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?

This. And as someone else has commented, you'll almost certainly get fined and points. However, the other car owner can only claim what the actual cost of the repair was, so hang on to your video.

It may be a very painful experience, but it will be over. Good Luck!

She'd need to have informed them she'd passed her test in order for that to happen

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

The op had learner insurance in her own name to cover her driving the car whilst learning.

It will have automatically lapsed when she passed her test. I've never known learner insurance carry on once the learner passed their test without an additional premium and the op would know if she has paid that.

I think she took a chance and got caught out.

@liveforsummer true. But then the insurance is void because she didn't inform them of a material change.

And she's been fraudulent because it's a condition of those policies that you inform them of a material change and they make it clear that you've to tell the insurance co when you pass your test

Just be honest OP. If it was in an area where there is CCTV then the insurance company can get access to it to see what happened which won't be great if you have lied. I had an accident a few months ago (also a new driver) I was at fault. I received a letter stating I was at fault and that I accept the liability then a few weeks later I was contacted by a private investigator on behalf of my insurance to provide them with a statement of what happened, the investigator suspected that the other party had exaggerated what happened as he said that would be one of the only reasons for me to have to provide a statement (due to me already accepting responsibility).
TLDR; Just be honest and upfront, you will get into less trouble

Tbf no one will be holding on to any cctv from 11 months ago

Can I ask @drintrouble , was the policy in your DH's name, with you as added driver, RENEWED when you rang 2 days later, or just new details added or policy changed and you added 2 days later. If a renewal and only a few days out most policies will continue to cover without a break, even if you paid a tad late.

Failure to disclose is split into two categories; ignorance and intent.

Above posters are partially correct however the Consumers Act put the onus back onto the insurers to identify material changes throughout the police - so it’s not quite a clear cut. Classed as non disclosure as opposed to fraud by misrep.

Ample indemnity issues aside, op, you need to take the aforementioned steps regarding the claim. MIB - uninsured drivers agreement. Comply with insurance company. Ensure that vehicle was not claimed to be occupied (for injury claims), contact nearby cctv as gets deleted after a certain period of time.

Time precious as I see time and time again that the third party vehicle gets destroyed and there is no vehicle left for an independent engineer to assess.

also, limitation gives the third party many years to pursue a claim after the event so do this now.

This is the best advice. Honesty is always the best policy - especially in legal-related things.

@Ursuala you sound gleefully nasty and hopeful that the OP ends up in big trouble. Very odd.

But the advice, as great as it is!, does not reflect the new reality as recently described by OP i.e. there was no driver.

Therefore, there was no lying (by the other party) about who was driving.

OP can only refer to the owner, not the driver.

Notwithstanding you not having insurance (that’s a whole different debate!), the letter came to your husband the registered keeper. Could he not just write back saying it was not him driving and he doesn’t know about any accident (which is not a lie anyway if you haven’t told him!) and why are they writing to him now anyway about an incident that allegedly happened over a year ago. I’m certain there is time limits on these things.

That might be enough to make them go away. I’m not sure the insurance company or the police will bother investigating further an incident that happened so long ago.

I was hit by an uninsured driver

They wont have cctv nearly a year down the line

Ah yes, just googled it and 30 days max it's kept for. It's still in OP's best interest for her to be honest though

Me too.

The car that hit my car (along with a few others in the street) was reported 'stolen' ten minutes after it hit our cars.

Oddly enough the descriptions of one of those fleeing the scene bore a striking resemblance to the owner who just happened to 'notice' his car missing (presumed stolen) ten minutes later.

The only people who paid for that were me and my neighbours.

There won't be cctv after a year

Take a big deep breath.
They will have found your DHs details via MID. If your dhs car was insured, then that insurer is obliged, by law, to deal with her claim. They can then recover their money from their policyholder or the driver if they are not correctly insured.
You and dh need to act quickly. I would suggest that you put a statement together for them explaining exactly what happened. Include photos, include your video and emphasise that the car was parked and empty.
If you have insurance anywhere else, you need to tell them you were involved in an accident and the date. Tell them that the claim has only just been made. Keep a record of what you have told them. Be prepared to pay an extra premium.
The worst case scenario here is that dhs insurance pays out. That means they will look to be reimbursed. Usually they will take a payment plan or lesser lump sum if you can offer it.

I have rtft.
There are several points here:
1/ A learner driver (with insurance or not) is not legally allowed to drive on the road alone . Ever.
2/ It is highly unlikely that any insurance company would only now be investigating an incident which occurred 11 months ago.

She wasn't a learner driver.

Any suspected wrong doings of the other driver seem irrelevant given the car was stationary and vacant at the time of the accident and OP did not have valid insurance.

If your OH has received communication from his insurers, that means they have reported it to theirs, if they are pulling something weird about the man driving, again, it’s mostly irrelevant and is a separate legal issue. If they are committing fraud, the insurers will look into that when OP shares their statement/if there is conflicting information . The crux of the matter is that OP was driving uninsured and failed to report the incident to their insurer - which you are required to do after an accident whether you proceed with a claim or not.

it’s one of those things that COULD blow over if enough time and inconsistency In the 3rd party chasing it up mean it doesn’t get processed/followed up correctly however I used to work in policy underwriting and claims I would say that if investigated it would almost certainly end up in a revoked license for OP and all of that will ironically make getting insured in the future a lot more expensive/difficult. Totally rubbish given it wasn’t a malicious act but equally had the accident been more serious, being uninsured accidentally or not can be catastrophic, hence the harsh penalties.

I worked in insurance for years and historic/older claims come up all the time. They are definitely more of an arse to deal with but they do happen.

You can buy insurance for pretty much anything, someone is talking BS, might not be the OP

Limitation on a motor claim is 3 years.
Tonnes of claims come in that are older and are often suspicious as the evidence isn’t available.

For reference I bought a tail light recently for $165 so unless it's some kind of museum piece car, £4k does seem excessive!

Maybe offer him £300 and if he says no, provide honest information as pp suggested.