Car Insurance

Your car insurance payout will depend upon 7 major factors

1. Are you covered?
   Your policy must cover the incident – For example you must have fire and theft third party insurance to claim if your car was stolen.
2. Does your insurance excess cover the damage amount?
   Your car insurance excess may actually exceed the damage amount in which case there is no payout.
3. Loss of earnings
   Your claim may receive a higher payout if you have suffered other damages such as a loss or earnings from an accident.
4. Damage to your property
   You claim may receive a higher payout if your personal property has been damaged as a result of a car accident. This would include items from damage to your house to damage to your mobile phone.
5. Transport costs
   Resulting transport costs from an accident such as train fairs can also be compensated in a claim resulting in payout.
6. Personal Injury
   An accident resulting in an injury to your person could be deemed due compensation.

A claim resulting in payout has to be one whereby there is a third party admitting fault or is found to be at fault. This will be investigated and ejudicated upon by the representative insurance companies. The claiment or participant of the accident found in fault will then have their policy payout for damages from the incident.

If there is no fault found then the claiment will have to use a fault claim whereby their own policies will pay for the damage to their car. This is because, although there is no real fault by the car owner, the insurance company has nobody to reclaim the costs from. This can effect a drivers premium.

Car Insurance Claims Could Cost You;

The main costs for claiments are –

1. Solicitor costs Solicitors often now act on a ‘no win no fee’ basis. This can be misleading as there can be excess costs not covered by the opponents payout. Also, some costs may fall outside of the agreed ‘no fee’ area. This should be checked before undertaking solicitation.
2. Claims Management Company Claim management companies will approach solicitors for you. This can be usefult due to their expertise in the field and negociation skills. However, they will add a fee at some point to make their own profit on the deal. You should ask how this is aquired and will you be left to pay the cost if you lose the case.
3. Legal Expense Insurance Most insurance companies will nominate a firm of solicitors to take your case, and you will be covered within your insurance if you lose to cover the costs for yourself and you opponents. You should only pay a pre-stated amount of your opponents costs and should make sure you do not exceed this amount that will be stated in your car insurance policy if you have legal expense insurance.
4. Acting For Yourself

Using a small claims procedure then it is possible for you to claim on insurance and represent yourself, without soliciatation. This may be useful to reduce and minimise costs but it is not recommended as the legality of claims could leave you to come unstuck and possibly lose a claim an expert may have won for you.