Does anyone please please remember my thread about teenager daughter and a car accident?

[LongTallSuzie]

As above, is there anyone who remember my thread from last Oct about my 18 year old daughter who had a car crash?
In a nutshell, she collided with another car. They were both at fault. No dash cams. No witnesses. My daughter's car ended up being written off. The other persons car needed £2000 of repairs.
The other person wanted to settle the claim herself and wanted my daughter to pay her £600 for a garage repair. She'd only gone to one garage and refused to get other quotes. She didn't want to involve the insurance.
The kind people of Mumsnet advised me and we claimed though the insurance, as did she.
We've just received a letter from the county court, which I think means she's suing my daughter for over £2000.
She's written a statement in which she fully blames my daughter. This is untrue. What on earth do we do?
Please any help or advise would be so appreciated.

I got the shock of my life when I was sued (x4) following an accident. Called the insurance company in a blind panic who said send us everything and we’ll take care of it. Never heard anything more about it.

This happened to me years ago. My insurance took it up on my behalf. The other party would not withdraw their claim so we turned up at court. They failed to turn up and withdrew the case that morning. My insurance said they were just trying to scare me into paying! Ring the insurance company.

As previously posters have said, just forward all documentation to the insurers. They will either settle the claim or send the file off to one of their panel solicitors. There's no need to panic it's pretty normal stuff in the insurance world!

This. Someone tried it on with me once. Insurance told me to ignore if. Never heard anything else.

The police don't have time to attend every car crash. They don't even attend burglaries around here always!

stick to your story! Don’t change it. Point out any inconsistencies in theirs. But leave it to your insurance company to communicate.

I had this one happen me once, a passenger that didn’t exist was added into the mix. The insurance company saw through it, they got nothing.

I used to work in the car insurance industry. Your daughter does not dewl with this at all, her insurance company do.
send the letter she has received directly to her insurance company and they will deal with it all.
please don’t worry about it, this is very common and your daughter will not need to pay out any money, that’s what the insurance is for.

It makes no difference. Your daughter still needs to pass it to her insurer and let them deal with it. It’s what we all pay them for. It’s a claim against her, and that’s the purpose of her insurance.

If your daughter was propely and comprehensively insured at the time of the incident then all legitimate costs that yoir daughter is actually held responsible for should be covered by her insurance, less her policy excess. This isn't a "separate" claim from the insurance, they can't do that. All losses are dealt with by the insurance decisions.

If the other party only had 3rd-Party insurance then as it was deemed 50:50 fault they won't have had all their losses covered. That's really not your daughter's problem. When you choose to buy 3rd party rather than fully comprehensive insurance you have to accept the financial loss if there's an incident where you aren't held to be 100% blameless.

You may be able tp get some help with Citizen's Advice but what is needed is to respond to the letter saying that the incident in question comes under the relevant insurance policy and it's up to the insurance companies to settle the apportionment of losses between them.

Do not get a trainee lawyer to write a letter

Do not get your DD to ignore it

Do not get your DD to defend it

Contact the insurance company. They will deal with it

As a trainee, the fact it was a trainee writing the letter means nothing. She's instructed solicitors, so you need to instruct them or pass it to your insurance.

Your DD's car insurance should deal with this.

This is the correct advice.

Contact your DD's insurance and explain what has happened I would think they would deal with it as part of the accident claim. But at the very least get a letter from them to say it was a 50:50, so the other party is not entitled to any further payment and present it to the court (as well as your daughters version of events). If people could get away with this they would be doing it all the time, so I hope they are hoping you will just pay rather than go to court.

Thank you all for the advice. Dd is currently on the phone to the insurance company.

My Dd has had her pay out. She lost money on her excess and her car was written off.
She's fully comp.
I'm unsure if the other person has had her pay out. She's had her car repaired, the repairs were £2653 lI'm wondering if she's had to pay out of her pocket for the repairs and is claiming it back. She's said that the claim is for the loss of value to her car due to the repairs.
The other person is the one who's used a trainee solicitor. I didn't know if it were relevant.

As an aside. There's quite a bit of back history which makes me think that woman isn't quite honest. It's probably not relavant. But I can update if it helps.

Thank again

Dd has spoken to her insurance. They filed a claim back in Oct with the woman's insurance company. DDs insurance company hasn't heard anything from them since Jan 15. The handler said it was unusual and would send a follow up email to the other insurance.
DD has to email pictures of the letters over to them. Hopefully it'll all be sorted. It just seems very dodgy to me but I literally know nothing.

If your daughter’s kept written correspondance then contact her insurer. They will let her take it to court as you have proof she was trying to defraud her insurer.

I had this happen to me. Joint fault accident with a horrible woman and her aggressive son. You could tell the way it was going to go as soon as they got out of the car. Insurance dealt with it all including threats of going to court etc. There were a few dramatic days like this with solicitors letters etc but it all just went away in the end.

Try not to worry. Especially with her having had a trainee solicitor write a letter. We've got one in our family who loves to offer to help throw the weight of the law around and I'm sure 99% of the time they're just showing off/talking bollocks.

Daughter has got all text messages. The woman wanted a flat £600 and not to go through the insurance. The wise people on here massively advised against it. We went through insurance. I was really worried she'd pull a stunt like this. When the crash happened DD immediately apologised. The woman seemed to take this as an admittance of guilt. MN told us otherwise.
She also moved her car immediately after the crash. Dd stayed in the road with her hazards on. Dd was over the middle line as was the woman. But obviously she'd moved away from the line. Dd also thought she could have been in her phone but nothing was ever proven.
She sent some fairly arsey text messages. Thanks for all the advice.

Just to add to my feelings of dodgy-ness ..

When the accident happened. The other woman was adamant not to go through insurance (as above). She wanted £600 to pay the ONE garage that she'd got a quote from. She refused to get other quotes. And strangely the one garage she wanted to use DIDN'T DEAL with insurance claims. Normal payment only.
Thank God we listened and went through insurance.

OP - we had an almost identical situation. They kept sending us these terrifying letters about court etc. But I would then ring my insurance company and they would tell us that it's on them to manage, get us to forward the letters, and take from there. At one point, the man I spoke to said that they do this to scare people in the hopes they'll just pay up.

You are insured, so even if their case goes to court and wins, it's the insurance company who pays out (minus your excess - which I think you've already paid?).

In our case, eventually DH had to go to court with our insurance-appointed barrister to represent us/them. The judge decided it was 50/50 responsibility and that both parties had to pay their own costs. At a practical level, that meant that DH and I paid our excess, the other woman paid her excess and the cost of the rest of the damage to both cars was paid out by the insurance companies with no involvement by us.

The only impact for us was we had to pay the excess and our premiums have slightly increased but actually, DH was able to keep his no claims I believe.

I wonder if what has happened is that the other party didn't actually tell their insurance company about the incident at all, and is trying to deal with it without using their insurance (which is stupid). That might explain why the relevant insurance company hasn't responded?

It's awful isn't it. Dd is only 19 and not been passed for even a year. It's terrified her. I'm glad you got sorted. Thank you.

This is exactly what I think has happened. She was so reluctant to go through her insurance to start with. It's just odd how dds company haven't had any response to their emails or correspondence. A part of me thinks that she only had 3rd party. Just a waiting game now isn't it.

Like you say, thank goodness your DD did go through insurance company, I too wonder if she’s only got 3rd party insurance, either that or trying it on.