Car accident, insurers now want to settle for 50/50

[StealthPolarBear]

DH was in a car accident last year, car coming towards him on a narrowish road (but plenty of room to pass if you're not being an idiot), he pulled right over into the ditch, she hit the side of his car and drove off without stopping. By the time he'd turned round etc she was long gone.

DH was uninjured but called the police as she'd failed to stop, has an incident number.

The next day he saw her again and this time he managed to get her to stop. She started off saying she had driven off becuase she thought they were both equally to blame but when he pointed out he was in the ditch and pretty much stationary she got nasty and started blaming him. So he exchanged details and said they'd leave it to the insurers. Initial talks to the insurance seemed to indicate there would be no problems, that it was a straightforward claim.

Now, 8 months later, they have struggled to get hold of the other insurers, struggled to negotiate with them and are saying in the absence of eyewitnesses they want to settle 50/50.

Yes there were no eyewitnesses but she refused to stop! Do we have any chance here?

Unfortunately if there were no witnesses, nothing can be proved either way, and her insurers are going to fight paying, so there is little you can do. Technically she should have stopped to exchange details, but that doesn't have any bearing on who is responsible for the accident.

right was hoping the fact she hadn't stopped was an admission of guilt in effect, obviously not.

Thanks for the reply

I had a similar issue with my insurers. The driver who hit my car was drunken and drove away. My dh and I followed and stopped him and the police were called. After many, many months - my insurers told me that it was going to be settled as a 50/50 claim. The drunk said we'd clipped at the centre of the road, in fact he'd driven round a blind bend on the wrong side. It took many phone calls and the threat of going to court but the claim was settled eventually and the other party paid in full. If your no claims are protected it might be worth putting it down to experience but if not might be worth a bit of mithering.

My insurers wanted me to settle for 50/50 when another driver reversed into my car and wouldn't admit liability. But I said no, and eventually it went to court - I didn't have to attend, as my written statement to the insurance company was enough. My side won.

You don't have to accept the 50/50 if you don't want to - OTOH it took well over a year to get the whole business sorted in my case, when it could have all been over much faster if I'd not bothered.

If it happened again, and I wouldn't lose my no-claims, then I probably wouldn't bother fighting it TBH, it was all a pain!

why was it a pain if you didn't have to go to court? Just wondering if it will be worth it?

I think the main problem was that the solicitors (picked by the insurance company, I've never had to deal with solicitors before) were utterly incompetent. They would never get in touch to tell me what was happening, I kept having to phone to see what progress there was, and then they'd tell me something which they hadn't bothered to phone about. Plus in the year, there were 4 different people dealing with my case - I think the firm must have had a bad staff turnover - which meant I usually had to explain to them who I was and what had happened so far.

There was a stage when I'd have happily given up and taken the 50/50, but by that stage the solicitors fees were also stacking up and I'd have had to pay those!

stealthpolarbear check with your insurers about any legal costs for your case, my insurance covered any legal costs involved in my case, which was probably why they didn't want to bother - would have been quicker/cheaper for them to settle for 50/50. The solicitors used by my insurers were also pretty useless and I had to make 'many' phone calls but I was so insensed by the injustice - once they got bored of hearing from me and realised I wasn't going to give up the case (daily mithering phone calls by this time) they managed to finalise the claim.

thank you! Will check