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?

I have had an insurance as a second/learner driver on that car.

Learner and second driver insurance is not the same.

Sounds like his mistress used his car, and they're afraid to get caught?

OP so you're saying you had separate insurance to your husband to drive the same car? Check his insurance. If you had his permission to drive the car, then you may very well be covered for third party by his insurance anyway!

There's some very good advice on here - I think Testina has it totally right - but please don't beat yourself up about this situation.
We all make mistakes. Yours is pretty innocent and small fry in the scheme of things.

I hope it's resolved in an OK way for you in the end.

Actually sounds more likely - not illegal, just needed a cover story for wife

You haven't heard from the £4K man for a while so just ignore that for the moment and if they do contact you again then ignore and block.

Your DH needs to reply to the letter with your details. When you get a letter, you reply with photos and details of what happens, and yes, you state the true facts that a woman was driving the other vehicle. Your photos will show minimum damage.

They then deal with the insurance claim based on the evidence.

Sorry but doubt he has proof and it was so long ago. A simple I have no idea what happened or what went on, I never got into an accident...blah blah.

I may be legally and morally wrong but idgaf, I would just play dumb.

OP, you have a really poor grasp of the rules. You hit an empty parked car. Whether that woman was insured or not doesn't matter. She wasn't driving the car when you hit it. She is irrelevant.

I was thinking the same. Especially as it's gone to your DH and not you.

I'd totally ignore. Your husband could say he knows nothing about the alleged incident. The onus is on the other party to provide proof (assuming you didn't put anything in writing).

Where has the OP said the car was empty?

I am inclined to agree. Wait to see if anything else comes from the insurer.

And why are there are two policies on one car? I didn't even know that was a thing.

The insurance companies won't care who the other driver was, you can steal a car and then be crashed into by a perfectly legal driver and still claim against the legal driver's insurance as long as they were at fault.

Do not let your DH say he does not know who was driving, that will open up a whole new can of worms. Check his insurance policy carefully that is does not cover you as a family member driving that car for a limited time- unlikely but possible, I do know I am a named driver on DHs car and vice versa.

This is getting worse and worse, your DH could be in serious trouble for allowing an uninsured driver use the car, this is an insurance revoking event and if the insurance is revoked well it will be very very hard to get insurance in the future. As someone else said it may well be better to cancel it himself before it gets revoked so he is not forever having to declare it.

In her last post.

We sorted our car without an insurance claim ourselves- it was a little dent to the front/side. She wasn't in a car when I crashed into her- she came out of the shop afterwards.

Sorry I've seen it now "She wasn't in a car when I crashed into her- she came out of the shop afterwards".

So it doesn't matter whether the other side were insured or not. It's odd the husband/man were making such a fuss about being the driver though.

Anyway, I'd still ignore the letter until I am sure there is no scam going on.

even though in her first post she said "There were no other people in the car, just the woman driver".

OP, get your story straight please.

So it doesn't matter whether the other side were insured or not. It's odd the husband/man were making such a fuss about being the driver though.

Unless as a pp suggested she wasn't meant to be driving it for reasons other than insurance (affair partner for example) 😅

It's odd the husband/man were making such a fuss about being the driver though.

Probably because he needed to say it was him who had been using the car so he can claim from his insurance.

Maybe she got in the car and drove off afterwards- which is pretty irrelevant. All that is relevant is who was (or wasn't) driving it when the accident occurred

I think I’d write and request more details without admitting anything at this point. I’d ask for the date that the incident happened (according to them) and the date that it was reported to them, to check that the dates are correct. I’d also request the total balance outstanding for the repair, and an invoice.

It used to be you had 3 months to report an accident for it to be covered by your car insurance, or at least that was the case when I had to report someone hitting my car back in 2010.

Then I’d wait and see what was said in their response before deciding what to do.

Doesn't your husband have you as a named driver on his own insurance?

What type of insurance does your husband have? On mine a third party can drive my vehicle. You may be covered.

Ignore ignore ignore

Any driver policies are expensive so people only tend to get them if needed so would be something specifically requested, checking would be unlikely to be needed. You'd know if you had one. Are you confusing it with being able to drive an other car 3rd party if it's your policy. That's more commonly something to double check on the small print to see if you have but isn't relevant here. Any driver policies usually come with caveats too that mean you have to be a certain age/have passed your test for a certain length of time.

Hi OP I've had the same experience before, whether a driver demanded money from us, but his insurance claim was submitted with someone else as the driver. I just explained it was someone else of a totally different gender and age driving that car. You have video proof which is even better. It turns out he'd done that before and his insurance company completely dropped that claim against us.

As for your own lack of insurance, please just tell the truth, especially with the circumstances of covid etc. At most you get a fine and docked points (and possibly higher insurance premium) in future. If you lie, you'll find yourself in far deeper shit.