We hear this a lot from clients who have been involved in Road Traffic Accidents. Typically, they have been involved in a crash where both drivers have blamed each other and by the time they instruct us to deal with their claim, usually between several weeks and a few months after the accident, they find that their own Road Traffic Insurers have admitted liability on their behalf and paid compensation to the other driver involved.
I am surprised that insurers actually do this given their general reluctance to pay any money to any claimant, but understand that in some cases, it is economically viable to settle lower value claims quickly to avoid the risk of substantial legal fees being involved.
I have however, seen cases where Insurers have paid out to motorists who were clearly to blame for the accident, such as one I dealt with recently following a crash in Derbyshire where the evidence showed that the offending motorist was obviously on the wrong side of the road when his car (of which he had lost control) slid into the side of my client’s vehicle.
Fortunately, admission by an insurer does not mean that those who were genuinely injured as a result of the other party’s actions cannot succeed with a claim. This is usually because the insurance companies settle on a “Without Prejudice” basis so that the settlement cannot be mentioned in subsequent proceedings. The answer to the question above is clearly “Yes”.
We have helped many drivers (including the one in the example above) to recover full compensation from the insurers of the offending motorist in such situations. I wonder what happens to the compensation paid by the clients’ insurers to those drivers who were later found fully to blame for the accident? I wouldn’t be surprised if the insurers asked for it back!
The moral is that if you are not to blame or only partly to blame for an accident, you should still be able to recover some or all of the compensation you are entitled to even if your own insurers think otherwise.
If you would like advice about any type of personal injury claim, please call us on 0114 218 4000 or email me at jonathan.stittle@tayloremmet.co.uk
I am going to make a rare trip to Wales tonight. Daughter number 2 is thinking of going to the University or Cardiff so we are going to check it out at an open day tomorrow. I hope that the ales they sale are as good as those brewed in Sheffield. Enjoy your weekend wherever you may or may not be wandering.
Jonathan Stittle
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