You are entitled to pursue a claim directly from the responsible party’s insurance company. However, you must realise that you are not entitled to the same benefits as with your own insurance policy. If you are comprehensively insured and you claim on the responsible party’s insurance, then the process of claiming for the damage to your vehicle takes longer as you are claiming from an insurance company to whom you do not pay a premium. The third party insurer has no obligation to act quickly in settling your claim. You have a duty to mitigate your own losses and you would not be entitled to claim for extended hire/storage charges as these would not have been incurred if you had claimed via your own policy. Our Claims team are here to negotiate settlement on your behalf.

Inevitably, there are always two sides to every story. Although you will have completed a claim form providing a description of the accident circumstances, the other party involved will also have completed a claim form for their own insurance company, which usually has a slightly different version of events. Each party’s insurance company will believe their own respective customer’s description of the circumstances; however, until it is established who was actually at fault by way of settlement of the claim, both parties will lose their No Claim Bonus

Your insurance policy will always be subject to a policy excess irrespective of liability, which is classed as an uninsured loss. If the accident wasn’t your fault, then you are entitled to pursue recovery of this from the responsible party or their insurance company. Our Claims team would negotiate settlement of this on your behalf.

Any person involved in a Road Traffic Accident has up to three years to pursue a claim for personal injury and six years to pursue a claim for property damage. Although you may not be claiming for your own losses, you never know when someone will be claiming against your policy. The longer you leave it to report an accident, the likelihood is that you may forget the circumstances of the accident, witness details, vehicle details etc. or possibly a former employee may have left your company and you will not have any details to report. If a claim is submitted against you, your insurers will find it difficult to defend the claim without a claim form or full statement of circumstances.