I have to pay this too?

Liam McPoyle

ClaireCMS wrote: »

Hi thanks for reading and getting back to me. I forgot to mention in the post my reason for leaving it so long is that my partner had just found out he has cancer ( prob where my concentration was ) and I’ve been off on sick with stress since. Do I have any come back with this? And if not and they don’t pay out and I cover the cost of cars, what happens if passenger has personal I just claim, do I have to pay this too?

Sorry to hear about the difficult personal circumstances but to answer you, from a purely insurer point of view, you engaged with the third party over the course of a couple of weeks so the circumstances should not have stopped you making the call to the insurer.

Regardless of what they do, the third party element of the claim and any resultant injury claims will be covered by the insurer, by law third party damage will always be covered. They could potentially pursue you to recover any outlay but in reality this almost never happens.

Ring them in the morning, be honest with them and hope for the best, it's all you can do at this point.

NUTLEY BOY

This issue arises regularly.

If you are involved in an accident you must report it to your motor insurers. There is no discretion.

Your obligation to report to the motor insurer exists in both contract and under the RTA 1961.

For additional and general clarity, people should never enter any type of negotiations with another motorist following an accident. That is also a breach of policy conditions.

I am very sorry to see the medical problem that has arisen. If you explain to the insurers that you have been pre-occupied and just give them the information required I would be very surprised if they caused you any problems.

Technically, failure to notify can be treated strictly as a breach of a condition.
Practically, if there has been no prejudice to the insurer's position it is unlikely that they will try to take the point against you.

mrsbeebee

As above, most insurers deal with this a lot and hopefully yours will be understanding. It's a rearend accident so you accepting liability won't have cause a major problem. Hope you get sorted - you don't need any more stress at the minute.