UKC

Last night my wife was off to some friends to babysit for them. On the way there she was travelling up a narrow country lane (car and a half width) , she saw the other vehicle and pulled over tightly into the hedge as the other vehicle was travelling quite fast. He was in the centre of the road and swerved suddenly to avoid collision. He bounced off the bank and into my wife's car and then bounced off into the hedge again and then drive off. My wife's car was so badly damaged she was unable to open the door. But fortunately she was not hurt.
The police are satisfied that she was not to blame and other witnesses vouch for that. The only details we have for the vehicle is that it is a Green, Land Rover Discovery, V registration ( Cheesewring area)
We contacted the insurance company and we have been told that we will have to pay our excess (£350) and will loose our no-claims.
There seems to be some loophole in our insurance where if we had the drivers details we would be covered but as we have no details we are left footing the bill. Does anyone have any experience of this? Did you manage to come to some agreement with your insurance company?
Jim

In reply to Big Jim The Climber: This is a really sh1t situation, but the problem is it is a no claim discount, not a no fault discount. You don't have anyone else to claim off. I don't want to defend insurers as they are mendatious, self serving little turds, but in this instance I can understand their position. If you had the other drivers details the insurers would have someone else to recover their costs from, as it is you have to bear the costs. Ultimately, it's the driver of the landrover you should blame, not the insurer.

In reply to Big Jim The Climber: Look into the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) which was set up to cover this type of incident. The witness statement will help prove that it is a genuine incident, rather than an own-fault.

You'll have to pay your excess initially, but may get this back. You're talking years rather than months though.

Pester the police daily for progress with their investigation, otherwise it will never be resolved. If they find him but don't charge, push your insurance company to take out civil proceedings, or else they are also likely to try and take the easy route out - they already have your money.

Details available via Google.

In reply to rj_townsend: If I is a rural area , I guess it was not a local or the police would know them, or at least know the garage that would service/repair a discovery, who would know the owner.