I'm in trouble

[drintrouble]

Changed name as don't want to be found out.
I'm in trouble. Can anyone give me some encouragement/advice how to go about it.
Last winter I have passed my driving test. And 2 weeks later crashed my car into somebody else- totally my fault. Came out, gave the other driver, a woman, my details, all the info. She did not give me anything of hers, except, her husband's telephone number. I took a video and few pictures of her car. The only damage that I could see was broken plastic on the taillight. Rang her husband same evening, we spoke about the damage, but, strangely, he kept repeating that he was driving at the time of the accident! There were no other people in the car, just the woman driver. In the phone conversation the man said that the damage was not bad, he could buy light on ebay and, if I gave him the money, we could do it privately. I wasn't sure about it, but agreed. He rang me next morning and demanded £4,000. I was absolutely certain that that was over the top and asked if he could take his car to my mechanic. He refused. Then I said I prefer to go through my insurance.
When I checked my insurance documents, I found out it ran out literally 2 days before the accident. Totally my fault, but because if lockdowns and instructor shortages and tests not being available for months, I have bought insurance just for a month before my test, and completely forgot about it.
I have panicked, rang the man, told him that I am refusing to pay £4k and asked him to come with realistic price. Never told him that I did not have insurance.
Nothing happened for a year and yesterday my husband, who is registered on this car, have received a letter from an insurance company asking him to answer questions about the accident, mentioning the female driver- me.
I know I am in trouble BIG TIME, but how would you act? Tell the truth, but insist that the other car was driven by the female- letter doesn't say who the other driver was. I know that something dodgy is going on (from my side as well!), but what to do now? I have a female driver after the accident on a video, when she was talking to her husband. She couldn't leave the site of the accident fast enough.
Please, don't kick me for what I did, but I have thought £4k is excessive and have panicked about the insurance.
What would you do?

If you took photo evidence of the damage (or lack of it) to their car, I'd ignore the demand for £4000. Tell them to go through their insurance and make it clear that you know the woman was driving. You probably won't hear any more about it. They're trying it on.

Does your video show the woman who was driving?

No idea on this one sorry OP. I'm not going to berate you because you know you fucked up. You could try contacting the husband again and making it clear that if going through insurance you will be declaring that it was a female driver to call his bluff

I would respond honestly to the insurance company, stating:

• these are the facts of the accident
• that you met your obligation to provide details
• the other driver requested to settle directly
• you decided against that because the other driver started lying about who was driving
• on checking your policy you realised you’d made a date mistake
• you immediately rectified that and took out insurance
• you didn’t hear from the other driver again and assumed that was because they also had an insurance issue to cause them to lie about who was driving

Let their insurance company tell them that the other party disputes who was driving.

Stay honest.

You’re not going to prison for a lapsed policy you didn’t lie to claim on!

Do you still have his phone number?
One option would be to bluff them out, I'm assuming she had no license. Ask them to clarify is this insurance letter pertains to them and the accident you got in with his wife a year ago. Tell him you also have kept the photos of the car accident which Inc his wife if he needs them for the claim

Did you renew your insurance without telling the company about the accident?

I would probably ignore these people and just deal with your insurance company. The other driver didn’t provide the details she was legally obliged to. Now they’re trying it on and it’s failed. Don’t communicate with the other driver any more.
Defo tell your insurance company about the other driver being the female and the evidence you have.
wait until the issue that the insurance had expired comes up. At that point decide what to do. I would probably at that point say oh my goodness I honestly made a mistake and forgot to renew.

This sounds like sensible advice to me

Yes, I agree. Honesty really is best here.

This might also be helpful

www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/driving-without-insurance/

I agree with PP, just be completely honest and state the facts.

Agree with this. If they do decide to carry on with the fraudulent claim which I would keep firm about (with evidence of photos/videos).
From looking at the RAC advice it's states a minimum fine of £300 and 6 points for driving without insurance. Not the best but hopefully given your circumstances of being 2 days out and if you got it as soon as possible afterwards it hopefully wouldn't be anymore than that.

This sounds sensible, but I don't see that these two are necessary (unless I've missed something)

• on checking your policy you realised you’d made a date mistake
• you immediately rectified that and took out insurance

What a mess! To be honest I wouldn't worry to much about what's going on with the other drivers, just answer any questions your asked truthfully and anything else is between them and their insurers.

Driving without insurance was stupid, but I see how it would happen. DH did a similar thing years ago, he'd been dithering about selling the car, so held off insuring it to the last minute, then lost track of time. Luckily he wasn't involved in an accident, but did get pulled over by the police and ended up with a sizable fine and 6 points on his licence.

Sorry to add more stress but if the insurance company pass this over to the police then you could end up with similar, and as you've only just passed your test, 6 points would cancel your licence. £4,000 was extortionate, but in retrospect may well have been the way to go.

All you can do is be honest here. If you have to pay the consequences of having no insurance then so be it.

This!

Honesty is the best policy. But for the purposes of being honest, check the learner driver insurance you had for the lead up to your test, because if you were continuing to drive on that policy after passing you may not have been covered at all as learner driver insurance doesn't usually transfer once you pass. After passing my test In my own car I couldn't drive away, I had to sit and fiddle about taking out new insurance as a full driver.
More people than you think make mistakes like that so don't beat yourself up too much and just accept that there may be consequences, then move on.

I agree. I think that you can say that IF they try to pursue it. You can say you've pulled your old insurance and realised it had lapsed and that you thought it didn't lapse for another couple of days (when you started the new policy).

I think if you include those two points then the company writing to you may use it to somehow pursue (disclaimer I'm not a driver so don't this for fact, it's just a gut feeling). I think if you omit these points it will more likely go away. You could also include that you have a video of the scene with the female driver - she possibly doesn't have a licence or insurance.

But won't it make things worse if OP admits to renewing insurance without telling them about the accident?

The only thing that will make it worse is lying.

True but she would have lied to renew the insurance as well.

I know more lies won't help here but just wanted to flag this as well.

Also you can't buy insurance for a month if you take your test 2 weeks into that month because you either need insurance on a provisional or a full licence. I think it's normal for most people to phone and update their insurer when they pass the test, which OP didn't do, so the expiry of the month wouldn't be relevant anyway.

You
You are indeed in trouble.

the date of the incident will confirm you were driving uninsured.

Only one thing for it. Admit and be honest about everything and accept that you will likely lose your license for a period of time and be heavily fined

He’s the registered keeper

so it’s not “your” insurance docs Op.

Its his and YOU are the names driver.

OP, I am afraid to say you are cornered from every angle and must now just be honest

One good lesson from childhood is there's only so much trouble you can get in from telling the truth, and there's so much more you can get in from lying

Great advice above, be 100% transparent with your insurance company. The people you hit are certainly not whiter than white given their lie on who was driving so don't even give the demand for £4k another thought.

You've done 95% of things right inthis situation, unfortunately the 5% is quite a biggy but get it all out in the open and go from there