Car incident/accident - advice please! (Quite long)

[Coxy]

Knowing that there's a wealth of information out there I wonder if anyone can help me?

Last Wednesday driving home from work with 2 DS's in car all of a sudden loud bang, then windscreen falls into car (well not quite but you know what I mean). Traumatic 30 minutes whilst trying to ring DH/insurance company etc etc. Anyway to cut a long story short we are awaiting the insurer's decision on whether the car is a write off. However we can't have a hire car (as no third party to claim costs off). Having to go to work on bus, which shortens my working week as I live in the country and the service isn't great. If the car is written off likely to lose out in terms of value as we've had it less than 12 months and took out a loan to buy it. Had to have one session of cranial-sacral therapy (£25 plus another one next week because of sore back). Where do we go from here?

I asked the insurance company about kicking in with the legal help but they said we would have to prove that the owners of the tree were negligent in the care of said trees which would be quite difficult. If it was just a case of the wind blowing a branch from the tree then it's basically tough - wrong place, wrong time.

Does anyone know if we should pursue via the legal help or go to one of these 'no win no fee' places? I have established that it isn't likely to be Council-owned land but don't want to cause bad feeling if the owner lives in the village. Equally and probably more importantly though, I don't want anyone else to go through what we did or god forbid a cyclist/jogger get hit on the head.

Really stuck as to where to go from here. Any legal eagles got any suggestions?

By the way, both DS's were unhurt more shocked when they saw that my hand was bleeding.

If there is a funny side to all of this, when I contacted the insurance company I rang our previous insurer's which was slightly embarrassing and then when I rang Green Flag, started blubbing which set the call centre bloke off! No doubt that call will be used in future training.

Thanks in advance if anyone comes up with anything.

This is a difficult one without knowing the full terms of your policy and circumstances of the claim. Do you have fully comp cover? Did the tree fall over because it was rotten or because of high winds? If its written in to your policy that a hire car will be provided if your car has to be fixed following an accident then your Insurers should honour this.

Once you have put a claim in for your car it will be your Insurers responsibility to establish who is the owner of the tree and to attempt a recovery for damages from them.

Make sure that you keep a detailed diary of an extra expenses that are incurred as well as any medical treatment that you have had to pay for. If you are unsure as to what you are actually covered for then ask to speak with a supervisor from your Insurance company to clarify the position.

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The AA used to have a legal advice section, which helped us out once re a claim. It might be worth getting in touch to see if they still offer the service. Good luck.