Advice needed:'Accident' in which my insurance seems to want to pay out?

[fla 9]

I was involved in an incident in December last year where I was reversing onto a main road in the evening and it was wet.

After having reversed, engaged first gear I heard a thump as though a bird had hit the car, literally as soon as I had started moving off. I parked up further down the road and saw on my side that a guy had come off his scooter, the scooter was a fair distance up the road and he was in the middle of the road. It seemsed that the thump on the car was his sandwiches as there was no damage whatsoever to the car, not even a scuff, so thankfully it wasn't him. He must have been going at a fair pace to have skidded off that far up the road. I made a statement to the police but it seems now that the injured chap is claiming through his insurance who inturn are claiming from ours (I am a named driver), although from my perspective and indeed it seemsed from the impression that the police had, it was entirely the scooter guy's fault for riding so fast.

I spoke earlier to the insurance company who said we would have to pay, but also said that they were investigating the case further.

 

Where do I stand on this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Portent 0]

if you don't believe you are to blame them you should put that position on the insurance accident form. However from the limited information available it does sound like you could be at fault for reversing from a minor road to a major road.

[Jim Bowen 1]

Is it just the sandwiches you have to pay for?

[dragon green 5]

Is it just the sandwiches you have to pay for?

 

Cheese or ham ?

[MurdoMac 0]

As far as I was aware it is illegal to be reversing onto a main road unguided so if that was the case then you would probably automaticly be to blame.

[fla 9]

it was actually a driveway where there was no other way other than in reverse, simply due to the width of the drive.

Portent - will do, thanks.

[BILLCOR 1]

Is it just the sandwiches you have to pay for?

 

:rofl:

[pbradley98 0]

it was actually a driveway where there was no other way other than in reverse, simply due to the width of the drive.

Portent - will do, thanks.

 

This may not stand for the insurance company - they'll argue as to why you couldn't reverse in...

 

Good luck with getting it sorted anyway - it may be worth looking into if there's any precedent of inappropriate speed if he couldn't stop safely...

[Henny 0]

did you take pictures and contact the police at the time of the accident? These could help you in your claim... If you have a police incident number, call the local station and explain that you'd like to talk to someone about the case and explain about the insurance. If you can get a statement from the police stating that the accident was the fault of the scooter rider's inappropriate speed and get it over to the insurance company, then they should stop payment and be able to flip the blame back onto the scooter rider... :)

 

However, it's worth checking your insurance policy wording to see if there's a clause that says something along the lines of "The insurance company will decide as to blame, and that decision is final"... Swiftcover has something similar, which means that if you don't agree, then tough... :( I got stung by this one when I had a bump in my Passat having taken photos of the bump which proved that the other guy must have been speeding, but they simply didn't want to know and just threw this clause at me saying that they'd already made their decision that I was at fault, where at worst it should have been 50/50... :( I now read my insurance policy documents properly and have handed back and cancelled one policy within the 30days allowed due to similar clauses...

 

Good luck. :)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Classic case for a 50/50. 50% blame on the biker for not reading the road ahead properly and 50% blame on Fla for reversing into a main road.

 

Nearly all claims go 50/50 these days thank to the swindling fecking insurance companies doing their utmost to pay out as little as possible, but charge us as much as possible for the premiums.

 

Expect the biker to claim a considerable sum if he his sandwiches contained Wookey Hole cave aged vintage cheddar and Applewood smoked ham.

[fla 9]

thanks for the input all, and the light humour! Will try these and see how things progress. I guess we can expect a premium hike next year :(

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Just get onto Confused.com and get a cheaper premium. Insurance companies rely on people not shopping around but even with claims on your record, you'll still get a far cheaper quote elsewhere.