It Wasn’t My Fault!
One minute you’re happily minding your own business then suddenly BANG, someone’s crashed into you. It wasn’t your fault, you were doing everything right, but here you are, and your car is damaged!
Historically many people thought the best thing to do was contact your insurer, but many people find that there is another way to minimise the inconvenience.
As the innocent party of an accident, you are entitled to a few things that you may not always get from your insurer.
- You’re entitled to choose a repairer you trust to do quality work and return your vehicle to its pre accident condition.
- You may be entitled to a replacement vehicle. While your vehicle is being repaired, you should be provided with a vehicle that adequately replaces your vehicle until yours is repaired. For example, if you are a tradesman and need a van or a ute, that’s what you should be entitled to.
- You don’t have to claim via your own insurance, you can simply claim against the other party’s insurance.
- You won’t pay an excess.
The process is known as a Third Party claim. You simply need the other person’s details and the claim number they have for the accident.
Getting you a vehicle is again a simple process which the repairer you choose can assist with. In some instances, the repairer will have their own vehicles, some repairers will make arrangements via a rental car company.
In most instances, the other person’s insurer will accept liability and the repairer will recover the cost of your repairs for that insurer
One of the impacts in claiming via your own insurance is that the other person’s insurance may initially deny liability. If your insurer doesn’t work hard on your behalf, you may find that they simply come back to you and say, “they won’t accept your claim, so you’ll have to pay your own excess”.
With car insurance excesses regularly greater than $500-$1,000, you would hope that they work hard for you. What is often seen in the industry is the insurer of both people in the accident is the same company, this will make the process simpler.
Car repairs and car insurance can be a minefield. Whatever your field of work or expertise, you probably wish that people would seek your advice rather than try and learn part of the job from the internet only to then make a mess of it. Repairers do this work every day, so ask an expert and save yourself the headache.