Hit and Run

[country_boy]

2 years ago a bloke scraped my car with his and did a runner, I got the number and tracked it via police etc. Turns out after getting quotes for repair and filling out loads of forms, it was a hire car and the driver was from Hong Kong. The case was dropped as the insurance company reckons you have to prosecute the driver, not the owner of the car (ie. the hire car firm). As he is an overseas resident, there is no claim (Road Traffic Act 1982 or something like that). Surely I could claim off the company's insurance... any idea if I can or am I just out of pocket on this one?

[Drewhound]

Surely by law the insurance company is responsible? I'll ask this on another site later where there is a car insurance expert and get back to you

[Drewhound]

I have got an answer back and it's exactly what I expected:- The hire company should have insurance. They may have problems with the driver not filling in a claim form and therefore their insurers are refusing to meet the claim. You would then need to sue the hire company themselves if there is no cover, but yes there should be cover and it sounds like they are just being fobbed off.

[country_boy]

Thanks very much, think I will write to the Insurance Ombudsman and take it from there.

[JB]

You could hit a few problems here! The hire company will (I would hope!) have insurance, but in order for them to pay, you would have to prove negligence against the driver of their car. To do this, you would have to serve civil proceedings (not a criminal prosecution) against the driver and obtain an unsatisfied judgement. As the driver is overseas, you would probably spend more money trying to do this (no doubt unsuccessfully) than the cost of the repairs. The hire car insurers may be being difficult, but they are under no obligation to pay without an unsatisfied CCJ. Sorry.