Car accident below excess - claim direct from other insurer?

[Belix]

Hi Folks
Some complete retard in a Seat crashed into the side of my car by cutting in too quickly trying to overtake me this morning. The reason he was trying to overtake (in the face of oncoming traffic nogal) was because he was cheesed off I had let a car into the steam of traffic.

Anyway, long story short, the damage is less than my rather astronomical excess of R6500. My insurance says to claim directly from his insurance. Trouble Is I don't know his insurance and don't know how forthcoming he will be with this info.

Anyone know how I go about instituting a claim directly from his insurance if I can find out what insurnace company and what documentation etc I would need?

 

[moklet]

It is possible to claim directly from his insurance, I did it twice allready, but be ready for a long timely and difficult process(especially when it is not 100% sure that the other party is at fault. First of all you have to register a claim with your own insurance and get a letter from them stating you are not claiming from them. Then get in touch with the other parties insurance and expect a lot of resistance and faxing/emailing and phonecalls (and swearing as well ). Just be prepapred it is a long process and you might have to go through several assesments. So good luck

But I'll go to through the process again if I have to, I'll get better all the time

 

[Hogrod]

Hi Folks
Some complete retard in a Seat crashed into the side of my car by cutting in too quickly trying to overtake me this morning. The reason he was trying to overtake (in the face of oncoming traffic nogal) was because he was cheesed off I had let a car into the steam of traffic.

Anyway, long story short, the damage is less than my rather astronomical excess of R6500. My insurance says to claim directly from his insurance. Trouble Is I don't know his insurance and don't know how forthcoming he will be with this info.

Anyone know how I go about instituting a claim directly from his insurance if I can find out what insurnace company and what documentation etc I would need?

Did you lay a charge of dangerous and wreckless driving as you say he was too blame. It's one of those accidents where you wish you'd backed off and let the guy in I suppose.

What did the guy say after it happened, did he blame you because you let some other driver in?

 

[Belix]

Nope, did not lay a charge, only reported the accident. Pretty much all he said was that he was in a hurry. unfortuantely noone stopped as a witness. But on the good side, the road has a solid barrier line ALL the way along, so any overtaking manouver was illegal.

He's not been very forthcoming with information - I got the name of his insurance company from my insurance company. Gave them a ring and they say I can only do anything once he has put in a claim...which apparantely he has not...

 

[Nerfherder]

You are supposed to get his details on the spot ! Never leave the scene of the accident without seeing his ID/drivers and getting his contact details !

You have every right to those details, if he does not hand them over then call the police.

 

[Belix]

Got that stuff - but it does not help if he does not want to speak to you.

 

[DJ...]

This is what insurance brokers are for - cutting out the middleman sounds good on the quote, but its kark in practice (mine at least).

 

[Belix]

Called up his insurance again today. Not surprisingly, the $unt says I was to blame. How I can be to blame when he overtakes on a solid white line is a mystery to me...

Anyway, his insurance advices me NOT to claim via third party saying my insurance is more liekly to be able to persue the legal angles to claim it back than I could personally. (The reisitance beginith). They also say they only pay out 70% of the claim...(why is that??)

If I claim from my insurance I loose my R1000 no claim bonus payable in Jan...and they say there is no guarantee I would get the excess back anyway.

Sigh!

Got any tips of the trade you can pass on to the uninitiated, Moklet?

 

[xrapidx]

small claims court?

 

[kaspaas]

The way to do this is to send a final demand fax to guy who knocked your car's place of work.

It is not his insurance that has to correct the damage, it is the guy who caused the damage.

The guy who bumped your car is liable for the damage, no matter what his insurance says. The insurance could only settle the liability on his behalf (and that is what one pay them to do). But the guy who caused the accident stays liable - not his insurance.

Insurance companies have piles of money to take you to court. The guy who bumped you does not.

If he tells you to contact his insurance company, tell him straight that you tried, and that they told you to bugger off. Tell him straight that unless he compensates you for the damage within 5 days, you will start proceedings to send the sherrif to collect his car to be sold for the damages.

I've seen a friend getting stroppy when the guilty guys' insurance called him and demanded he take his car to an assesment center and demand R5/km as well as R500 per hour or part thereof and R100 minimum for all calls made. The insurance company sent an assesor out to his office and paid him his few bucks for the calls that followed. All settled wihtin 3 days.

The insurance companies bet on the fact that most people are idiots and could be intimidated.

 

[Belix]

Thanks for all the help fellas, Much appreciated!

Hmmm. I see now that the small claims court has risen their limit to R7,000.00 so yeah that may well be an option.

Unfortunately I do not have a postal address for the prat to send the summonds too, and he's not been too accomodating about providing any additional info. All I have is a cell number and home number.

Since we have no witnesses , I wonder how they would rule? He could say the accident happened somewhere else completely for example, or that I scratched his car in a parking lot or something...I mean i have a police accident report, but that still it's my word against his unless he admits to the location of the accident.

 

[xrapidx]

It'd be very stupid of him to say it happened elsewhere.

Get his details from his insurance company?

 

[supersunbird]

Thanks for all the help fellas, Much appreciated!

Hmmm. I see now that the small claims court has risen their limit to R7,000.00 so yeah that may well be an option.

Unfortunately I do not have a postal address for the prat to send the summonds too, and he's not been too accomodating about providing any additional info. All I have is a cell number and home number.

Since we have no witnesses , I wonder how they would rule? He could say the accident happened somewhere else completely for example, or that I scratched his car in a parking lot or something...I mean i have a police accident report, but that still it's my word against his unless he admits to the location of the accident.

ID number? PM me...

 

[Belix]

Hi Folks
Sorry to resurect old news. I'd pretty much written this all off as a bad day, and was happy to forget the whole thing, except today I received a letter from some claims solutions guys demanding I PAY for HIS damage. So if he wants a battle I'll take it to him.

Small claims court seems to be a bum deal simply because I've read that without a witness, things are hairy. Given this guys character, I would not put it past him to manufacture a witness to help his case, but I cannot see a way he can make it my fault.

Got any tips from claiming from other parties insurance?

 

[Claymore]

And this is what insurance is for. It would have been easier if you'd had a reasonable excess (no more than R1000 or whatever you can afford to lose) and none of this "Outsurance" stuff. Then if you have an accident, you claim from your own insurance and let them deal with him.

 

[flarkit]

It's unbelievable the way that @$$holes will lie. The process I've followed twice after being rear-ended was:

- Report the accident to to the police within 48hrs
- Request a letter from my insurance indicating that I haven't claimed from them for the incident
- Place a 3rd-party claim with the other person's insurance. Contact them once-a-week requesting updates on the process

The first one took almost 6 months to finalise. The second one took less than a month.

Good luck after so much time has passed though!

 

[Belix]

yeah, well I dropped the excess now. I raised it myself because it drops the monthly premium quite a bit, and since I thought I'm a careful driver it would be fine. Unfortunately I failed to take *&#^&$ arrogant prats into account...

Edit:
Just received a responce from his insurance...which has been taken over...they claim the accident happened before they took over so I need to find the person orginally responcible and see what i can get from them.
Whoohooo. not.

 

[flarkit]

Sounds like a "duck and run" BS story to me. So every time an insurance company lands up with too many claims, they simply arrange to be taken over and then it becomes a drawn-out struggle to resolve the old claims?

The party who are demanding restitution from you need to have all the necessary proof that you were at fault. Get out your police statement and let them fight over who's correct.