Car Insurance claim 2 months later

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shaking

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Hi
I’m hoping someone can advise me, my mother who’s in her 70’s was involved in an accident in her car at a roundabout in March. The Guards came out and took everyone’s details and they all went on their way. The other vehicle was a lorry with wooden sides (the kind that do house clearances) and was a company vehicle.
The owner of the company kindly rang my mother the next day to see was she alright.

Nobody admitted liability and my mum got her Hyundai ix20 fixed at a cost of €450. She’s just had a call from the company who own the lorry saying they’ve had a quote and she’s to pay €1,080 for the lorry to be fixed. Can they make a claim 7 weeks later? Also at the time mum told me she couldn’t see any damage to the lorry her car is tiny in size in comparison. The “very nasty” (according to my mum) lady who rang today also said that my mum had admitted the accident was her fault and had told the guards she was on her way to the opticians! Complete nonsense she was popping to the garage to get milk!

Is there anything in this, she’s very worried
 
Hopefully your mum informed her insurance company of the incident at the first opportunity? If not they may deny cover, but she should call them immediately.

She should likely look to talk to the Garda who attended the scene to inform them of this development. They may do nothing, or they may decide to intervene is what sounds like harassment.
 
Sorry for you and your mother's trouble. Don't let it bother you too much. At least no-one was hurt.

Make sure that she reports her side of it to her insurance company.
 
Many thanks for the replies. She reported the accident to the insurance company a few days later (it was bank holiday weekend). They advised her not to claim on her insurance for her repairs so she didn’t. I’ve rung the Garda station 4 times today but it’s ringing out, I’ll keep trying!

Will they need to prove that the damage happened on the day? It seems bizarre that they could claim now after driving around for the last 7 weeks
 
shaking said:
Many thanks for the replies. She reported the accident to the insurance company a few days later (it was bank holiday weekend). They advised her not to claim on her insurance for her repairs so she didn’t. I’ve rung the Garda station 4 times today but it’s ringing out, I’ll keep trying!

Will they need to prove that the damage happened on the day? It seems bizarre that they could claim now after driving around for the last 7 weeks
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They can claim months after an accident
 
Pinoy adventure said:
In such cases the most important thing is a good solicitor.
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In this instance no point in involving a solicitor for a total claim of €1,530 for both vehicles. It would be up to the insurance company to decide if a solicitor is necessary.

The best approach in this case is to pursue the matter with the gardai in light of the intimidation and see where it goes from there.

This lady can also get advice from her insurance company as to which way to go. In the long run they can advise how much the full claim would be if the lorry company do have to get paid. She can then decide if it would be worth her while to pursue a claim or retain her no claims bonus.

It might be a good idea also after speaking to the gardai for the daughter to take all calls on this matter rather than have the lorry company chancing their arm again when dealing with an elderly person.
 
Having read to opening post, which is written with emotion really, I find it pretty silly. You make it sound like they rocked up at the door with a menacing attitude to show them the money.

You mother, damaged their vehicle, it might be a house clearing vehicle, what ever that has to do with it, I can only assume it’s meant to give the impression of unsavoury character’s of some kind, but it’s damaged none the less.
The fact that your mothers vehicle only suffered €450 worth of damage, doesn’t make the other vehicles damaged pro rata in repair costs.
And, the fact that she was expert enough to quantify there was no damage, brilliant.

It was a decent thing to do for the owner to ring and check on your mum, and whether it was 2 weeks or 2 months later when they got around to submitting the claim, they’re not on an immediate time limit in doing that.

I’m of the opinion, they were calling your mum to do the decent thing in informing her of the damage cost, without going directly to the insurance company, which is a grievance to most people, who find their insurance company calling them to say a claim has been submitted without their knowledge, and not then being in a position to discuss same with the injured party.

Another annoying feature of similar posts, is, making out that a 70 something elderly person is helpless dealing with every day situations, are 70 somethings really that delicate, crikey, makes me scared of getting old.

That wasn’t chancing their arm, they’re being castigated for doing the right thing.
 
LS400 said:
That wasn’t chancing their arm, they’re being castigated for doing the right thing.
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shaking said:
The “very nasty” (according to my mum) lady who rang today also said that my mum had admitted the accident was her fault and had told the guards she was on her way to the opticians! Complete nonsense she was popping to the garage to get milk!
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Thank you for the replies, i spoke to the Guards and they have nothing logged about the incident even though a Garda did attend the scene.

@LS400 nobody admitted to being at fault, my mum spoke to the owner of the vehicle and the owner of the company a couple of days after the incident, I would have expected them to have told her if there was damage to their vehicle. It comes down to their word against hers.

My mother is hopeless at dealing with these situations as she’s afraid of everything! I’m sure that’s not the case of all over 70’s and I apologise if I offended anyone.
 
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shaking said:
My mother is hopeless at dealing with these situations as she’s afraid of everything! I’m sure that’s not the case of all over 70’s and I apologise if I offended anyone.
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No need for an apology, you didn't offend anyone, as you say your mother is not good at dealing with these situations. A lot of people find dealing with car accidents and insurance companies quite daunting.
 
Who was at fault for the accident?

You could call the company and try to negotiate on the price? Submit them the repair to your car and offer to pay them a few hundred euro so both parties have suffered the same loss from the incident or offer to cover half their repairs or something.

Either way it's not worth involving insurance or making a bigger deal out of it.
 
Alkers86 said:
Submit them the repair to your car and offer to pay them a few hundred euro so both parties have suffered the same loss from the incident or offer to cover half their repairs or something.
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That's the last thing that should be done especially without the advice/approval of the insurance company. Its admitting liability.
 
Alkers86 said:
Who was at fault for the accident?
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Both sides might tell a different story there, particularly after the event. No personal experience thankfully, but I've heard anecdotally that insurers can assign blame 50/50 for incidents on roundabouts just to save themselves the time and expense of arguing back and forth.
 
Sue Ellen said:
That's the last thing that should be done especially without the advice/approval of the insurance company. Its admitting liability.
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And leaving you open for further claims that the insurance company will deny.
 
Sue Ellen said:
That's the last thing that should be done especially without the advice/approval of the insurance company. Its admitting liability.
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But the amounts here are trivial in the grand scheme of motor vehicle accidents. I've been through the insurance companies for two seperate incidents where I was not at fault and it is a nightmare and you have a open claim outstanding on your policy which makes it very difficult to shop around at renewal times.
 
Alkers86 said:
But the amounts here are trivial in the grand scheme of motor vehicle accidents. I've been through the insurance companies for two seperate incidents where I was not at fault and it is a nightmare and you have a open claim outstanding on your policy which makes it very difficult to shop around at renewal times.
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But if the OP were to settle the claim here the other side could later pursue her for injury compensation with no insurance protection.

Always best settle through the insurance company, and where the costs are low, they will allow you to reimburse the costs and so avoid a loading at renewal.
 
The conventional time limit for bringing a property damage claim is 6 years from date of accident.

The information posted thus far gives us no facts on which a view on liability can be formed.
Was it a rear end type collision or did someone cut across a lane or something else ?

The claimant bears the burden of proof.
The standard of proof is that of the balance of probabilities i.e., something is at least 51% more likely than not.

A district justice faced with conflicting claim and counterclaim has options including striking out both claims or making a 50 / 50 finding on liability.

Side bar point on the age issue.
Yes, most 70 year olds can look after themselves quite well but some cannot.
Age can be seen as a weakness for an aggressive, lying chancer to exploit.
I do remember one case where our client was a lady of this vintage who was bullied and intimidated by a brash little pup who was primarily at fault for the accident. The experience of the intimidation made our client decide to stop driving and that was so awful to see.

OP's mother should field no further calls from the other side.
If they ring or write again refer it to her motor insurer.
I would have my car repaired and write to the other side asking for reimbursement of my losses and see what happens.
The only problem is that the 70 YO's insurers will probably not contest the case on grounds of economics.
There is a naughty streak in me that would love to see this run to a hearing as elderly folk can come across surprisingly well in court !
 
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