Be Excellent To Each Other

According to some crazy insurance company, mrs Dom was in an accident (over a year ago) with a parked car, in a street she has never been in. Apparently a witness saw it all, and so Mrs Dom was blamed despite being at work 30 odd miles away at the time. Our insurer sent an inspector around (6 months later, mind) when we were first contacted by the mad ones, they were satisfied our car hadn't been involved, case closed. Since then, the mad gits (based in Gibraltar for convenience) have been sending us a letter every month or so saying we have to pay £1300 or else. Our insurer syas they don't have a leg to stand on & we have legal cover for this, and to ignore the letters. Last month, the other insurer sent an engineer to check the car out (a year later, not that it matters cos we haven't had anything done to the car for years anyway). Last week we got another letter.
I tried phoning the financial ombudsman about this mad insurer (who, according to our insurers shouldn't even be contacting us directly), but the ombudsman can only deal with complaints about companies you are a customer of, not other ones that are being arses. Plus, they are in Gibraltar so have 'different' laws.
Anyway, any advice?

Yikes, bizarre.

My only suggestion would be to report them to police for breach of the Harassment Act (whatever it's called).

Let the insurers deal with it.

Ok, that's not very helpful but that's why you pay them money. They'll deal with the correspondence and prepare your defence. You really can't help except to:

1) give a clear story;
2) assist with their enquiries;
3) point them in the direction of any helpful witnesses.

Laterally thinking, what about, attendance records from her employer or some other documents to prove she was miles away?

The police won't be interested now it's with the insurers.

They probably wouldn't be interested anyway, regardless.

Bugger dude Thought Mand said they had finally backed off.

I'm fairly sure the comment about different laws in Gibraltar is rubbish, from my experience the insurers should go with the local law to where the incident happened.

Have you done any research on the other party's insurance company?

If your insurers aren't concerned about it then is take the lead from them. But I'd be tempted to send them copies of all letters you receive so they can be left in no doubt as to the current position.

Lots of insurers have a base in Gibraltar.

Aviva's claims are dealt with in India!

It doesn't stop them instructing local solicitors on their behalf if they intend to pursue it.

Not as they're in Gibraltar, no. Didn't read that properly.

I've used the threat of the harassment act to good effect in the past, but there we are.

But yes, just redirect all the mail to your insurers and ignore it.

Mrs Dom says:

Pretty sure they can't just pursue you directly if they fail to get your insurers to pay, can they?

IANAL, but I think they can. You'd then get your insurers involved anyway, but there's nothing stopping them suing you personally.

That's extremely bad practice if they're writing you letters after your insurers are involved and corresponding with them.

I'm surprised if you couldn't complain to the FSA about that despite not being a customer. I'd check the FSA website and find out how to make a complaint in writing. You've probably been fobbed off on the phone.

Mrs Dom would have to be named as the defendant (although the claimant has a choice to bring in the insurers as second defendant under the European communities rights against insurers regulations).

If you get a claim form you send it to your insurers recorded delivery immediately. You probably won't though and they'll eventually piss off by the sounds of it.

Write to them and invoke the god of Treating Customers Fairly, and his prophet the FSA.

They should drop it in seconds.

Er - what do you think IANAL means?

I was just mentioning one of my proclivities in passing and missed the space between the I and the A.

OR I know full well what it meant and was being sarky.

I appreciate the former might seem more likely.

Ignore them. Or respond politely pointing out that they are aware of who your insurers are, and they should direct all future correspondence to them, and that you will be ignoring all correspondence that does not arrive via your own insurers from now on.

Write them a letter detailing the situation and state clearly that if they contact you again, you are going to charge them for all the time they have taken up so far at £100/hour. Ensure delivery of the letter, then if they contact you again, take them to the small claims court and get a load of cash.

Then use that to fix your wife's car!

This is a bit of a weird paradox you've created here. Hang on.

*smacks self about head*

Right, er, hang on...

Right.

Mrs Dom is insured. If they sue her, the insurance covers any damages/legal expenses the Claimant may or may not recover. If they "sue" Mrs Dom, the insurers take over. If the insurers decide there isn't a claim and tell them to fuck off, that's it. All they can do from there is drop it or take the matter to trial where a judge will decide the outcome. If they win, Mrs Dom's insurers pay out. They can't just bypass the insurers and start pursuing Mrs Dom directly. Not unless it turns out Mrs Dom isn't insured for some reason, in which case the insurers would have told the Claimants that already.

They're massively ignoring the CPR by sending letters to Mrs Dom, which is punishable with costs penalties if they lose at trial. But then they are on a stupid island somewhere and their rules might be a bit different. Either way, ignore or tell them to talk to your insurers. They can't do anything to you directly (unless you're uninsured).

(Er, not legal advice, etc.)

That's what I said, but longstyle. And I was less wrong.

There's nothing stopping them issuing proceedings in Mrs Dom's name (which it would be anyway even if the insurers received the claim form - the claim will always be against "Mrs Dom") but Mrs Dom then just gets her insurers to deal with it. You can't sue an insurer for the action of the insured - basic legal point, really. The insurer just agrees with the insured that they'll meet the costs of any case the insured ends up in, provided they get to be in charge. but they do all that as the insured's agent, basically.

For reelz? Thankfully I don't have to know anything about the CPR very often, and if I ever do I just has peeps to deal with it for me.



Except yes, they can. You don't sue the insurance company.

Of course they would sue Mrs Dom in name, but the insurers deal with everything and pay everything (provided she is adequately insured), is my point! Basically, Mrs Dom has nothing to worry about.

What part of the CPR tells you where to send your letters pre-issue?

Which is also what I said.

Tsk.

With regard to the CPR: IIRC, you can send a letter of claim directly to the Defendant, but it must state in the letter of claim that the Defendant should immediately pass this on to their insurer. Once contact is made with the insurer, they must correspond with them alone from that point onwards.

Point is, they've already been in contact with Mrs Dom's insurers, so they're breaking the "rules" by sending her letters directly. They're not breaking the "law" as such, but they will suffer penalties for it should the matter proceed to trial. And therefore they're being very silly.

It's all about protecting the lay-person from scary lawyer cunts, innit.

Er, no.

The pre action protocol only mentions insurers in the context of the defendant's acknowledgement of the letter before claim. The defendant has to tell the claimant if an insurer is dealing with the claim, and that's it as far as I can see.

EXCEPT in road accidents where you can.

Ha, really? So if I hit someone's Beemer, they can sue Cheap Insurance Co personally? I thought the claim form had to name the insured? I see quite a lot of RTA and PI case reports in some legal update emails and not one mentions the name of an insurance company. Not saying you're wrong, just that I'm very surprised.

I assume there's a statutory basis for that, then?

Yeah I'm thinking of personal injury, aren't I?

I'm pretty sure there's a rule somewhere that says once an insurer is involved, you must liaise with them alone, though.

Regardless, I'd personally reply and point out that you are insured with so-and-so, as they're well aware, now fuck off and talk to them.

Yes, I'd do that and then ignore the fuck out of them and just forward their mail unopened to your insurer.

Absolute worst case scenario, Mrs Dom has to ask work to dig out proof of attendance on the day in question. Photocopy, post to your insurers, laugh. If you're really lucky, they'll pursue the matter to trial despite this, and you can laugh in their barrister's face on the day when the judge tells them to fuck off.

The European Communities (Rights against Insurers) Regulations 2002, init.

Wow, fuck me. Short and to the point, aren't they?

I wonder what the genesis of that was?

EDIT and why it only applies to RTAs.

The EU loves protecting individuals, dunnit. That's why this government hates them.

Primarily it's to ensure that victims of accidents don't lose their compo by sneaky feckin' insurers trying to get out of paying by withdrawing indemnity for small pithy non-compliance with the policy terms. Driver injures Pedestrian and buggers off never to be found. He never reports it to the insurers so they withdraw indemnity for not reporting it. Pedestrian can't find him and has no recourse. EU says "Fuck you, pay up".

RTA's just seem to be where the biggest problems were. It should be extended but the governments don't want it. Cause the insurance industry has them in their pocket. Scumbags.

Haaaang on - the ECRIAR says that the insurer's only liable to the claimant to the extent they'd be liable to the insured, so that doesn't really help with your above scenario, does it? Or am I missing something (again)?

Can't argue with that. (other than the first apostrophe )

It does help with that scenario! Uninsured/untraceable Defendants are dealt with by the MIB, though.

What Ian means by a driver who buggers off is one who is insured, but the insurers try to worm out of paying up because of a clause in the policy. Barring the clause, they'd still be liable.

Noooooo-ooo. If the insurer legitimately withdraws cover (legitimately meaning "within the terms of the insurance policy") then they are not liable to the insured, therefore not liable to the claimant.

The problem is with the "legitimately" part! The Regs are there to ensure that it is legitimate, and if not, there's a course of action.

Not from Fairies's post it wasn't, or your last one.

If it's in the terms of the policy that they can withdraw cover then they're allowed to disclaim liability.

Check out the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930.
An antiquated bit of law that is extremely difficult to use to get an insurer to pay up (essentially, you successfully sue the defendant and then enforce the judgement against the insurer).

The last government made a slightly more helpful Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 2010 which meant that you COULD sue an insurer direct in other non-RTA cases. Really helpful for those dreadful souls that have suffered mesothelioma and want to sue under mega old insurance policies, amongst other things.

So it gets Royal Assent and sits on the statute books to this very day waiting for the Secretary of State to sign it and make it law.

We're still waiting. There's no thirst for making insurers pay. The government panders to them. You only need to listen to the flood victims this morning on the news or the firms worried about laying people off when they slash the costs of PI in April.

He said "small, pithy..." etc. bullshit withdrawal of indemnity by way of "unfair" terms. That's what it's there to ostensibly get around.

Yeah, I saw that in a Gazette article earlier when I was looking at ECRIAR. Ahead of its time, really.

Quite.

I've been baffled by the government's approach to the flood thing.

You're sounding like someone making stuff up, to be honest, given that you hadn't heard of it until a few minutes ago.

Actually, yes, Mr K is right. Sort of. There's some case law to show that you'd need some sort of fraud. Mega-fraud. A minor breach of the policy terms wouldn't allow them to get out of it.

I'm just explaining what Ian meant! (Cunt!)

HAs the floods thing only made national news today or something?

Have had 3 relatives phoning up to check we're ok. We had the worst of the weather Wed-Fri last week!

Malc

Do you mean WTB is right?

also, stop making me do law in my time off!

Of course I'm right! How often do Lego have to deal with RTAs anyway?

You're both right. Minor breaches don't legitimately invalidate the policy but an insurer could, in theory, withdraw cover by saying, say, the policy never existed in the first place due to fraud.

True - the cars can always get rebuilt in minutes.

I was just referring to the insurance companies response today on the news.