Car Insurance Claims: Can you claim against Third Party if they didn't file the accident report?
In these recent years, there has been a rise in cases of car accidents due to the introduction of ride hailing services. Nobody likes to experience a car mishap or car accident, but it is a truth of life, and can occur sometime and it is important to know how to handle it when it happens to you. When you are in a car accident resulting from the actions of some other driver or with Private Hirer drivers, you are supposed to file an accident report within the next 24 working hours. If you did not do so, you will be penalized on your No Claim Discount (NCD) by 10% for your next car insurance renewal,. This is the requirement from the General Insurance Association (GIA) and all drivers who take up a car insurance with any insurance companies need to abide to it.
However, there are numerous cases that there was no report done from either party assuming that it is not necessary and this will lead to complication when either parties cannot claim from each other insurance companies since there was no record that there was any accident involve and car insurers will need only react or do the payout when the accident report is done.
Find out why this is needed.
Why is a Car Accident Report Needed?
Car accident reports are an important piece of evidence when it comes to making car insurance claims. These can help prove the fault of the other driver involved in the accident. With a successful claim, you can get enough money from the insurance provider. The sum can compensate you for your medical bills, car repairs and any other expenses that you have incurred due to the mishap.
What happen next?
Once you have your own report done, your car insurance company will get in touch with the third-party insurance company and they will send a notification to their own policyholder about the filing and car accident report done at your side. If, despite the reminders of the car insurer to the policyholder to file the report and he/she did not, the insurer will write formally to them to state clearly that they are not liable for all future claims related to this accident if he choose to ignore the reminder.
As for the Traffic Police will only intervene when there is an injury claim and will remind the policyholder to file the accident report. In case policyholders fail to file an car accident report even then, they can experience serious consequences as a result. This is because, it is regarded as a breach of the conditions laid down by the insurance policy. The insurer can repudiate liability. It can lead to a loss of protection under the policy of the insured policyholder. The insurer can also, in case of any delay in reporting the car accident, do any of the following:
- Confiscate the policyholder's NCD entitlement
- Refuse to carry out policy renewal
- Cancel the policy
Before acting on third-party claim insurance, the car insurance company will need the car accident report directly from the policyholder - to ensure that the claim is a valid one. It needs a proof that their policyholder was actually involved in the car accident and he/she is not at fault. Only in that case the insurer can investigate the accident and find out whether there policyholder was the one at fault in the crash as well as (if there was actually an involvement and fault) the extent to which they were responsible for it.
In summary, you will have issue claiming from third party even though it is not your fault if he did not proceed to do the reporting. You can only claim under his own personal capacity since he/her own insurance company has already removed all liability and will not pay out any claims since the policyholder did not fulfill their requirement to do the accident reporting.
