Insurance claim made against me - advice wanted

I’ll give a précis of what occurred:

driving home on a sunny Sunday morning after walking the dog I stopped at a road junction to join a slightly larger road. A small 4x4 car drove past followed by a black cbr600. I pulled out after the bike went past.

50 yards later the bike swerved, accelerated past the 4x4 and then gesticulating at the driver pulled ahead and stopped his bike. Thus preventing the car from going further. The rider got off the bike and continued waving his arms in the air in a menacing manner.

I pulled my car alongside the 4x4 and was about to say to the elderly driver that I’d call the police. Whilst alongside the biker pushed between us, banged my car door and door glass.

I saw red and decided to get out to confront him and drove past and stopped the car further along the road. As I got to where he was still having words with the driver he realised I was approaching, turned towards me and.......

fuck me it’s a girl!

I’m not going to engage in a confrontation with a female as it’s an unequal battle. So I turned and went back to my car. As I did a couple of cyclists came along but had not been close prior to that.

I drove home.

a couple of days later a pair of coppers came to my house for a chat. They asked me what had happened as a complaint had been made about me and what did I have to say about it. I told them the above. At no time did I speak to her at all. they said she’d suggested I’d run over her feet and driven away. *** failure to stop etc. is an offence, I seem to recall? ***

at no time was I under caution or asked to provide a statement, it was simply a chat.

I’ve not heard anything else subsequent to this that occurred 8 weeks ago, certainly nothing from the Police.


Imagine my surprise on getting home from holiday to a letter from my insurers asking for information about an incident I’d been involved in, please provide details etc.

I phoned them and said wtf, let me know more. Apparently she has made a claim for damages for a pair of boots I’ve ‘driven over’. But not through her insurance company, directly to mine.

How the hell does she have my insurance company details.

how should I respond to this as I don’t simply want my insurance company to say sod it and pay up and claim my excess from me to settle it?

One word "proof".
If the police only wanted a chat and no further investigation, I wouldn't worry
about it too much.
Seems strange that she is claiming for new boots, but no injuries to her feet?
You should try and speak to the elderly
driver who could at least be a witness.

I too find it strange that the claimant has your insurance details. Did the police ask you for them? Failing that it may be that they can access them via a police software system, for criminal law purposes, but almost certainly it would not be permissible for them to release info for civil law purposes, which is what an insurance claim would be. I agree with the previous reply - ask what proof has been tendered and instruct the insurers that you do not accept any liability to the claimant.
Hope you also asked the police to investigate your complaint about criminal damage to your car, and if not you might do that now. And tell the insurers that you have done that. They might then accept there is more to this.

You definitely need to get this sorted asap, as the next time you want insurance they will ask if you have any claims and charge you as if you have.

Anyone can get annother vehicles insurance details. You just need the registration number and pay a small fee, around 3 quid I recall.

Firstly, If the Police thought you were guilty of an offence, they would have been obliged under the requirements of PACE to caution you and then possibly arrest you.

To be guilty of failing to stop and report an accident, it has to be proven that you "Knowingly" caused injury or damage to a third party and they would also have been obliged to give you either a verbal or written NIP.

If you have not received either a written or verbal NIP, then no further action can be taken against you as far as a Police matter is concerned.

If they do try to prosecute, then you have a statutory defence and the prosecution will be required to be struck out once it is known that no NIP was either issued in written form or given verbally.

As far as the insurance issue is concerned, getting your details is fairly straight forward. A fee of £3 is paid to DVLA with details of your registration and reasonable explanation as to why your details are required. The MIB database can then provide details of who you are insured with.

Now for the insurers to deal with any claim made against you, they work on the balance of probability of 51% or better that liability is down to you. For this they need reasonable proof and the fact that you were spoken to by the Police but no further action was taken works in yor favour and goes some way to discrediting her evidence.

If it is claimed that you drove over her feet then it is more than likely she would have been injured as a couple of tons of motor car and flesh and blood (even covered by a pair of boots) usually result in more than just a damaged pair of boots (which I doubt wold have been damaged anyway) so medical evidence is also going to be quite key to this matter.

If your insurers are switched on, then the chances are their fraud department will take on the case and it could result in her being dealt with for fraud as a criminal matter to name but a few.

Any witnesses you have of course would be a bonus, but I appreciate that this is unlikely, but the claimant should be providing strong evidence if it is a genuine claim.

Somehow I think that once you dispute the legality of the claim and give the reasons why, it will hopefully go away very quickly.

Hope this is of some help?

You need to speak to your insurers and get them to red flag this claim as potentially fraudulent and tell them why

Go round and ask to see boots and take a photo
Or get assessor to do so ASAP

Squag1 said:

Go round and ask to see boots and take a photo
Or get assessor to do so ASAP

Click to expand...

Not a good idea to do it yourself.

Any further contact should now only be through a solicitor or the insurance company (and this applies even in straight forward claims) as it opens up a can of worms for further allegations and accusation which cannot be coroborated but the claimant will try and use against you.

I’m waiting for my insurance conpany (yep, spelled correctly ) to respond to my request for details of the alleged incident, and who is claiming. my first line of the email states I deny any liability, please give me details.

however I have received a text from the PC involved I will quote it below

hi Simon, apologies for not being in touch sooner but I’ve only just managed to resolve the situation as the reporting person was very hard to meet up with. It turns out there was no damage and I was able to sort it for her. The crime will be filed with no further action required. Regards PC xxxxxx (name withheld by me)

I’ll let you know more as it progresses.

Well thats a step in the right direction, and points the finger of a fake claim more so....