Dealing with a Difficult Insurer

When vehicle collisions involve more than two vehicles, more than one insurance company needs to be involved and getting liability to be accepted can be more difficult; such was the case with our client Simon’s accident…

Simon had just come off the motorway and was at a stand still in a queue of traffic. While he was waiting, another car came at speed and collided with his vehicle. Due to the force of the impact, Simon’s car was pushed into the car in front of him.

Unfortunately, another car then drove into the back of the car that first hit Simon’s vehicle; causing the first vehicle to hit his vehicle again. As a result, Simon felt two distinct and separate impacts to the back of his vehicle. Needless to say his car was written off…

Claims were submitted against both insurance companies but the insurance company of the vehicle directly behind Simon (defendant 1) denied liability on the basis that they stated there was only one impact to his vehicle; when in fact there were two. The insurer stated that the other vehicle (defendant 2) collided into defendant 1 and pushed this vehicle into our client’s vehicle. Simon was adamant that this was not the case; there were two separate collisions and impacts!

Because liability was disputed, court proceedings had to be issued by ourselves on behalf of Simon. Despite witness evidence from Simon and the passenger in his car, who both confirmed that there had been two impacts to the rear of the vehicle, and despite engineering evidence confirming the level of damage to the vehicles was consistent with two collisions, liability was disputed and no offers were made until the eve of the trial…

On the eve of the trial, an offer was made and the case settled for over £28,000.

This is a case that should have never gotten this far, but unfortunately for our client and the victims of motor vehicle collisions, this is often the stance adopted by insurance companies. The more sensible approach would have been to settle the case on a 50/50 basis at the outset, but we were satisfied with the result of the settlement and happy we could help our client Simon.

Damien Gill
Senior Associate, Irvings Law