Car Insurance Claim

A question about : Car Insurance Claim

Hi All
I'm looking for some advice please.

Back in Jan 2014 I was involved in a minor RTA which was the other parties fault and they fully admitted responsibility at the scene.

When it came to the actual claim they then denied responsibility.

The claim was then transferred to the solicitors by my insurer and I filled in a load of Small Claims courts documents and sent them back to the solicitors.

The whole thing dragged on and on but then mid January 2015 I received a letter from the solicitor saying, In default to any defence to this action we have today requested Judgement.

This was followed by another letter from the solicitor yesterday stating, A judgement has now been obtained.

My question is - What does this mean?

Does it mean that the other driver has been found liable?
Does it mean my no claims bonus can now be reinstated?

Thanks for any advice.

Best answers:

• You have won a judgement by default. That means the other side ignored the court action.
  This may be because they were unaware of the action. If so they have grounds to contest it.
  But if no appeal is made you can enforce the judgement and get paid ( your solicitor will sort this)
• Thanks Quentin
  At what point would my insurer reinstate my full NCB?
  Now or once they have recovered all the costs?
• Only when they get fully reimbursed
• That could take years if they only were ordered to pay a small amount each month if say that is all they could afford!
• If they can't pay then they won't pay anyway.
  Are they uninsured? If so your insurer may have special deals that if you are blameless in a claim with an uninsured driver you don't lose ncd.
  Check the policy wording.
  (If they are insured the insurer will pay up)
• They are definitely insured.
• In that case hopefully the insurer will deal with the judgement quickly.
  Talk to your solicitor about the next steps.
• Thanks for your help Quentin - things are a lot more clearer in my mind now
  Cheers
• Assuming it was the insurer who decided to contest liability and their client now has a CCJ against him you would hope he will be pestering his insurer to pay up quickly rather than have the ccj registered against him!
• Sounds like the defendant didn't pass the court papers to their insurer?
  Is the CCJ by default good enough to determine who is at fault?
  Will the insurer take responsibility for the debt?
  Could the OP have the pain of pursuing the defendant for the money rather than the insurer?
• Yes, it was my insurers that were adamant that they were going to contest liability - in fact there was no talk of a 50/50 settlement at any point in time - which I took to be a positive.
  And like you say I would suspect that the other party would want this settled as quickly as possible taking in account the CCJ etc
• Parking trouble - I'm not sure what you are trying to say exactly?
  Could you explain a little further
• He is pointing out the problem I mentioned regarding this being a default judgement. See #2
  If they have a defence then a default judgement can be overturned.
  Talk to your solicitor about what happens next
• I see Quentin.
  But assuming that the OP had definitely received all relevant paperwork and just chose to completely ignore it would that not be itself be seen as an admission of liability?
  And apart from all the legal stuff they fully admitted liability at the scene of the accident.
  I think they were just "trying it on" to be honest and try and drag it on as long as possible hoping the problem would go away somehow.
• Someone has messed up.
  Hard to guess who.
  But the driver had most to lose by ignoring the docs.
  Insurers poor admin is often to blame.
  The policyholder forwards the docs when he gets them and the insurer puts them in the wrong pile!
  You only get 14 days to reply when you get a court claim. After that the claimant can get a judgement by default.
  But no hearing has taken place, so if there is a defence then it is straightforward for the other side to get the judgement set aside.
  Then start again.
• The solicitors letter that I received to let me know that Judgement had been obtained also pointed out that the paperwork/details of the judgement were also being sent to both insurers.
  I would therefore like to hop that my (claimant) insurers will pursue this on my behalf even if the defendants insurers haven't been made aware by the defendant.
• Yes.
  Your solicitor will pursue all this for you.
  As previously posted, contact them and ask what you can expect and a time frame for action.