Insurance company taking action in a car accident

[Anna Giessler]

My son was involved in a parking incident.
He had moved into the curb and was parked, then noticed that he was in a no parking zone, so he put on his left indicator, checked his mirror,
and slowly started to move forward accross a drive way to a parking spot further on.
His speed was rolling.
A car coming up beside him (that did not indicate) turned into him to get into the driveway, and collided.
I do not know who was at fault, if either.
Details where exchanged at the accident,
no police where called
My son being young and inexperienced, and a gentleman, felt he was at fault (I was overseas and left him to deal with it).
My son put in a claim through our insurance company that was rejected, he was a nominated driver and I forgot to tell our insurance company that he lost his license two years prior for 3 months, when he was on his P's and got a driving fine over a double dermits weekend.
The other party then went through there insurance company to get there repairs fixed . There insurance company is now chasing my son to pay. My son has never verbally told anybody that he is at fault, nor as he submitted any diagrams or photos of the damage to his car etc.
What is our next step?
Are we liable.

 

[Zerojay]

Hi Anna,
Cannot give an opinion who is liable without the benefit of detailed accident descriptions of both drivers. Suggest your next step is to advise the other insurer that you have not accepted fault and wish to recover your repair costs. Request they provide you with their insured’s accident version and diagram, together with reasons why they consider your son is at fault.
In regard to your own insurer, you say you forgot to tell about your son’s convictions. Did your insurer actually ask you a specific question about your son’s convictions to which you answered none; or did you not answer the question; or was there no specific question asked when you took out the policy?
This is not legal advice. Just my opinion.

 

[Anna Giessler]

Hi Anna,
Cannot give an opinion who is liable without the benefit of detailed accident descriptions of both drivers. Suggest your next step is to advise the other insurer that you have not accepted fault and wish to recover your repair costs. Request they provide you with their insured’s accident version and diagram, together with reasons why they consider your son is at fault.
In regard to your own insurer, you say you forgot to tell about your son’s convictions. Did your insurer actually ask you a specific question about your son’s convictions to which you answered none; or did you not answer the question; or was there no specific question asked when you took out the policy?
This is not legal advice. Just my opinion.

 

[Anna Giessler]

Hi, and thankyou for the advise. We did let the other insurance company know that we disputing the liability.
As yet we have had no formal request or bill from the other insurance company, just a car rental company sent us a bill. I told them that the claim was in dispute, and they seemed happy to wait.
In regards to my insurance company, my son has been a nominated driver on the policy for 6 years (when he got his P's). At that stage he had all his points
. Every year I get a renewal email. I always check who is on the policy and how much it is, but don't read the fine print to much. In rechecking it the fine print there was a question asking you to let them know. if a nominated driver had lost there license.
When my son lost his license he had been driving has a nominated driver on the policy for 4 years. I guess I would have remained blissfully unaware that he wasn't insured if this had not happened. I thought wrongly (I'm a bit old school) that no claim bonus and customer loyalty, was how insurance companies worked.
I didn't know that accumulated driving points while on the heavily penalised P System, that young adults are under for 3 years was the way they judged you worthy of being insured.

 

[Zerojay]

The situation with your insurer is tricky. They are relying on the non disclosure of the loss of licence to deny your claim on the basis that if they had been correctly informed, then they would not have renewed the policy with your son as a nominated driver. They can do this if refusal to continue to insure your son is in accordance with their underwriting guidelines and the first renewal invitation sent to you after the loss of licence occurred included notification of your duty of disclosure. If they did not so notify you then they can only rely on incorrect answers given to specific questions asked of you.
So if you do not have a copy of this renewal invitation, ask the insurer to provide you with a copy, highlighting the duty of disclosure notification, together with a copy of that part of their underwriting guidelines that they are relying on to reject your claim.