jonybravo78

going to have to disagree with this

If the claim was in a dispute, i.e you blame the 3rd party, but the 3rd pary blames you, and there are no independent witnesses, then your insurer may end up paying for the damage to your car, and the 3rd party's may pay for the damage to the other car

Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume the 3rd party has admitted liability for the accident, and is not contesting blame.

If this is the case, your insurer does not pay anything out, and your premium should not be affected.

Something similar happened to me recently with my last car. A woman drove in to the back of me when the car was in a car park. She admitted liability. I took photos of the damage and sent them to my insurer, I also sent them to her insurer as proof. In the meantime, I took the car to a garage and got a quote of £360 for the repairs.

Within a month, her insurer rang me and said they have assessed the photos and were happy to pay £400 in damages based on the pictures and the garage quote.

End of.

My insurer never needed to pay anything, they just helped faciliate the pay out

lower

Feel free to disagree all you want.

There are different ways of dealing with a claim.

You can claim direct from the 3rd party's insurer if you wish as you did in which case you deal direct with their insurer and the assessor etc comes from them. The success of this is dependent on the 3rd party admitting liability in full.

However if there is any doubt then you approach your insurer, as the OP has done, then they deal with the claim, pay out, and then fight the case with the 3rd party to recover their costs. This also should speed up the repair process as you are not dependent on the 3rd party admitting liability to get a claim moving.

If the 3rd party admits liability and your insurer is successful in recovering the costs of the claim then you do not lose your no claims.

However, even with a non fault claim, expect your premium to go up because having been involved in an incident you are now statistically more likely to be involved in another.

jonybravo78

If you are the cause of the accident, or liability is disputed, then yes, statistically you may be more likely to get involved in another accident, but not if you were cleared of any blame - your stats remain the same, your premium / no claims is not affected.

In advice to the OP - Call your insurance company and the 3rd parties, find out who sent the assessor out, find out if the person has admitted liability, and go from there. Do you have the 3rd parties details still? If so call them and ask them if they have a reference number from their insurance company, it will speed the process up massively, you need to give this number to your insurer too.

If they have admitted liability, tell your insurer you want the 3rd party to pay out immediately and to arrange for this to happen, by getting a quote for your damage and faxing it over to 3rd pary insurer

It's as simple as that

lower

You're giving some duff advice here and not reading the OP's post.

Firstly, like it not, fault or non fault, your risk profile goes up if you are involved in an accident. Your no claims bonus won't change, but your risk profile does.

Secondly, the OP has quite clearly stated that the insurance assessor came from his insurer, Direct Line, and that the 3rd party's insurer is Swiftcover.

I would sincerely recommend not trying to deal with Swiftcover yourself. If you think Direct Line are bad, Swiftcover are 10 times worse.

I would sincerely recommend using Direct Line's complaints procedure to further your complaint with their assessor to move this repair forwards.

Even if you contact Swiftcover, they accept liability and give you any form of go ahead to get your repairs done, you will be entering an administration nightmare that is so bad many of my customers refuse to take work from Swiftcover.

jonybravo78

it's not duff advice though mate, I used to work in this sector, see below for further info- also the OP later states he is not sure where the assessor came from- all I have done is advise him to check to make sure.

Single Accident

•According to the automotive reference website Car Insurance Rates, it is unlikely that a person's insurance rates will go up if he is involved in only a single accident that is not his fault. In this case, the company will likely perceive that the insured driver played no fault in the accident and therefore is no more likely to file a future claim than a similar driver who is accident-free.

Multiple Accidents/Violations
•If a driver is involved in two accidents, even several years apart and even if both were not his fault, then his rates may rise. The insurance company may deduce that the driver is a higher risk and should pay high premiums.

lower

I give up.

jonybravo78

Sorry, I went off on a tagent a bit there, no hard feelings lower. I'm sure we are both right

Worton

So I spoke to the insurance company, it was direct line (my insurer) that sent the guy out. He's not got back to the main office yet to file his findings but they'll let me know when he does.

Just feel a bit helpless at the moment. There's nothing I could have done better, I took the pictures at the time, got all the details and rang up as soon as I could. The only other thing i can do in the future is taking a picture every time i go on a car journey.

Ok it could be worse, it's only a boot lid at the end of the day but it makes me not want to have insurance as it does sod all.

S2K Tuning

I know what you are going through mate. My car was stolen last year. I dont know the ins and outs of the insurance profession are but in terms of practical help.....

I found the best way of communicating with my insurance company was to find one point of contact and always speak to them. Try to remain calm. Keep all your paperwork together (receipts, insurance documents, photos etc) And above all patience. I know how you must feel in terms of time dragging on. Keep in regular contact and be as polite as possible. Keep posting on here, it helps !!

Hope it gets sorted for you mate.

trunkie

Is your bumper damaged at all? Did the third party hit anything else? I'm struggling to see how the Punto managed to wreck the sill while only appearing to lightly damage your boot lid. I'm not questioning your case, just curious.