To want to claim on friends insurance?

[mrssmith45]

So my ds - 17 was is a car accident where his friend was driving. They grew up together and I am friends with his parents. His dad has called today and asked if we wanted to claim in his insurance for his injuries. My first thought was no, but after speaking to a few people they seem to think we should. He was in hospital for 2 nights and has a broken rib and bruising. He has to have 2 weeks off college and work and also missed an important assessment. I just wanted to know peoples thoughts on this please. They have said it won't affect his friends insurance, my partner thinks it's a bad idea as it will ruin their friendship.

@mrssmith45

Thank you everyone.

So do we claim through one of these "had an accident that wasn't your fault" things or through his friends insurance. Like I said I've never had any dealings with insurance claims before so I have no idea what to do!

On this I have a claim pending with one of those. I am on 10 and not a sign of a penny. It takes ages.

Sorry mistyped

• insurance company will arrange Medical assessments"

Whether you let the insurance company (his) do assessments and trust them or whether you get your son his own personal injury claim solicitor is your choice. The latter can take Chuck of settlement but also they know what it's worth and can get independent medical assessments

Does your house insurance have legal cover of any type that might cover this? Or can you ask for advice from local friends about which firms. Talk to CAB first

Friend caused accident no other cars involved, his insurance premium will increase any way as he has a 100% fault accident. Adding in a pers Inj claim won't make a lot of difference to his increase in insurance fees.

@LarryTheLurker

This seems to be so widely misunderstood. The claim is not 'on the friend's insurance' but against the friend, whose negligence caused your son loss and damage but who will be indemnified by his insurers.

The third party insurers owe your son no duty to pay him a fair sum in damages and will try to get away with paying out as little as possible. You want your own solicitors, and avoid the ambulance chaser types who don't work for a fee but take a slice of any award, thus reducing the amount your son receives.

You will also want medical evidence in the form of a doctor's report confirming the injuries and evidence of any consequential loss - earnings, taxis to physio etc.

^This - at last.

This is a way of bringing a personal injury claim by circumnavigating the need for a solicitor. It's quite common now for insurers to approach an injured party direct because it saves them the cost of having lawyers involved.

Your son can claim for his loss of earnings and also for pain and suffering for his broken rib. The insurers will arrange for him to have a medical exam and the subsequent report will determine the value of his injuries.

The advantage too is if he needs any rehab such as physio, the insurers will organise that too

It's all above board but as he's a minor you (or another adult) will act as his Litigation Friend. If he decides not to go down this route at the moment he has until his 21st birthday to bring a claim as limitation will run from his 18th birthday.

This is why people have insurance so nothing underhand about it at all especially if he was injured and lost wages as a result

[quote girlmom21]@PearPickingPorky if they're only dealing with the insurer anyway what's the difference? Unless his friend doesn't have legal cover on his insurance - then it'd cause him more problems surely?

It's easier and simpler for everyone to just go through the insurance. [/quote]
His friend doesn't need legal cover, as his friend isn't bringing the claim, the DS is bringing the claim against his friend who negligently injured him, and the friend has insurance which will protect the friend from the costs of the OP's DS's claim.

The DS needs a solicitor to take the legal action for him, and guide him through the legal process. The friend's 'defence' to this civil claim from OP's DS will all be done by the friend's insurer (or the insurer's appointed solicitor, if it gets to that).

It sounds like the dad is a good friend and is concerned about your DS. As his friend probably is. Cars and driving seem such fun, but it's a huge responsibility and dangerous.

Friend is lucky that police did not attend the accident. They can sometimes pursue dangerous or careless driving charges and generally are supposed to be called in U.K. to attend any car accident that caused injury. So I suspect friend and friends dad realise he may have got kfc lightly with a hike in insurance premiums. And he more concerned about how DS is doing.

When I was a teenager 4 friends were involved in a car accident skid off the road and car flipped. 2 died including the driver. So I am sure friend and friend dad are just relieved no one was seriously hurt and are worried about DS.

Absolutely claim. If your son is successfully awarded personal injury compensation the NHS can claim back the cost of any treatment your son received from his friend's insurance company (separate to anything your son receives as compensation).

If it's your son's friend's dad who informed you they sound reasonable and like they're expecting you to. His injuries sound nasty, plus all the disruption to your son's life.

@Justcallmebebes is spot on

Insurance companies know they will be hit with legal fees or you go down that route so whilst you may get more money and a chunk taken off, it is also in their interest to make fair offers and to arrange support and physio. I got given private physio (& medicals) via my insurance company when another car hit me when I was stationary and back then received £9k PI settlement as well as £ for my written off car. It took 18 months but I got it. It took so long as my injury lasted a bit. Injury bothered me in total for about 5 years (neck/ whiplash) Hopefully ribs will heal quicker but watch out for headaches and stiff neck and get it checked out by GP or ask for medicals if DS experiences that.

I am going by my claim for injuries in a car accident where it all went through the insurance..
I had a medical assessment & it looked at current injuries & treatment required. I was also asked about loss of earnings & whether my life had been affected either short or long term. For me this was mainly not being able to play sport as I was a student at the time.
I had whiplash - got 3 months of weekly physio paid for & a lump sum of £2.5K. (it was 10 years ago). Friend who was also in the car got significantly more as they had a leg injury on top of whiplash.

Just a thought if he does have injurys that havent quite shown up yet ie back or neck pain claiming through the insurance will help him get private treatment for this via physiotherapy.

I had an accident ten years ago someone elses fault but i was driving and still suffer with my back now. Honestly no amount of claim money covers will ever cover the damage suffered over the years but I suppose it is better than nothing

Just call one of your local law firms. Almost all will have solicitors who deal with these claims (I used to). It does take ages to see any money but after the initial appointment to give details of the accident you won't need to do much other than attend an appointment with a medical expert and provide receipts for any financial losses. For the initial appointment you'll need details like the date and time of the accident, location, drivers name, his insurance details. They could find the insurance details for you but it's a paid service so they'd need to charge you the few pounds to do the search (would come out of the end settlement).

Yes of course he should. He was injured, suffered a loss of wages and entitled to claim. Why wouldn't you?

Do not use one of the firms that pull you in with ‘had an accident that isn’t your fault ?’. They will take a percentage of your settlement.

Approach a respectable firm specialising in personal injury. Their fees are paid separately from your compensation.

As I said earlier the insurers will probably offer a full and final settlement to close things quickly.

@mrssmith45

Thank you everyone.

So do we claim through one of these "had an accident that wasn't your fault" things or through his friends insurance. Like I said I've never had any dealings with insurance claims before so I have no idea what to do!

No. They will take a huge cut!

[quote mrssmith45]@SofiaSoFar he asked if we would be claiming and said we need to contact the insurance company if we want to. [/quote]
Ah ok. I thought you meant he was getting involved in other ways, rather than just stating that your son needs to approach the insurer if he wants to claim (which I'm sure would be obvious to you anyway).

The friend's insurer should normally have already asked if anyone was injured when the friend contacted them to tell them about the accident, so what I think might have happened then is that the insurer has asked friend to tell your DS to go straight to them if he's making a claim, so his dad was doing that bit. It makes sense since the insurer will want to sort it out without generating too much in the way of legal costs.

There's no reason not to deal directly with the insurer in the first instance.

Yes he absolutely should make a personal injury claim

Yeah he should, it won't affect friends insurance

Wouldn't hesitate to claim if injured.

@Getyourjinglebellsinarow

Yeah he should, it won't affect friends insurance

How do you know that?

@MatildaTheCat

Do not use one of the firms that pull you in with ‘had an accident that isn’t your fault ?’. They will take a percentage of your settlement.

Approach a respectable firm specialising in personal injury. Their fees are paid separately from your compensation.

As I said earlier the insurers will probably offer a full and final settlement to close things quickly.

Not quite true. Even a reputable firm will take a cut as part of the fee for taking it on as "no-win no-fee". It won't be anywhere near as high as one of those "have you had an accident" companies. With road traffic accidents it tends to be a lower amount compared to something more difficult like clinical negligence. The firm I worked at took a standard fee of 12.5% of total costs (not total settlement). The costs you can recover for a minor RTA are low and fixed so it worked out as a couple of hundred pounds. As a rule even whiplash claims settle for well over £1000. I didn't have many minor accidents but the last one I worked on 5 years ago was about £2,000 for standard whiplash with no loss of earnings so the client walked away with £1,800. There's also a fee for legal insurance which again, is particularly low for road traffic accidents, and was about £80 which was deducted at the end. For comparison a clinical negligence claim could require insurance of thousands of pounds (much higher failure rate).

You should absolutely claim - I broke my ribs recently, it's extremely painful and impacts so many things, exercise, sleeping, even cuddles with my little boy

It takes 6 weeks to heal, that's a long time to be off work/unable to do everything required. Not to mention the lack of sleep (every position is painful, moving hurts).

On a tangent, I really recommend Boots own-brand slow release ibuprofen for overnight.

MilduraS the rules on whiplash claims have changed very significantly recently, you now get only a few hundred pounds of compensation, and you pursue it yourself, rather than via a solicitor.

This shouldn't apply to OP's DS though as fractured bones are outside of the scope of the Whiplash Reforms, AFAIK.

@MilduraS that’s interesting but not my experience. I made a very significant medical negligence claim and it didn’t cost me s penny. The solicitor drew up a conditional fee agreement and tool insurance against us losing the case.

When the case was found in my favour the defendant’s insurers had to cover my very significant legal costs and a winners fee. There was never any risk of me being held liable for any costs- quite simply no ordinary person would ever be able to afford the risk.

OP take legal advice for the current position.

Friends of mine were in this situation several years ago. Driver was the husband - cuts and bruises - and passenger was his wife who had injuries of similar scope to OP's son. Wife sued husband using a personal injury lawyer, husband was defended by insurance company. The personal injury lawyers had an extensive database which gave a figure for a likely payout before it would go to court. After initial low offers were rejected, the insurance company made a final offer prior to court action which was close to the lawyers estimate, so it was accepted.

Husband's insurance did go up, but for the next few years he was a named driver on the wife's policy. Incidentally, he had crashed into a "XXXX welcomes careful drivers" road sign

Oh dear @PearPickingPorky that's worrying but unsurprising about whiplash reforms! I wasn't a fan of those claims even with the old costs. Inevitably recovered much less than I put into them.

@MatildaTheCat the difference might be that your claim was significant. The rules for claiming costs on a multipart claim are more generous (fair) but they still should have taken the insurance premium and uplift for the no-win no-fee from your settlement (assuming it was after the reforms in 2013).