Wish Me Luck - Updated

Those of you who have been popping by for a while might remember that last March (2009) a delivery chap backed his lorry into my parked car and wrote it off.

For a variety of reasons his insurance company is refusing to pay the costs, even though the lorry driver admitted liability. I have been writing letters and filling in forms to no avail for the last 14 months.

So tomorrow I have to attend a hearing at the County Court, where hopefully the person in charge will make the other party cough up at last! We'll see! Wish me luck! ...................................................................................................

Well, I'm very pleased, and somewhat relieved, to report that I won on all counts at the hearing.

My insurance company had told me that I just had to show my face and wouldn't have to do/say anything. They were fibbing! I was questioned by the other party's barrister and the Judge. I was a bit alarmed by it at first. I'm none too happy that I had to be in Court, feeling like I was on trial for something, just because a gormless lorry driver drove into my car after he had watched me park it up.

The other party's barrister was disputing just about all aspects of my insurance claim - why was my car written off, why was I paid the relevant amount for it, why did I need a hire car whilst I attempted to get a replacement???

I had a strong belief that I would win but you just don't know. The Judge wasn't too impressed with the case and referred to it as a 'shambles'. He was even less impressed with the useless photo's of my car which were put forward - they were a fax of a photocopy and you could barely tell that the photo was of a car!

In his summing up he commented that it doesn't take much work to be needed on an old car before it becomes unviable, hence the write off. I had managed to prove to my insurance company that my car was worth more than they initially offered as I'd downloaded info from the web on half a dozen other cars like mine for sale. Based on my paperwork he made them cough up more for my car than even my own barrister was going to ask for. And since I had 2 children to ferry around and was 6 months pregnant, of course I needed a hire car! So it's going to now cost them considerably more than if they had just settled straight after the incident. And I'm glad. I don't like to gloat but if the other party's insurance rep had been there I'd have been giving him the 'loser' sign as he was such a git to me over the course of the claim.

I was very pleased with the Judges attitude to the case so all in all it was worth a stressy couple of hours in Court. And I'll be getting my policy excess back too. I'm less than impressed with my insurance company's handling of things though. If I'm ever involved in another accident I'll be much more savvy about everything. Let's hope it never happens!

Wish Me Luck - Updated