Independent car accessor

curiousmart

Hi
I need car insurance advise. Someone drove into my mother's car. Both were going straight at the time. Two lanes merge into one at a junction at Harts corner in Phibsboro heading towards town. The driver went into the side of her car. Her left back door was damaged. He had a scrape to the front of his. A Garda came onto the scene after it happened. He advised both to take photos which they did and contact their insurance companies. My man got her door fixed. He is now claiming no responsibility. If she goes through her insurance she looses her no claims bonus. There is no video camera evidence of what happened. It's his word against hers. I would have thought the positioning damage to both cars would indicate who ran into who. His insurance won't even go 50:50. Would it help to get an independent accessor. Has anyone had similar experience. Never dealt with this before. Seems sickening that someone could do this and blantently deny and get away with it. Nobody was hurt thankfully. Any advise would be really appreciated. Many thanks.

lawred2

curiousmart wrote: »

Hi
I need car insurance advise. Someone drove into my mother's car. Both were going straight at the time. Two lanes merge into one at a junction at Harts corner in Phibsboro heading towards town. The driver went into the side of her car. Her left back door was damaged. He had a scrape to the front of his. A Garda came onto the scene after it happened. He advised both to take photos which they did and contact their insurance companies. My man got her door fixed. He is now claiming no responsibility. If she goes through her insurance she looses her no claims bonus. There is no video camera evidence of what happened. It's his word against hers. I would have thought the positioning damage to both cars would indicate who ran into who. His insurance won't even go 50:50. Would it help to get an independent accessor. Has anyone had similar experience. Never dealt with this before. Seems sickening that someone could do this and blantently deny and get away with it. Nobody was hurt thankfully. Any advise would be really appreciated. Many thanks.

fairly sure this should have been handled by the insurance companies from the get go...

Who advised your Mam to go get her car fixed before any insurer was engaged?

curiousmart

lawred2 wrote: »

fairly sure this should have been handled by the insurance companies from the get go...

Who advised your Mam to go get her car fixed before any insurer was engaged?

Insurance companies are engaged but non responsive and v slow. It happened 10 months ago so she just needed it fixed

NUTLEY BOY

Ultimately, this is likely to be resolved as a contested District Court case. In that event it might come down to credibility amongst other matters.

An assessor might give some help in terms of opinion on type and direction of impact. However, I doubt if that would resolve the liability issue which will be influenced by what the drivers did.

The evidence of damage as described could be construed either way. The damage to your mother's rear door could be consistent with a plea that she cut in on the other car. Equally, it could be construed that your mother was there first and that he nudged in to her from behind.

In the absence of evidence to swing it either way a judge could simply resolve it as a 50/50 case. These merging traffic scenarios are a bit of a dog fight and much depends on who got there first.

I appreciate your sense of irritation but motorists involved in collisions like this can be utterly bare faced liars. I had one of those types a few years but I was saved by an independent witness.

As far as NCB goes that will go (or be reduced) anyhow if the other guy makes a claim against your mother. Even if your mother is bearing the costs of her own repairs she will need to have reported this to her insurers anyhow. She should talk to them.

curiousmart

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

Ultimately, this is likely to be resolved as a contested District Court case. In that event it might come down to credibility amongst other matters.

An assessor might give some help in terms of opinion on type and direction of impact. However, I doubt if that would resolve the liability issue which will be influenced by what the drivers did.

The evidence of damage as described could be construed either way. The damage to your mother's rear door could be consistent with a plea that she cut in on the other car. Equally, it could be construed that your mother was there first and that he nudged in to her from behind.

In the absence of evidence to swing it either way a judge could simply resolve it as a 50/50 case. These merging traffic scenarios are a bit of a dog fight and much depends on who got there first.

I appreciate your sense of irritation but motorists involved in collisions like this can be utterly bare faced liars. I had one of those types a few years but I was saved by an independent witness.

As far as NCB goes that will go (or be reduced) anyhow if the other guy makes a claim against your mother. Even if your mother is bearing the costs of her own repairs she will need to have reported this to her insurers anyhow. She should talk to them.

Thanks for info. All very helpful.
She is linking in with insurance company alright. Other party is refusing 50:50 and insurance company doesnt see the situation as priority. They are not getting back to her and sound to be fobbing her off etc I just find it bizare that someone could do this, decide they could quite simply not be arsed paying up and walk away from it. Meanwhile my mam is forking out 2k. Most decent people would at least see it 50/50. They drove into her at the end of the day

NUTLEY BOY

curiousmart wrote: »

Thanks for info. All very helpful.
She is linking in with insurance company alright. Other party is refusing 50:50 and insurance company doesnt see the situation as priority. They are not getting back to her and sound to be fobbing her off etc I just find it bizare that someone could do this, decide they could quite simply not be arsed paying up and walk away from it. Meanwhile my mam is forking out 2k. Most decent people would at least see it 50/50. They drove into her at the end of the day

€2K is a lot to spend from her pocket.

I appreciate the NCB and probable policy excess issues but if she got her insurers to repair the car they could probably fund the costs of a legal action against the other motorist by way of subrogation rights.

The downside of this is that your mother's insurers might not want to bother with this option.

Against that the matter might resolve itself if the other guy elects to issue proceedings in which case your mother should request her insurers to defend the action and she files a counter-claim with her defence. Again, she would be very much in the hands of her insurers as to how they would wish to handle it bearing in mind that they will be driven by economic factors.