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So I get a call from insurance company to say my car has been in an incident and can I call them. Gave me a claim number and told me to call claims department.
Alledged accident with a parked car in a town neither I or my wife have ever been to 70 odd miles away. Clearly a case of mistaken identity of the plate, clerical error or worse a cloned plate.
I told my insurance company this and that both my wife and i could prove we were at work on the day in question and no one else is insured to drive the car.
They want to send a vehicle assessor around to check the car - an 04 plate Mondeo with plenty of existing scratches obviously being 12 years old.....should I be worried? and should I be doing anything else?
Not much more you can do. Perhaps see if any CCTV coverage where you vehicle was parked on the day. More evidence the better IMHO.
I'd maybe just get a contact number for someone at each of your works to pass onto the assessor in case they want it, but it should be fairly obvious that your car has not been crashed.
Personally I would have ignored the first phone call. Was the call from your own insurance company? Could be anyone on the end of the phone. Get them to send correspondence in the post to be sure.
As above, was the call from your insurance co? Did you call back on the proper number? I get calls from dodgy claims companies all the time.
yeah, I went through the main switchboard on the call back rather than the number left in the a/p and its definitely genuine on the part of my insurers
Thinking about it, its actually quite hard to prove that your car wasn't involved if you think about it.
Surely this must happen quite alot
Thinking about it, its actually quite hard to prove that your car wasn't involved if you think about it.
In theory, your mobile provider will have location data for you over the last 12 months or so. Should be enough to put you 50 miles away at the time in question.
You need a court order to get it though.
I suspect ANPR data is held for a similar time, but I'm not sure - again, guessing you'd need a court order.
Thinking about it, its actually quite hard to prove that your car wasn't involved if you think about it.
Shouldn't be, if you can easily prove that both insured drivers were at their place of work at the time in question, and there's nobody else who has access to the car. Any damage is likely to be on the nearside, so if yours has no damage then there should be no issue.
Try taking a couple of photos of the front of the car and emailing them to the insurance company to show there's no damage.
"
Shouldn't be, if you can easily prove that both insured drivers were at their place of work at the time in question, and there's nobody else who has access to the car"
But the sort of person who would drive off after damaging a vehicle would probably be the same sort of person who would let an uninsured driver drive their car.....is what i would say if i was an insurance company
Guilty until proven innocent? How's that work, then?
Someone else is making a claim, the burden of proof is surely on them. Reckon I'd be saying "wasn't our car, we were both at work, come up with some proof or bugger off."
Did this third party have any details beyond a plate? (Make / colour of car)?
I had a similar incident a few years ago. Got a call from my insurers regarding an accident that had been reported involving my car, somewhere near Brighton IIRC. I live 275 miles away from Brighton, so I guess it was a bit easier for me to just say "not me guv" (as it wasn't me, obviously!). They took my word for it, no-one ever came to look at the car or anything. Been hounded by bloody ambulance chasers ever since though! 👿
They want to send a vehicle assessor around to check the car - an 04 plate Mondeo with plenty of existing scratches obviously being 12 years old.....should I be worried? and should I be doing anything else?
I wouldn't be too worried. The likelihood is that the number was taken down wrongly so it won’t be the same kind of car.
Assessors are pretty good at working out how damage happens and what's new and what’s old.
In the worst case that someone has cloned your plate to mask the identity of a stolen car, or to stop an uninsured, untaxed car showing up on ANPR then it’ll become a Police matter, they’ll take statements from workmates etc, even examine CCTV, basically they’ll go so far that someone who’s just trying to get out of a small claim will stick their hands up and say “oh now you mention it…”
Of course this is all based on weekly viewings of Police Interceptors.
If the accident involved a parked car - how has that parked car been able to identify (or mis-identify) your car?
All it takes is for someone to get a digit wrong on the registration.
I'd take images of your vehicle especially those panels that would of been damaged in the alleged accident, send these to your insurers along with confirmation of how far away you live and if you were at work at the time, confirmation from your employers that anyone that was a named driver was at work.
A good forensic engineer can tell though the age of any dents / scratches to your vehicle and that they didn't happen recently though
Apologies for the hijack but a friend is in similar scenario (hit & run apparently) - but have been contacted by an investigation company rather than their insurer. Incident in Wales but they live in London.
A witness had his full plate number but apparently couldn't ID the car make / model...
Should they be worried - sounds too fishy to me? And why would they be contacted by anyone other than the police or their own insurance co????
Oddly enough he had a minor ding and a car repair a few weeks back. What's going on!?
Vernon.
Investigation company would be told to rolll it tightly etc.
Chancing ****ers.
Yeah TR - unless police or insurance co I can't see any reason to respond - but my mate has agreed they can come to his house and look at the car!!!!!! WTF?!
Yer mates a mentalist.
How do these people even managed to speak to you....I get calls from a number I don't know and I'm not expecting . They get 5 seconds to speak before I hang up. And I certainly don't hand over my details. You phoned me you should know and if you don't get the hell off my phone.
I get many fishiing calls a week on my mobile; regarding the claim I had in my car. I haven't.
When pressed on what kind of car it is, they go quiet, or claim Data Protection means they can't tell me.
And when I insist no claim has been made, they ask if anyone else in my house could have had a claim.
Clumsy scheme whcih can't earn them much money
You don't have to prove anything ! It's up to them to prove everything. Send someone round to your house 😀 I take it the insurance company is paying you every single penny for your out of pocket expenses and time that you're spending clearing up their mess ? It might be a genuine and honest mistake....but not your one.
This happened to a friend of mine. The claims brokers, some herd of sharks about 3 sub-contractors away from the other insurers, came after her like rabid dogs. The supposed incident was hundreds of miles away.
In the end, she managed to get CCTV footage from the business outside which her car was parked, unmoving, for the entire weekend this all happened.
Still kept writing to her and calling.
happened to my brother a few months ago. he got a notice from Birmingham city council saying that he had left one of their multi storey car parks without paying. they had CCTV footage of the front and rear of the car and he then got another form London city council for non payment of the congestion charge and running a few red lights. again pictures were provided.
the funny thing is that he lives in Lancashire and has never driven to either city before. the cars in the pictures were identical to his...silver 54 plate nissan primera.
only glaring mistakes were that his number plates have the EU logo on them front and back (plates in the pictures did not) and that his car doesn't have a sunroof...whereas a glass sunroof was noticeable in the pictures.
a friendly letter to both councils along with pictures to prove this and the matter was dropped with an apology