# Car insurance claim



## user123456 (18 Jan 2007)

I was involved in an incident back in November 2006 when I hit another car door whilst driving. I informed my broker straight away and he sent me an accident report form which I completed and returned to him. I was told that the other guy had already contacted my insurance company. I have heard no more about it and I know that the other guy got his car fixed. 

Question, if the other guy has claimed for his door should I not know about it?  Or is the whole matter between him and my insurance company?

Thanks in advance.


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## Ravima (18 Jan 2007)

from my reading of the brief info you have given, you were at fault. You returned the form to your insurer and if their reading was the same, then they would settle at best terms. It is courteous for insurer to write to broker to advise of the outome and courteous of broker to write to you. Phone insurer directly to ask.


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## Satanta (18 Jan 2007)

user123456 said:


> Question, if the other guy has claimed for his door should I not know about it? Or is the whole matter between him and my insurance company?


Your insurance company don't have to inform you of a claim made against you and can settle without informing you of the said claim. 

It's been discussed a lot recently (believe someone was on the Last Word the other evening discussing the increasing problem of "constructed crashes" to make claims and touched on this). I think a couple of other threads on AAM mention this too.


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## SeanA (18 Jan 2007)

Satanta said:


> Your insurance company don't have to inform you of a claim made against you and can settle without informing you of the said claim.
> 
> It's been discussed a lot recently (believe someone was on the Last Word the other evening discussing the increasing problem of "constructed crashes" to make claims and touched on this). I think a couple of other threads on AAM mention this too.


 
Your Insurers do have to inform you of any claim made against you to get your version of events. However if you have completed a claim form and admitted liability in any non contensious incident then they can proceed and settle the claim without notifying you. It would however be a matter of common courtesy to let you know anyway.


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## Satanta (18 Jan 2007)

SeanA said:


> Your Insurers do have to inform you of any claim made against you to get your version of events.


I'd love to see the documented evidence behind your claim that they do have to inform.

It goes against everything that the "expert", brought in from the UK, detailed on Matt Coopers radio show (Monday or Tuesday evening I believe) and against the evidence of multiple posters on AAM (see here).

I'd love to believe you're right, but on evidence I'm not so sure.


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## SeanA (19 Jan 2007)

If that was the case sure people would be making claims regularly against different people for all kinds of marks on their cars and running with the money, and who would be there to stop them. You would only find out come your renewal. You have to be given a reasonable effort to respond to any allegation of an incident. What's to stop me getting the insurance details of someone I passed on the street ringing their insurers and claiming for the few unsightly scratches on the side of my car.
I accept that when you accept liability to your insurers that they may not necessarily keep you in the loop when things are settled but at the end of the day you are paying their wages and you are their client, not the claimant. They should have your interest at 'heart' (I use that phrase losely, as there is a rumour they don't actually have one!)
Would be interested in hearing from someone in the trade on their opinion to resolve this.


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## Satanta (19 Jan 2007)

While I fully agree that if logic was applied you're approach would be the way it should work, on the face of the evidence this isn't the way it works.

The details given on "The Last Word" was about accidents being forced. Someone slamming on the breaks on a roundabout hoping for the person behind them to slam into the back of them. With the car behind "usually" (if not always) being at fault a lot of these claims are getting through (apparently becoming very common in the UK and the opinion was that it's on the increase in Ireland). The conclusion was that if you believe you were involved in a "constructed" accident to inform your insurer to ensure they don't just pay out on the claim.

They never touched on fraudulent claims (getting someones insurance details and just putting in a claim) but looking at the post I linked above this does also seem possible (without the insurance company phoning for your version of events). 

Looking at the info, in relation to the OPs question, it doesn't appear that the Insurance Company "has to" contact you by law.


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## user123456 (19 Jan 2007)

I am disputing liability as the other guy had his door open into traffic at night and was no where near his car at the time. I am surprised that no one has contacted me to discuss the matter.


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## Satanta (19 Jan 2007)

To be honest, your issue isn't even down to whether they contacted you about the claim, it's about whether they told you about any/the settlement.

I suggest you contact your insurance company and ask if there is an open claim on your account, or if a claim has been settled on your account, as Ravima suggested (I also agree with Ravima that you do sound at fault, the door was open but you should have seen it and avoided it. I'd suggest that if he contacted your insurer they probably have settled the claim in his favour).

The question re to informing on claims is different to informing of settlements so not helping you as much. 

You may feel they should contact you on the details, but if you filled out an accident report form with the details as above, they probably decided there was no fighting the claim and paid out.
I pointed out the issue with claims as, if they can settle a claim without telling you about it, they can certainly make a settlement on a disclosed claim without your knowledge.


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## bond-007 (19 Jan 2007)

So really there is no avenue for a person to dispute liability once the insurance company is involved?


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## Ravima (19 Jan 2007)

*YES.*  Liability can be disputed in that your version of the accident must be obtained by your insurer. If they do not get your version, then as previous posters have stated, what is to stop anyone getting policy number from a disc on a parked car, phoning insurer saying you were involved in an accident and give a story putting blame on the innocent car. 

*NO.* Once insurer makes a decision to contest or settle, then that is it. Your only option is to being your own claim against the other party, is you are that sure you are right, run it before a judge and get a decision. the settlement by your insurer is 'without admission of liability' and does not prejudice your right to bring your own claim. However, insurers have a bit more eperience of handling claims and usually get it right. The costs you would incur if you lost your case after taking it would be fairly high and is the principal worth that much?


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## Satanta (19 Jan 2007)

Ravima said:


> *YES.* Liability can be disputed in that your version of the accident must be obtained by your insurer.


Is this "must" coming from a logicial point of view or from a legal one? If it's from a legal POV then some of the insurers have been in breach of this in the past.


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## Ravima (19 Jan 2007)

I think that it would be most unusual for an insurer not to get their policyholders version of the accident. are claim forms gone? Do insurers not phone to get version? do not investigators from either the insurer or a loss adjuster investigate? do the gardai not be consulted?

The reason I ask these questions, is that I cannot accept that an insurer would simply accept teh word of a claimant, with no verification of the circumstances from policyholder.


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## SeanA (20 Jan 2007)

Thanks Ravima, beginning to think I was the only believer in logic anymore. Yes of course and insurance company must go through necessary protocol before settling a claim as you have listed.
This is a completely different issue than fabricated claims, people slamming on brakes, this is something that has been going on for years, and was wide spread in the states from a long time back.
Would be interested to hear of anyone who actually had a claim settled against them where they were even unaware of a claim being submitted against their insurance.


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## bond-007 (21 Jan 2007)

If your not happy with the way the insurance company is dealing with the claim can you take the matter away from them and deal yourself with it?


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## Ravima (22 Jan 2007)

Dangerous thing to do, unles you have loads of money. there is nothing p of the certain in law except expense.

if the case goes aainst you, then you can hardly expect insurer to row in behind you after you took the matter out of their hands!


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## LUFC (23 Jan 2007)

If you read any car insurance policy handbook or ask anyone in the trade, they will tell you *always *report an accident to your insurance company whether it was your fault or not or not matter how small it is, if there are no developments after say 5 or 6 mths it will be closed off, the third party may report the claim a month after the accident happened, always cover yourself & *never *admit liability at the scene of an accident.
If people are so concerned about the developments of a claim on their policy all you have to do is find out the claims handlers name, get a direct dial number & ring him/her up every odd week to query what stage the claim is at. 
I guess it all depends what company you deal thru, a few people I know have had nightmares with claims thru Quinn Direct.


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## bobbles (23 Jan 2007)

Surley if you wanted to know an update so much on what was happening you would be following up on updates yourself. I know if I was in an accident I would call insurance company to follow up what was happening.
Once you have sent in Accident form stating what happened the insurance company will make a call on liability, you should have received some form of contact from your insurance but if you accepted liability on the form they probably would go ahead and settle quickly to avoid ongoing claims and any potential injury claims.


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