Late claim following accident

[stinkwheel]

Mrs stinkwheel had a collision on her bike over a year ago. She stopped at the scene and provided her name and address. She reported it to her insurance as soon as she got home.

We heard nothing more about it until a letter arrived today claiming for the damage to the car. I've not seen it yet and obviously it'll be passed straight to last years insurance company but I was wondering if anyone has any experience of how they handle this kind of thing so long after the incident?

The accident itself was fairly minor. Mrs stinkwheel was overtaking a car on her CBR600 which started to turn right into a farm entrance as she was alongside it. She genuinely can't remember if it was indicating or not (and actually was so shaken up about it, she couldn't even remember where exactly it happened when we drove down the same piece of road the following day to see what the layout was like).

They had a glancing side-to-side collision, she bounced off the side of the car and came to a controlled stop at the side of the road. She didn't fall off the bike. There was minor scuffing on her plastics which rubbed out with t-cut and the left hand footpeg was sheared off. She had a slightly bruised foot but her altbergs did their job. Fixed the bike for £25, foot was back to normal in a couple of days. I can't see there being a huge amount of damage to the car although I suppose the footpeg might have done a number on a body panel.

I did take photos of the bike before cleaning it up and fixing the footpeg.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[doggone]

If the indicator was on it doesn't make it OK to turn into the path of anyone passing, at a normal junction there would be more blame attached to anyone overtaking there.
At best/worst it would be a 50-50

[Bhud]

Proper bike boots are good, aren't they. I had a long telephone conversation with White Dalton (very helpful firm) when I had a lot of trouble dealing with insurance firms after someone, failing to give way as road signs required, rammed into the side of my bike from a side road. The gist of it was that the insurance companies were short-staffed for a long time because of the coronavirus chaos, and were dealing with massive backlogs of cases, which meant that anything that wasn't an ongoing and continuous potential cost in the event of their insured being at fault, e.g. hire bikes and the like, was just put on the backburner and ignored as low-priority. The courts had issued new guidance extending the insurance companies' response times and the part 36 (pre-action) stuff as well. In my case, I had a lot of trouble getting my insurer and the other party's insurer to do anything at all. I was informed it would have been no trouble and they would all be highly responsive if I'd accepted a hire bike or reported an injury. It took a long, long time to finally sort out that mess.

The main question I would have in your case is, when was the damage assessment and quantum inspection by an auto engineer carried out? Because it's clearly been done if their insurance company is making a claim, and a year is a long time to leave it. Could the damage have been caused since the initial incident, and does their account of the incident conflict with your wife's, and is the damage consistent with one account or the other? Anyway, someone more knowledgable who knows the ins and outs about all that stuff will probably be able to fill you in on that.

[Easy-X]

A letter from whom? The other party, their insurance company or yours?
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[stinkwheel]

[stinkwheel]

For completeness, it now appears this is where the accident happened. The car turned right into the unmarked, un-signed junction just ahead of this point as she was overtaking. It's an NSL A-road.

I would, -and have in the past- gone for an overtake here.

https://goo.gl/maps/CasmYwC5mkFzKyq78
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Skudd]

Of course there was no indication from the other party otherwise wifey wouldn't have made the maneuver, very poor obsevation by the othe party.

Sounds like a fishing party, if it was a true claim it would go through insurance and not a personal claims thing. Sounds like the other party has dodgy insurance or could have such a high premium that they dare not claim and want to hide it. Go through your insurance and tell them you think it's fraudulent so that they will look at it in depth. Not too late to counter claim either.
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Famous last words of Humpty Dumpty. " Stop pushing me "
Petty Anarchists look at "1984".............. The Visionary looks at "Animal Farm".

[stinkwheel]

[MCN]

County Court Business Centre.

I would ignore.

If it took them a year to make a claim then there is obviously no rush.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[xX-Alex-Xx]

How you do know they haven't damaged it AGAIN in the past year and and trying to stick it on the missus? Tell em to Foxtrot Oscar - they had their chance.
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DILLIGAF

[Weisse Schlange]

My wee mate had a similar accident the other day with only the 2 car passengers as witnesses.
He's now been charged with careless driving for the overtake even though they swung into a junction without indicating while he was passing.
Charged with leaving the scene as well cause the 2 of them started roughing him about so he walked of to make his phone calls etc.

As for this, this sounds like someone chancing their mitt.
CAB sharpish methinks.
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Hing Oan

[Easy-X]

If it is the centralised small claims court (the money claim online thing) then don't ignore it! It's effectively the same as getting a small claims document from your local court. Pay careful attention though of the addresses and double check anything requested is going back to an actual court and not some solicitor or para-legal rep for the other party. If it is from the online claims site you should have the option to log on to a dot gov website rather than posting anything back.

What's happened here I suspect is either the other party has read some article online or been prompted by one of those "have you had an accident in the last X years..." scam callers. (Who out of these two generated the claim is a moot point now.) And what they've done is think they can short-circuit everything, sue your arse and ride off into the sunset. It sounds like they have skipped the formal process of politely asking you for the money in an official letter first - this is to your advantage.

Assuming the paperwork is correct then if it was me - and I'm not a legal expert so take this all with a pinch of salt - then I'd come back with the following...

Defence: you have checked your records and believe the other party was actually at fault. That you have photographic evidence of the damage to your own vehicle. (I probably wouldn't go into the full detail of the circumstances of the incident at this stage but get that ready.) Point out that no communications have been received prior to the claim. That you will countersue for your own repairs (don't go nuts with this, as in labour @ £1000 per hour) if you don't have receipts that's fine as you can drop in a dig from it being ages ago. Finally, and this is crucial when you get the option to do it, that you want to move the claim to your local court as is your right as a defendant. Oh, and if you see a box for mediation tick that as well!

Don't put in anything that isn't essential like opinions on the plaintiff being a git or ruminating on why you didn't claim yourself - you reported it to your insurance company and that's enough and you could say that to a magistrate, not that I think it'll get that far.

After that I would guess it'll go two ways: the plaintiff is a moron and either fails to follow up on the paperwork or realises this is all too much work (as you don't look like you'll just roll over) and it'll get thrown out. Or they carry on to the next stage which is examination of the case by a local magistrate.

I would guess (from my experience) the magistrate will not like the cheeky antics from the other side and throw the whole thing in the shredder which is generally what they do where there's no obvious winner. Don't get butt-hurt that your own counter-claim goes in the bin as well you should view it more as a tactical move than a way to claw some money back.

One other thing you might get is some solicitor or other non-court communication from the plaintiff, something along the lines of "we're going to sue you into the ground, why not take this here discount we are now offering to make this go away..." Stand firm and point out you have a counter-claim and why don't they in fact pay you to go away as you feel you have a strong position. Surprisingly this does sometimes work
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Nobby the Bastard]

Surely the first thing to say is, your were insured thrid party, he was given the details and so was your insurance company. He is sueing the wrong person.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[stinkwheel]

We'll have to reply to these documents because it appears that if they're ignored, it will lead to a summary judgement against us.

I don't have access to them now, going to have a good look this evening when I'm not on call. Hopefully there is a mechanism for putting the insurance company in charge of further administration of the claim. After all, they employ people whose sole job is wriggling out of paying out money by any means necessary.

I'll be highly entertained if it turns out they were either uninsured or haven't told their insurance company. They probably don't realise that as soon as we tell our insurance company, they'll be straight onto the industry database logging the incident against both parties. At which point their insurance company will presumably want to know why they weren't told about an accident that resulted in a claim for damage in excess of £2k.

I'm minded to be a total dick about this providing Mrs stinkwheel agrees, purely because of the way they have chosen to handle it.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Ste]

Pass it over to her insurance company and let them reply.

Be a total dick about it and fuck the other party around but don't make her insurance company unhappy at the same time.

I very much agree with what xX-Alex-Xx said about how they might have damaged it again. It will be interesting to see what damage they're saying is from a glancing side-to-side collision with a motorbike over a year ago.

[Nobby the Bastard]

Just had a thought. Did your wife's policy include legal protection?
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Ste]

[Easy-X]

The only thing I can say against getting the insurance company involved is if it went down the route of 50/50 and then you have a mark against your own insurance. While you do have to inform your insurance company of incidents they take a professional interest in (which you've already done) you're not actually forced to make a claim against the policy.

Persuading the courts to shred the claim might be more cost effective in the long term although it is a bit more of a gamble, it depends on how one feels about the skill of the other side.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Nobby the Bastard]

That's all well and good but there is a reason why they aren't going after the insurance company. Either they weren't insured or Mrs Stinkers' insurance company had dismissed their claim.

Either way they are fucked.
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Ste]

[stinkwheel]

Shame the MIB database isn't retrospective. The MOT one is though so we'll definitely be checking that.

I also feel a little light social media stalking coming on because it's amazing what idiots will post on public profiles.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Nobby the Bastard]

[Ste]

[Nobby the Bastard]

Sorry, gave name and address and no further contact from them. If they don't get in touch to get the details that's their lookout.

Now they have, just refer them to the insurance company.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[A100man]

Slightly relevant 'twas a long time ago ('97)..

In Spain in a VW camper, similar thing undertook a car sitting in the center of the road stationary indicating left (foreign remember) car changed direction without indicating right and cut in front - more than a glancing blow and El Grandma in the back of the Opel Corsa had quite a jolt.


Anyhow I was categoric it was their fault but they were minded it was mine. gave insurance details to teh law explained my version and buggered off. some months later back home I received a letter from 'Macallistor Investigation' or some such outfit wanting their day in court. I wrote back saying it was categorically not my fault
and in fact they could pay for my repairs if they wished. There may have been a nit more to-ing and fro-ing but when they didn't get an easy bite they stopped bothering me.
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600