Insurance - what if both parties deny liability?

billyfieldman, Jul 26, 8:45pm
If A says B is at fault but B says no, A is at fault.

Do their respective insurers try to determine what actually happened or they just charge their respective client the excess and be done with?

For example if photographs of the damage show that the right front and rear doors of car A were damaged and left front corner of car B is damaged, wouldn't it suggest B collided into the right side of A ?

Will insurer of A try their best to convince insurer of B?

supernova2, Jul 26, 9:02pm
Or would it suggest that A failed to give way when turning right and drove across the front of B?
It's going to depend on the exact circumstances of the crash. The Ins coys might just say "bugga it you are both at fault" or they might involve private investigators and extraction of fingernails.

ml6989, Jul 26, 10:06pm
Not enough information to draw a balanced judgement. All we know is the resulting damage. How about more details. Having said that, you pay insurance companies to fight your battles. Truthful answers should prevail over lies and B/S.

poppajn, Jul 26, 10:19pm
Insurance Obudsman sort's it

ianab, Jul 26, 10:21pm
You can "deny" liability all you want, but sometimes it just wont fly. If you came out of a stop sign, chances are you are at fault. If you rear ended someone, 99% chance you are at fault.

The insurance companies know this and can usually work out who is actually at fault.

Sometimes both parties are at fault (both are 6" over the centre line maybe), or sometimes it can actually be neither (wandering stock etc?)

marte, Jul 26, 11:48pm
Small claims court. Then if there's no 100% derision one way or the other, the bill for both cars gets split down the middle.

jayzeeb, Jul 27, 8:02am
The insurance companies usually sort it out themselves, depending on which companies they are, there is a thing in NZ called a Knock for Knock Agreement which most major insurance companies are party too, and the claims people are well trained in figuring out liability. It becomes a different issue with one of the companies isn't in the K4K agreement, when I worked for a major insurer there was always one company we dreaded as they would always push it to disputes, even if their client drove into a parked car, was just their policy . saying that, even if it goes to dispute it's still up to your insurance coy to handle.

taipapaki, Jul 27, 8:59am
In NZ there's a very good chance that both insurers actually have the same parent company.

As jayzeeb points out, this generally works quite well, as they are motivated to behave reasonably as a result.

In countries with compulsory insurance, you soon get the reverse. You get a bunch of litigious insurers, who make much of their margin by working in the "shared liability" space.

ie their customer may have hit a parked car, but it was badly parked, and on the wrong side of the road, and didn't have park lights on, and wasn't warrantable anyway so it isn't worth the $5k being claimed its only worth $200.

tjholding, Jul 27, 10:51am
No. The Ombudsman gets involved in disputes between Insured and Insurer.

Disputes over liability would be DT if under $15k or District Court if not.

the-lada-dude, Jul 27, 1:07pm
The (red) car C, contributed to the accident, by braking heavily to avoid an Indian driver, causing car B (yellow)and car A (green) to interfere with each others panel work. . lol

elect70, Jul 27, 2:34pm
Get plod report at time of accident if they attended otherwise its up to insurers to fight it out .If no insurance then only option is disputes trib

billyfieldman, Jul 27, 2:40pm
A
▓▓▓ →


Car A was traveling on a main road, left to right . Car B comes out of side road (give way sign), turning right, and instead of stopping on the flush median, proceed to cross it and hits the right side of car A at an angle as car A drive past.

Wish I know how to make an animation. Anyone knows an easy to use animation app?

billyfieldman, Jul 27, 2:56pm
Every car should have a dash cam.

tamarillo, Jul 27, 4:47pm
Is this a real event billy? Did it happen?

tweake, Jul 27, 5:02pm
just write that down, draw diagrams of it. give it to the insurance to sort.
the other party will always deny liability, their insurance company insist that they do.
the rest just outright lie. its amazing how quick they can come up with a totally fabricated story, like they had it prepared.

this is why dash cams are so good.