Accident Advice Help to Zoners

[E30BeemerLad]

As most of you know, I deal with insurance claims litigation for a living, i.e. suing third party motorists who have caused an accident involving my client.

I will gladly help out any zoner who has an accident, from simple advice to running an actual claim for them, injuries most welcome lol.

But by the time I or any other solicitor, insurer or claims manager comany have become involved, often vital evidence that would assist your case has disappeared. So the purpose of this post is not to advertise my services, but to help you out before the legal bods or insures become involved.

The golden rule with any claim is Evidence Evidence Evidence. It is not what you know, but what you can prove.

To succeed with any claim, you have to establish that "on the balance of probabilities, the accident was caused by negligence of the other party". So this is not like in the criminal courts where the prosecution has to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that somebody committed a crime with sufficient mental capacity, which is a high burden of proof and why many crims walk from court, because there is doubt in the mind of the jury or magistrates.

With civil cases, the burden of proof is merely "on the balance of probabilities", in other words if the evidence suggests more than not that an incident happened as you allege, odds are you will succeed.

Now what I am getting onto here is about gathering evidence as soon as the event happens.

We all have mobile phones these days and most if not all of these have a camera on them. This frankly is the most vital piece of kit you could have with you after an accident. Assuming you are able to get out of your car after a smash, then you need to do the following:

1- Try not to move your car at all initially. Even if you are blocking a road, leap out of the car and get some pics of where your car is positioned in the road and where the third party car is.
2- Make sure you take the photos from a reasonable distance so that you can see where abouts in the road the car is and where it is positoned in relation to road markings or lamp posts etc.
3- Try and get a pic of the other car and where that is. If the other car has moved then still take pics of it so that you have proof of being involved in a collision (in the event you take down a reg number incorrectly or the driver gives you duff details)
4- Take pics of any debris on the road surface and the damage to each car.
5- Get the name, address, tel numbers for the other car and make sure you write down the reg number, make & model.
6- Get details of any witnesses, especially if they are independent, they could be a life saver later on.
7- Call the police if you have any suspicions about the other driver, i.e you think they are giving you dodgy details, they appear pished or you know full well there is going to be a squabble about whose fault it is. The police will only come out to an accident though if somebody is injured, the road is blocked or there is an offence suspected, such as drink driving. If you want plod there, then you will need to tell them you are injured, otherwise they will just tell you to exchange details and be on your way
8 - Make sure you make a note of the actual time & location of the incident.

The above are just a few points which would help someone in the event of a smash.

Dealing with these claims day in, day out it can often be frustrating when a client is trying to allege something has happened, yet has no ammunition to back this up.

Imagine this scenario if you will (it is all too common). You are out for a nice sunday afternoon blat, driving some nice B roads in a rural location, traffic volumes are low and you are able to press on nicely. You are going into a left hand bend when all of a sudden some moron comes around the corner travelling towards you cutting the corner and partially on your side of the road. There is nowwhere for you to go and although braking, there's no way you're gonna avoid a collision. You have a head on smack, your car is damaged on the driver front side and so is the other car.

The other driver gets out and is all full of apologies as to how it was their fault and they accept they cut the corner. The damage isn't too bad and you are able to still drive the car, same for the other car. You exchange details with the other driver and get their name and address and vehicle reg etc. Both of you were travelling alone and there is nobody else about who saw it.

Anyway, you continue your journey and later on report it to your insurers or go and see a solicitor or accident management company as you think why should you claim on your insurance when it was the other dude's fault?

Your solicitor lobs a letter of claim into the other person's insurance company alleging the collision was caused by their insured being on your side of the road and you want the cost of repairs or the write off value of your vehicle, plus other expenses and by the way your neck is killing you too. Your solicitor then gets a letter back saying "liability is denied" your client was on their insured's side of the road.

After some tit for tat, you end up with the other side offering a 50/50 split liability settlement as you can't prove they were on your side of the road anymore than they can prove you were on their side. Any legal adivsor left with this situation is more than likely going to adivse their client they are going to have to accept such an offer. A 50/50 settlement means each driver is accepting 50% of the blame, so the value of your case is reduced by 50%, so only half a payout for the repair costs, only half the value of your injury claim recovered and this also means that the other knob involved can go and rape your insurers for 50% of their claim, thus destroying the NCD you were building up.

Now, imagine going back to that accident scenario and after having the prang you leap out of the car and take some pics showing you car right up agains the grass verge, the other car in the middle of the road, even if the other car has moved, look at all the glass and debris on your side of the road. Look at his skid marks going from his side onto your side. You get the point I'm making here?

With that evidence, once your lawyer got the letter back from the other person's insurers saying you were on his side of the road, your lawyer can smugly send to these insurers all of the above pics, which then seriously bring into doubt the credibility of what their insured is saying. The insurers will realise that if you end up issuing court proceedings against their insured, they are gonna get a good hiding at court and not only will they have to pay your damages, but your lawyer will be stood there with his rather large bill of costs.

So, remember, try and get evidence gathered right away, don't just think that because the other person seemed like a nice guy and was full of remorse that by the time he has had complimentary legal advice from his mates down the pub, he has suddely got all clever and when filling out his claim form for the insurers, he gets all creative and decides to allege you were in the wrong. As soon as his insurers see such "facts" on his report form they won't be interested in paying you anything, or at best you'll end up with a split liability outcome when you could avoid it.

Hope this helps folks out a bit.

Also, another tip, as us E30 deviants like to keep hold of our cars after a prang so we can pull the morsels off them before the car gets sent away to be crushed or whatever, if you need to have your car recovered after a prang, make sure you get it taken to your home address rather than to the nearest approved repairer of your insurer. Otherwise if the car goes to the repairer and it is then written off (most likely) you are going to struggle go get your hands on any of those morsels, especially if the car ends up as a Cat B write off.

[cliffybabe]

to just to follow on beemerlad helped me out big time with my insurance claim on my toyota starlet got 1800 for it in the end

To think they offer 450 at the start

thanks again

[oakey]

Good post mate

Very useful stuff in there.

[DanThe]

Sticky this mods

[daimlerman]

That is wiki material....

[Felix79]

Bloody nice tips there.

[Jon_Bmw]

Yep, good informative post. Possible sticky especially at this time of year.

Could you record a liability acceptance from the other party on a phone or something simliar? This way they can't squirm out of it later? Or would they claim they were 'under duress/in shock' to record it .

[Ziggy]

Yep, good informative post. Possible sticky especially at this time of year.

I reckon so

[E30BeemerLad]

Yep, good informative post. Possible sticky especially at this time of year.

Could you record a liability acceptance from the other party on a phone or something simliar? This way they can't squirm out of it later? Or would they claim they were 'under duress/in shock' to record it .

Statements signed at the scene can do no harm if you can get them to sign a brief statement such as "I was driving along the B3254 and came to a junction, I pulled out to turn right and did not see the other car coming and I pulled into his path. The accident was my fault and I accept liability"

Signed ...................

Dated ....................

But statements signed at the scene can sometimes be countered by arguments of pressure/ duress etc (depends on the circumstances) i.e. a 70 year old lady getting a 20 stone rugby player to sign a statement and he later argues duress ain't gonna hold any water.

But aside from that, insurers are sneaky sods and in most policies it advises you are not authorised to make liability admissions on their behalf.

It can certainly do no harm.

By the way, is there any way I can host an excel document on here? I have just knocked up a quick form which may be of use to people so that at least the essential details get recorded at the time, rather than writing down a reg number and phone number on a fag packet. I want to be able to host it like you do with pics on photobucket, but it don't want to know excel docs etc, only jpeg etc. Just so I can host it and folks can print off a copy and stick in their glovebox (assuming the handle ain't bust)

[Jon_Bmw]

Is it too big for a screenshot?

[E30BeemerLad]

Is it too big for a screenshot?

You'll need to educate me on how to do that

Is that when I do a PrtScn and paste it into a document in a different format?

[Felix79]

upload the file to say rapidshare and once uploaded it will give you a link, copy it and put the link up here in a post and people will be able to download the file

[Jon_Bmw]

Yep, paste it in Paint and then photobucket link it. But its probably easier to do as felix said.

Do you not ave compuuters up norf?

[march109]

Email it to gareth@gevans.info

I'll gladly host it on my site and provide a link to it to post in this thread and for your signature.

[E30BeemerLad]

email sent dude, thanks for that

[march109]

email sent dude, thanks for that

No worries but will have to wait until tomorrow now, will be topping up my BAC in t minus 5minutes.

[lenny-d]

why has no one done this sooner

my mate got side swiped in his mint nissan 200sx last christmas and because there was 2 in the other car, he got 6 points and an £800 pound fine because he was "going sideways" when the accident happened and his witness was called off to Iraq when the court case came up

Top call my man cheers fella

[Jesus325iTouring]

Lee,an outstanding thread.

I've taken note of lot of your advice,I have frequent run in's with a stupid cow who drives a people carrier and believe's she owns the road and has no need to pay attention to GIVE WAY signs,it's only a matter of time before she hits me.
The Bitch.

But now i've got your advice,if she does's,it'll be the cleaners for her

[march109]

linky http://www.gevans.info/accident/Acciden ... m_Zone.xls

Those withought excel can still save the file and right click on it and select 'open with' thenchoose internet explorer, or just download an excel viewer from microsoft.

[Chase007]

sticky all over that

[Elecblondie]

Very good advice, I followed most of that when my girlfriend had an accident. The photo record was exceedingly useful after the accident, we had a huge argument with the other driver about moving the cars, I wanted photos first and he wanted to clear the road as soon as possible well worth the effort though. Another thing to check is if there's cctv covering the area.

[fuzzy]

hi mate, could do with a little advice myself.in 2005 i had a head on with a truck in my old e30 when i drove over the brow of a hill at about 60(the limit) to find a truck on my side of the road whilst trying to overtake someone on his side coming straight for me. within 50m it was impact so no real time to avoid as it was a narrow single lane each way country road. 100% no fault on my part and the truck drver admitted fully. adrian flux fooked about for 7 or 8 weeks before they paid out so i had a helphire car for that time. the other partys insurance is refusing to repay the excessive car hire costs and a solicitor appointed by my insurer is bothering me to give written permission for them to raise a small claims court case on my behalf to recover the car hire costs from the other insurer. they say it wont effect me or cost me in any way but i might have to attend court as their witness.
whats my options? would i have to attend? why do i have to give my permission for them to raise it in my name when its not my cost or expence anyway? i have no wish to help them in any way as they fooked me about for so long and took 18 moths of phone calls to reinstate my no claims after the accident and only done so when i complained officially to the ombudsman....
whats your thoughts on this....?
thanks

[Jon_Bmw]

You have to be careful as sometimes helphire make you sign something saying that if the costs cannot be recovered by the at fault insurance they will come after you This is generally to stop people telling slight porky pies claiming it was the other persons fault, when in fact it was yours. Luckerly that doesn't seem to be the case here.

What car did you get from helphire? Your reason for having that 'class' or car needs to be watertight.

I'm not sure on what to do, but I do know helphire are absolute cunts and will hopefully be out of business soon when all insurers stop paying them.

[fuzzy]

i was given a car from helphire, i had no input as to what type that car would be and it was arranged between the companies, it was a honda civic. ive been told and i have it in writing that i wont be held liable either way for the costs but i might be slightly inconvenienced by having to attend a small claims hearing. if i have to attend court ill make sure my evidence loses them the case
i was paid out for my e30 and had my full no claims restored after it was sorted out.
theyed get no money from me anyway as i have nothing in my name.

[E30BeemerLad]

Nice one, you've had yourself a bit of "Credit Hire" here James

What you have signed is an exempt Consumer Credit agreement, on paper you are liable for the hire charges and this constitues a "loss" you have sustained as a result of the other party's negligence, i.e. the cost of you hiring replacement transport.

You have to have a liability for the hire charges otherwise Helphire would be prevented from recovering these costs from the fault party's insurers. They have no involvement in the acutal accident, so the other party owes no duty of care to them.

So you have 2 options here really.

a) Agree for the solicitors to issue court proceedings against the other party, their insurers will appoint solicitors to defend the case, arguing you have failed to mitigate your losses by hiring such an expensive car and did you really need to etc. The odds are it won't ever reach a court hearing, but if it does then you will need to attend.

b) Tell Helphire to shove it and you have been advised in writing that you were told you would never have anything to pay and it is their problem. What will really put them off the court proceedings would be if you said you will go to court and tell the court that you were told you would never have to pay for these charges. Helphire may decide to issue court proceedings against you though, which would just be more grief and if you ignore proceedings they issue against you then they'll just get a judgment against you.

Who are the Solicitors out of interest?

Corries?
Lloyd Green?

[fuzzy]

its corries mate.
im just looking through a letter and they state that my legal expence cover will cover any costs against me should i lose.it says that in 99% of cases it never reaches court.
im just pissed off that its nothing to do with me. i had a no fault claim that was eventually paid out . my fully comp entitled me to a car . i had it for 7 or 8 weeks because my insurer adrian flux handled the case incompetently and didnt send me my settlement for that long. i also had to complain to the ombudsman because AF didnt re instate my no claims for another 18 months for which i paid excessive premiums on renewal that was also refunded.

[E30BeemerLad]

The hire car has nowt to do with your own insurance, basically your broker Adrian Flux flogged you a legal expenses policy with the motor policy. You had a smack, claimed off your own comp insurance, your broker has referred you to Help Hire as you will have had a legal expenses policy with a company called AngelAssist (which is owned by Helphire). Your broker possibly got a kickback from Helphire for referring you onto them for the hire car. If you claimed for injury then another kickback would be paid.

Basically, Helphire called you, stuck your bum in a hire car and had you sign an agreement saying you are hiring a car from them, the charges are your responsibility, but they will defer you having to pay the charges for a period of 51 weeks, and they will do what they can to claim the fees back from the fault party.

The hire co will have been chasing the other insuers for settlement of the charges for ages and the insurers will have made a pish poor offer, so HH will be going for gold. They may have to take a reduction if it can be established the period of hire went on for too long or that you are not ipecunious and therefore could have afforded to hire in the spot market (avis, Enterprise etc), meaning HH would only be awarded the equivalent rates charged by the High St operators and not the bumped up Credit Hire rates.

I work for Corries mate, but it will be our Glasgow office dealing with this one due to Scottish jurisdiction.

We don't deal with any Helphire stuff at the York office, but I do deal with some other credit hire companies, some of them specialising in Taxis and prestige stuff. Check this one out, punter with a Bentley Cont GT, hire charges for 1 month, £30K I'm currently raping the fault party's insurers for that one

[fuzzy]

so what are you saying? they will try to get the cash from me should they be unssuccesful in the small claims court against the 3rd parties insurer?
if thats the case all i can say is good luck to them because thertes no chance of them getting cash from me. ask the inland revenue about that

[hubble]

Thanks for taking the time and posting.

[E30BeemerLad]

so what are you saying? they will try to get the cash from me should they be unssuccesful in the small claims court against the 3rd parties insurer?
if thats the case all i can say is good luck to them because thertes no chance of them getting cash from me. ask the inland revenue about that

Naah, if they issue court proceedings against the other lot and you have to go to court in support of the claim and at court the case gets dismissed or they only get a partial recovery of the hire charges, then that's where it ends.

Helphire cannot then come after you for the balance.

So it makes sense to co-operate as the claim may resolve after the solicitors have issued proceedings as the other side won't want a day in court due to the expense. Of all the credit hire cases I issue proceedings on, less than 10% ever get to court.

[fuzzy]

nice one. thanks for the advice mate.

[Ilkorin]

Now I'm getting a little bit worried too... I've just had my touring written off by a fool doing a silly speed on the M4, long story short they admitted liability and I've been sorted by accident exchange with a 120d hire car - somehow this seems to be a little bit too expensive a car to be 'mitigating costs'

also what happens if your car gets written off undervalued? I've done a heck of a lot of engine work which will likely mean I will make a serious loss when they give me the money... I suppose if there's no reciepts then there's really no chance I'll be able to argue the increased value?

[E30BeemerLad]

Yes, without receipts it is difficult to demonstrate you've spent a load on engine work for example, so you are going to struggle to get a decent settlement.

But you are never going to get back what you've spent on a car even if you had receipts. Best advice in the meantime, anticipating the third party insurers Accident Exchange will be claiming from on your behalf will low ball you (AX will have asked the third party insurers to send an engineer to inspect your car at the garage) I would start collecting adverts for similar age/mileage/condition cars. This will help to demonstrate the "market value" of your car, which is what the other side should be paying you for the car.

Word of warning though, Accident Exchange won't be interested in leaving you to cruise around in the 120d whilst you argue the value of your car with the other side's insurers as AX will be on dodgy ground being able to recoup the hire charges you incur whilst a dispute goes on. Usually the third party insurers will make their offer, send a cheque which they will say can be banked as an interim payment, once that happens AX will be pulling you out of the car within 7 days of you receiving the cheque. So you could end up without wheels and a cheque for maybe only 50% of the value of your car whilst you argue with the insurers for the rest.

I deal with Accident Exchange cases, they are a tough lot when it comes to the insurers and there is a chance you'll end up with a solicitor appointed by AX contacting you if the insurers don't pay the AX bill for the hire within 90 days.

I think the daily rate for the car you are riding about in is £85.91 + VAT + Delivery + Admin charge.

[Ilkorin]

That's not good is it.....

Problem is though, as a hire car I didn't have much of a choice (I guess legally that's why they said 'is that ok?' when they gave me the car to start with)... Most people won't go 'no I think it's too expensive a car' when they just need something to get by on....

I have recieved a note from the third party insurers saying they have offered an interim settlement of 250 to tide over but since I've had a note instructing me not to act without letting them know I've just forwarded that to them, so am I looking at losing the car in the next few days? In fairness it doesn't bother me too much because I'm within cycling distance to work anyways, but it would be a pain in the bum...

I guess the worst part is I've actually been away from home for a while since the accident because I was on a roadtrip and it made no sense to completely cancel the route and head all the way home early, so there is a rather long delay which could probably be seen as not mitigating costs...

Easiest thing by the looks of it is to get it settled and get out....it's a dangerous game now, and the cost of rental is so silly that it might cost me more than if I hadn't claimed in the first place.... any advice or am I properly screwed now?

[E30BeemerLad]

Accident Exchange won't come after you for the shortfall if they don't get all their hire charges back from the other side. It was their choice to give you that vehicle. They may not have had anything more poverty as they specialise in the prestige end of the market. They have everything right upto Lambo and Zonda etc.

So if the other side argue you should have had a 1600 focus then that's the rate AX will get back, it's probably still better for them to get that than not hire the car out.

I had a claim for a Bentley Conti GT, 30 days hire, £30K

Odds are they will be on the phone early next week to take the car back.