Accidents and claims

Nobody reads this section by choice. Your car was hit while it sat parked. The other side's insurer rang before your own had opened a file. Or a claim is running and you can't tell which route serves you better.

The useful thing is knowing which duties are yours. Much of what arrives in the first week carries none for you at all. An insurer that isn't yours has no authority to settle on your behalf. Saying so early costs you nothing.

Start with who made contact. If it was the other driver's insurer, read what a third-party insurer can and can't ask before you agree to anything. That includes a courtesy car. If nobody made contact because the driver left, the guide to a car hit while parked covers the evidence worth gathering early, and when police will take it further.

Once a claim is genuinely under way, the question changes. Our guide to the official portal or a solicitor sets out what the free service does well and where it stops. It also covers the injury threshold that decides which route is open to you.

The expensive mistake is treating that first call as the moment to be helpful. Deadlines here are asymmetric: yours tend to be short and theirs tend to be long. An early agreement about fault is very hard to walk back. Say what happened, agree nothing, and read the guide before the second call.