Having legal action taken against you following a car accident

For any honest decent person, suddenly realising that you may be responsible for a road accident will without doubt be a very traumatic and distressing feeling. It's bad enough that you have caused the accident, but if later receive a letter threatening some sort of legal action, it can be devastating. However there is no need to panic. An insurer may send out such letters routinely after an accident just to try encourage you to deal with the situation with your insurers more promptly.

Inform your insurers

You must tell your insurers straight away if you receive any correspondence regarding a claim against you. Your insurer should already be aware of the circumstances of the accident as you should have informed them at the time.

It is the job of your insurer to handle this situation for you, and it is your responsibility to make sure that they get all the relevant paperwork from the other parties involved so that they can deal with the situation promptly for you. Do not 'assume' that your insurer gets copies of everything sent to them automatically. It is probably wise for you to take copies yourself of any documents sent to you before you send the originals on to your insurer, and check that they receive them.

Sometimes the non-fault drivers insurer may write to you directly threatening court action. This may just be a method of 'encouraging' you to contact your insurer and help speed up the process. Again you need to speak to your insurer and forward the documents to them if necessary.

If you feel that the claim is in any way unfair or that you may have an independent witness that can dispute the liability, contact your insurer immediately to discuss the situation.

Do you need to go to court?

In most cases any repair or compensation claims can usually be settled between the insurers involved without resorting to formal court proceedings. So it's likely that things will carry on at their own natural pace - which with insurance companies, can sometimes be a slow process.

If your insurer does not agree a settlement of the matter with the non-fault party's insurers, the individual making the claim against you may choose to make a claim against you directly. This situation is unusual, but whatever the outcome of the case you should still be protected by your insurance policy and they should still be able to advise you on how to move forward.