this is long and I may ramble so please bare with me.....
backstory_
I had a nasty car accident in may 2006, (not my fault) resulting in whiplash and hip injury for me (and then depression) and knee injury in DD2 who was also in the car. DD claim is sorted, mine still on going as still in pain.
Fast forward to october thisyear_...
ANOTHER car accident, again not my fault, only this time with ALL the kiddies in the car plus a friends 2 as we were off out for the day during half term. A man came from a side road, around a slow moving bus which was blocking him (he kind of U-turned around it) and went to go down the jucntion almost at a cross roads to him only didn't realise that I was there and so head on collision. (Oh, to clarify, I was on the right side of the road, the bus was on the right side that he should be on, ie bus and me both driving correctly. the car came from my right to go down a road on my left. I hope I am making sense??)
Luckily (and there can be a lucky in this), no-one was actually going above about 25m an hour as this was a quite residential road, in fact was round the corner from my house. this resulted in NOT awful injuries, but still injuries none-the-less.
DD1 hit the windscreen (she had just unclipped as she had dropped something and she felt safe to do so. we all learnt a valuable lessong that day!!!), resulting in a head injury. she hit with such force the windscreen shattered so imagine had we been faster. NO, don't imagine...to awful for words!
DD2 actually saw the car and remembering last year braced herself for impact damaging her wrist's slightly and getting whiplash.
DD3 hit the bench seat in front of her (she was in a lap belt highlighting those dangers) and broke her nose.
DS1 flipped forward as he too was in a lap belt (this was a toyota previa MPV - 8 seater) and hit the side of my seat getting a friction burn.
DS2 was hit by DD3 as she flipped backwards and he got a head injury and vlack eye as she hit with force and heads are hard!
friends kiddies both got seatbelt bruising and whiplash.
ALL children properly in either car seats, booster seats or belted in (well, except DD1 as explained) and so were so very very lucky not to have been worse.
I on the other hand faired worse.
I saw the car so slammed both feat to the floor in a bid to brake......braced my hips and pelvis and now have 'moderate damage to my sacro-illiac joints', hit the steering wheel on impact damaging ribs and causing the ligaments to swell (soooooooooooo painful), and also yet another whiplash.
now back on the very same painkillers that I was on last year that I believe aggravated my depression, and also got some post traumatic stress (which is common, specially as my entire family bar DH was in the car plus the guilt of my friends two kiddies).
NOW the problem which needs the advice...
got a letter yesterday from the solicitor handling THIS accident.
he is apparently dropping our case as he hasn't heard from us in 14days, we haven't yet given him proof of our excess for the car, and as there was no injury to driver, no passenger, and no losses we no longer need him.
WTFx 100000000000000000000000000000000
DH rang company to say that:-
1, we have indeed had contact, well wife has, but they refused to speak to me as I wasnt' the policy owner data protection yada yada and even tho it was ME that was the claimaint(is that the right word?)
2, the excess was taken by the insurance company before they even sent the cheque for the car
and 3, there was indeed personal injuries, and how on earht have they lost the files on 7 kiddies..........???????????????
there response.....ooh, that department isn't open on saturdays and the letter stands anyhow as we hadn't rung them in 14 days and this is standard procedure to drop cases if the contact stops for longer than this.
It wasn't helped that this came while I was trying to organise DD3 birthday party. I lost it BIGTIME, DH had to scrurry away the kiddies and I let forth so many bad words the air was very very blue, and I don't often swear. DH told me that it wasn't his* fault and disappeared and I ended on the floor unable to speak and scared the kiddies who ventured down to check on me.
flame rang about an hour after all this and I still coudn't speak much I was that upset!
so.....is this right? can they in fact state that it is standard proceedure if contact is longer than 14 days? (ours wasn't anyway as I had rung, he just wouldn't answer my questions cos of BLOODYDATAPROTECTION). I mean, what if we had gone away or in hospital or just anything???? surely this isnotright!
also....why should we have to provide proof of something that the insurance company did.....this is up to them to get from said insurance co or tis between them both?
and how on earth can they state about the lack of personal injury....DH checked when he rang the ref.no's etc....they were correct.
I hope I am making sense, but DH is taking the day off tomorrow to get all this sorted and I am going to have to speak to them too at some point. I just want to know how to ask them things calmly, without swearing and mostly....without threatening them with a nailgun!!(altho, the satisfaction would be huge as our assigned solicitor is a rude condisending B@ST@RD who has a pole up his arse.
thankyou sooooo much if you read and understood me