Road traffic accident claim despite not being at fault

[TruthorDie]

A few weeks ago my husband was driving our car back to our house and a kid rode his bike out into the road and front of the car. Husband did an emergency stop but still hit him. For clarity the cyclist didn't signal and wasn't looking where he was going -all witnesses agreed about this. It was a straight road, husband wasn't turning and there was no zebra crossing or similar. An ambulance was called and the police attended. Child and bike both appeared to be fine. There were a few witnesses who all agreed the child wasn't paying attention and this was told to the police

Today we get a call from our car insurance company advising the child / his parents want to claim against us! Obviously car insurance were told husbands side. Car insurance company had been told:

"The Claimant was cycling their bike, waiting to cross the road, when the Defendant failed to observe their presence and drove into a collision with them causing injury"

Car insurance have asked husband to obtain police report and crime reference number. Also they car insurance company were told we wish pursue the minor damage to the car the child caused and psychological distress to my husband (we previously had zero intention of doing this but they seem to want to be litigious). If they wish to pursue things, then it's obviously fine for us to do that as well! We have legal cover via our house insurance. Is there anything else that needs to be done?

It’s nothing to do with your house insurance , you need to allow your car insurers to deal with the matter and defend it on your behalf . They will always see if there is something you want to claim for rather than just defend a claim , that’s standard practice. Have you / the police got the witness information?

It is to do with the house insurance legal cover if want to go after them for the damage to our car. We can hardly go after their bike or car insurance

Husband is waiting for the police to provide info and reference number

It sounds like you’ve got it covered, though I’d drop the “psychological distress” bit.

It’s difficult to not be a dick when other people are being dicks 🤣. To be fair he was quite rattled when he got home

Oh my goodness I really feel for you. Only advice is to try and keep calm and remember it will feel huge for you, but insurance companies deal with this sort of thing all the time and are wise to try-it-on types. They will speak to witnesses, if you have their details.

I know it’s too late this time but please get a dash cam, if you can. I had an incident when a young guy drove into the side of me as I was driving along the road. He had thought I was going too slowly (was going at 30 in a 30 zone as evidenced by my dash cam) and did a bungled overtaking manoeuvre. Anyway he and his family claimed I had stopped suddenly in the road! And then pushed their luck even further by claiming damages for personal injury 🤪

I forwarded footage to the insurers and he didn’t get a penny, it went down as a no-fault for me.

Thanks for reassurance. As you said the insurance company deal with this day in and day out. The claim is hazy at best -they didn’t even state where it happened!

Funnily enough l was also think in a dash cam could be an investment.

@sparebooksI had something similar is but I did end up in court (in the days before dashcams). I was coming off the motorway and had to do an emergency stop because the van in front of me did. Lady behind me just drove in to me damaging the back of my car and pushing me into the van in front.

She was very shaken up and I even stayed with her on the hard shoulder until her husband arrived before sorting myself out. I left it with my insurers and all was sorted re my car or so I thought until I find out she’s taking me to court as she had ‘whiplash’, ‘psychological distress’ and her car was a write off. I think the truth of the matter was they’d had their car towed to a garage/pound and just left it there and they were demanding over £1000 for storage and they were trying to recoup the money. I couldn’t understand how this was going to court when she’d driven in to the back of me but turned out she was trying to say I’d swerved into her lane at the last moment in front of her and done an emergency stop???!!!

This was all made worse by me receiving a call on the morning of the court case which I knew nothing about (asking why I wasn’t in court( the court letter was on my doormat when I got home). I was on maternity leave and ended up in court that day holding my 4 month old and having to get one of the ushers to hold him whilst I gave evidence! Thankfully they said my evidence was much more credible (probably because it was actually true!!) and she lost the case.