an accident happened supposedly in november and the person is claiming now, after 8 months?

[mk1975]

hi, my husband was driving someone elses car, and this car was insured on my husband and me. we started drivin car in november 2011. in march, my husband gave the car back to his friend, we cancelled the insurance and his friend insured the car himself and is still driving it.
now, he phones today and says that someone made a claim, saying the car was involved in an accident on 23 november. and his current insurance company is threathening him to cancel his insurance because he didnt let them know.
the thing is, my husband is 100% positive no any accidents happened whilhe wasusin the car.
and can a person claim on this car insurance after 10 months, why wait this long.
husbands friend is going to speak to ins co tomorrow but where do we stand, what we do. thanks in advance for your advice.

[Maydup]

You need to know who, what, where and when.

It is not possible for someone to make a claim without the policy holder knowing. Someone will have had to give the claimant the policy details for a start. Too many questions - something's not right here.

[boxtops]

What date in November did you take over the car - that's pretty critical!

It could take that long to make a claim, if the third party claimed on his own insurance and it's taken this long to track down the owner/driver of the other vehicle (allegedly yours).

[mk1975]

I also think something is not right. I was wondering if its possible that someone takes the car registration number and then decides to claim from us eventhough there is no accident.

[boxtops]

If the car was insured in your name because you were driving it on the date in question, and there was an accident, how can this affect your friend's insurance? The insurance is for the person, not the vehicle.

[mk1975]

boxtops, i didnt know that, the car was insured by myself and me and husband were on policy, after husband gave car back his friend insured it himself also our insurance company was the cooperative and his friend insurance is allianz he says. i dont know, its very confusing. thanks for your replies.

[flip_flop]

For property damage claims, the limitation period is 6 years, so in the great scheme of things 8 months is nothing.

[factor-fiction]

Something doesn't seem quite right here, mk, for the reason given by boxtops.

Are you sure he wasn't insured throughout and you were just named as additional drivers?

You and your friend need to write down exactly the dates you each had the car, the dates of insurance and the date of the accident. Your friend then needs to go back to his insurer if he wasn't insured at the time of the accident. If your husband was not covered by the insurance at the time of the accident (and he wasn't driving) he needs to tell his friend that the matter has nothing to do with him.

[boxtops]

Well put, factor, that's my thought entirely.

[mk1975]

hi, the friend is going to phone his insurance company today, and hopefully we will find out all details. thanks for all your replies.

[factor-fiction]

Thanks. Please let us know what happens and we can then look again at what should be done

[mk1975]

hi, sorry, my computer had a big trojan virus and it took ages to be in working order again :(
this friend never phoned us, so i assume it was not related to us at all, maybe he was trying it on, for some reason, i dont know, but im very happy that this matter has nothing to do with us. thanks again to everyone who read my post and replied.

[Nini74]

it may just be that the person making the claim or their insurers have made a mistake with the registration umber so when they've searched the insurers database for details, they've come up with your insurers. DId your friend own the car while you were insured? otherwise I don't even see how or why your friend or his insurers would even have been contacted about an accident which happened when he didn't use or insure the car...any claim would have been made to you or your insurers at the time........

[venator]

it stinks. Insurance companies are big on fraudulent claims these days - the policy holder needs to get onto the fraud department.

Questions like " was there a police accident report" "where was the alleged accident" and "does the claimant have details of the driver - names addresses insurance policy" "witnesses" - all this helps.

[mk1975]

thank you venator, good questions to ask them.