Car accident insurance claims
Q. I wondered if anyone could help me get a final answer on whether i am
entitled to any compensation from an accident i was involved in.....
Here's what happened....
I was sitting at a red light with a car stopped in front and behind me when
a moron run up the arse of the car behind, which pushed me into the car in
front etc. Then the idiot who caused the accident decides to drive off and
leave the scene of the accident, fortunately i got his rego number etc.
The police arrive a few minutes later and the estimated damage to all three
cars was around the $15000 mark so witness statements were taken etc. The
police told us to claim from the insurance company of the person behind us,
so i would have to pay for the car in front's damage but i could claim this
from the car behind..... Then we find out that the joker that caused the
accident was a car thief who had stolen the vehicle which he drove into all
of us... therefore none of the insurance companies will pay up because
technically nobody but the car thief is responsible and ofcourse the police
have no leads on a suspect or anything. However I asked the police when the
car was reported stolen and they said just after the accident occurred so i
suspect that the driver of the vehicle at the time of the accident was in
fact the real owner of the car and not a car thief.... I quizzed the police
about the possibility of this scenario and they said that the owner is
innocent etc. and he wasn't driving at the time, but they have no evidence
to back up this claim. meanwhile i have a car with over $1500 worth of
damage which i can't afford to get fixed.... unfortunately i didn't have
comprehensive insurance because my vehicle is 14 years old and as far as i
was concerned the $600 per year to insure it wouldn't be worth it....
Anyway 5 months later, i still have insurance companies calling me up trying
to trick me into admitting that i caused the accident etc. because they
can't get money out of any other parties involved...
Does anyone have any advice??? Could I take the owner to small claims
court - would they have a chance of uncovering the truth??
A. They mangled that pretty comprehensively as the
cops often do. There is no requirement to pay for
the damage to the car in front and then claim it.
Or thats a coincidence and it had only just been stolen,
so its not that surprising that the accident and report
that it had been stolen were roughly simultaneous.
And you've just discovered that it aint quite that simple.
Or that you have still come out in front, as long as
that doesnt happen more often than once in 3 years.
Just keep telling them that nothing has changed and hang up on them.
You have the decent record of the detail of the accident
since the cops showed up and took proper statements.
Nope. And for all you know the owner of the car that caused the
accident may well be in the right anyway, some arsehole stole his car.
If you do know what the person driving that car looks like, it
might be worth checking what the owner of the car looks like.
But even if you are absolutely certain that the owner of the car
was driving it at the time of the accident and lied about the
theft of his car, just you proclaiming that in a court aint enough.