Why should you hire an accident management company?
Your car might have been damaged, or you might have been injured in a car caused by the negligence of another driver. Either way, if you are involved in a car accident that wasn’t your fault and it is deemed that the driver is to blame, this is called a “non-fault claim”.
When it comes to insurance and accidents, insurance providers have to decide who is responsible for the accident and also who is liable to pay the costs of repairs to the vehicles and calculate any injury compensation payments. All accidents are assessed to determine liability, and they generally fall into one of three categories of either a non fault claim, “at fault” claim or, less frequently, an accident is considered a shared responsibility.
The first thing that happens after an accident is an investigation to decide if either driver has broken any traffic laws during or leading up to the accident. For example — were both drivers travelling within the speed limit — or was either of the drivers speeding? In addition, they might look at the roadworthiness of the vehicles and arrange an inspection of the vehicles involved.
Insurance providers will use all evidence at their disposal to determine who is at fault. This can include the use of any speed cameras, CCTV recordings and even eyewitness statements recorded by the Police. Because of this, it is important that you gather any evidence you can. This could include eye-witness accounts, but any photographic or video evidence is best, such as dashcam footage.
A word of warning, if you’re involved in an accident and immediately get out of your car apologising, this can be used against you as an admission of guilt. It is advised that you exchange insurance details in the first instance only.
If your car is in an unroadworthy state or even a badly damaged state, this can be a huge inconvenience while the accident liability is decided, leaving you without transport.
Most people think that when they are not at fault that their insurance company will fight to recover your costs from the other parties’ insurance, but this is not always the case. Often, an independent accident management company is the best solution, as they will even recover your excess and even prevent you from losing your no-claims bonus in this situation. In this case, an accident management company usually handles the whole process, from taking your initial claim, through to loaning you a no-cost like-for-like equivalent hire car while yours is repaired. There is no cost to you for this, as the temporary vehicle hire is recovered from the other parties’ insurance as part of the claim settlement.
Once the insurance providers have gathered their evidence, they will decide who was at fault in the accident. If you disagree with the decision, you can contest it by writing to them. If you don’t get the result you were hoping for, you could then take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
