Someone reversed into my wife's car recently (not the Camry bomb). They were friendly at the time and exchanged drivers license details, etc. Now they are not responding to any calls. The NSW police will not accept a report of the accident because no one was injured and neither car needed to be towed. Our car is only insured third party. As far as I know, the standard course of action is to send a 'letter of demand', followed by an action in the Small Claims Tribunal if there is no response to the letter of demand.

Has anyone done this before and is it likely to achieve anything?

It's going back a whle now, but I did this for a fence cost with my neighbours. I filed a statement of claim, they responded saying how much they earned, and had to start paying.

It's relatively cheap and having a Sheriff turn up at their door to give it to them will probably prompt them to do something. Hopefully it is to file a claim with their insurance company if they have any.

On the other side of the coin, I reversed into someone while coming out of my driveway. The guy only had third party and despite him calling my insurance company, they can't do anything as its only claims from the insured that they respond to. When I finally did submit a claim, it was all good and they covered it no problems.

Were they insured? I went down the letter of demand path & received letters from their solicitors saying 'no money or assets etc' but my insurer at the time had a 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in the policy so they came out to assess the damage and paid market value for my wreck , turned out better for me anyway .

I've got 3rd party, fire & theft with NRMA. It says that I'm covered for my vehicle with an at fault driver up to $5000. I don't know if that means other driver at fault or me.

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HotBodMon said..
Were they insured? I went down the letter of demand path & received letters from their solicitors saying 'no money or assets etc' but my insurer at the time had a 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in the policy so they came out to assess the damage and paid market value for my wreck , turned out better for me anyway .

They said they were insured. Was your car fully insured, or did you have the 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in a third party property policy?

Also, they live in QLD, I don't expect that's going to help.

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Mr Milk said..
I've got 3rd party, fire & theft with NRMA. It says that I'm covered for my vehicle with an at fault driver up to $5000. I don't know if that means other driver at fault or me.

Okay, an interesting detail with NRMA. 3rd party, fire, and theft covers accident caused by other at fault driver up to $5000 damage. But 3rd party (without fire and theft) only covers accident caused by other at fault driver if they are uninsured. So, in my case, other driver is insured, but so far won't make a claim. Seems I might fall through a crack.

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Harrow said..

Mr Milk said..
I've got 3rd party, fire & theft with NRMA. It says that I'm covered for my vehicle with an at fault driver up to $5000. I don't know if that means other driver at fault or me.

Okay, an interesting detail with NRMA. 3rd party, fire, and theft covers accident caused by other at fault driver up to $5000 damage. But 3rd party (without fire and theft) only covers accident caused by other at fault driver if they are uninsured. So, in my case, other driver is insured, but so far won't make a claim. Seems I might fall through a crack.

And what does your insurance provider say?
I'd be calling them.
If nothing else, they should be able to provide you with advice on how to handle the situation.

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Harrow said..

HotBodMon said..
Were they insured? I went down the letter of demand path & received letters from their solicitors saying 'no money or assets etc' but my insurer at the time had a 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in the policy so they came out to assess the damage and paid market value for my wreck , turned out better for me anyway .

They said they were insured. Was your car fully insured, or did you have the 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in a third party property policy?

Also, they live in QLD, I don't expect that's going to help.

Nah -only had bomb insurance ( GIO ) cause it was only a LX torana hatch ( full bogan days ) .
Guess the dIK who hit me wasn't insured , could afford nice soliticising letters though when my scary letters of demand were sent (2) .Doesn't seem fair for the rest of us .Good luck with this one Harrow .

Did they apologise?

Let us know how it pans out for you. It's crap how some people shirk their responsibility. Good luck!

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HotBodMon said..

Harrow said..

HotBodMon said..
Were they insured? I went down the letter of demand path & received letters from their solicitors saying 'no money or assets etc' but my insurer at the time had a 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in the policy so they came out to assess the damage and paid market value for my wreck , turned out better for me anyway .

They said they were insured. Was your car fully insured, or did you have the 'uninsured motorist extension' clause in a third party property policy?

Also, they live in QLD, I don't expect that's going to help.

Nah -only had bomb insurance ( GIO ) cause it was only a LX torana hatch ( full bogan days ) .
Guess the dIK who hit me wasn't insured , could afford nice soliticising letters though when my scary letters of demand were sent (2) .Doesn't seem fair for the rest of us .Good luck with this one Harrow .

People lie. When I took my neighbours to court to get the money for a fence, they responded with a statement that showed all their assets. The list of assets left off their holiday house down the coast which I had seen when I did a title search for them a year before.

I suspect the solicitors letter is a way to forestall this so that they get out of it without having to lie to a court.

One of my siblings tried to chase money from someone who ran into her car and gave up as the guy driving it wasn't the owner and the owner refused to report the car stolen and denied responsiblity. It can be challenging without insurance.

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Harrow said..

Mr Milk said..
I've got 3rd party, fire & theft with NRMA. It says that I'm covered for my vehicle with an at fault driver up to $5000. I don't know if that means other driver at fault or me.

Okay, an interesting detail with NRMA. 3rd party, fire, and theft covers accident caused by other at fault driver up to $5000 damage. But 3rd party (without fire and theft) only covers accident caused by other at fault driver if they are uninsured. So, in my case, other driver is insured, but so far won't make a claim. Seems I might fall through a crack.

Well... this is the benefit of comprehensive, and you make the choice. I have my insurance with high excess rates to reduce the cost and at least once it has annoyed me because the cost of the repair was almost as cheap as the excess. I guess that was the downside of my choice where I didn't want the risk of no comprehensive but didn't want to pay much.

The worst thing is that the same people that won't respond to phone calls are probably also the same people that won't feel compelled to pay you for the damage they caused. People can be very strange when it comes to 'accidents' and that's why dashcams are so popular as it keeps people honest.

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Harrow said..
Someone reversed into my wife's car recently (not the Camry bomb). .......Now they are not responding to any calls.

Funny that. Same happens to me quite regularly.

"What's this new dent in the back/side/front/top of the car, dear ?" I ask

"Oh, err, umm, yeah, nah, but yeah, but nah, ....somebody hit me. Yeah, somebody hit me...." she replies.


You can try a letter of demand or something similar, but experience tells me that a bunch of flowers and you copping the full cost with not another word said is just a whole lot easier.

Yeah, I've done this. You've got their full name and address and that's all you really need. You can google a pro forma for your letter of demand, best to include all evidence in the letter, and thirty days for compliance. At thirty days you file a writ at petty sessions, all evidence will need to be submitted at this point including a copy of the letter of demand. At this point their credit rating is ****ed, they won't even be able to change their phone plan.
At this point my defendant was very apologetic, paid the money and asked if I could fix their credit rating.

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Harrow said..

Mr Milk said..
I've got 3rd party, fire & theft with NRMA. It says that I'm covered for my vehicle with an at fault driver up to $5000. I don't know if that means other driver at fault or me.

Okay, an interesting detail with NRMA. 3rd party, fire, and theft covers accident caused by other at fault driver up to $5000 damage. But 3rd party (without fire and theft) only covers accident caused by other at fault driver if they are uninsured. So, in my case, other driver is insured, but so far won't make a claim. Seems I might fall through a crack.

I'd be trying the line that says if they refuse to make a claim, they are effectively uninsured, so ask NRMA to fix things and let them chase the miscreant for the money

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Harrow said..
Someone reversed into my wife's car recently (not the Camry bomb). They were friendly at the time and exchanged drivers license details, etc. Now they are not responding to any calls. The NSW police will not accept a report of the accident because no one was injured and neither car needed to be towed. Our car is only insured third party. As far as I know, the standard course of action is to send a 'letter of demand', followed by an action in the Small Claims Tribunal if there is no response to the letter of demand.

Has anyone done this before and is it likely to achieve anything?

Yes, with slow paying clients who forget about my terms and conditions. BTW there have only been 3 in 20 years. I ring them every morning and politely ask to pay the invoice. Some dodge the call but there's always tomorrow to ring. Block the call, ring from another number. Email..every day.
All payed up. Only 1 Lawyer was needed but that client was a prick anyway . Hope that helps

I do this, after i have sent about a dozen i add in the subject line the number of the request with 5 digits- 'payment request 00012' and up the number each day. Shows you're in it for the long run.

ref the original subject, make a claim on your insurance, advise them you're not at fault and pay your excess. They will hunt down the other insurer who will advise the policy holder of the claim, they will then either need to pay excess and claim on insurance or the insurer will pass on the details/bill.

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Mr Milk said..
I'd be trying the line that says if they refuse to make a claim, they are effectively uninsured, so ask NRMA to fix things and let them chase the miscreant for the money

Yeah, true. If they won't provide a claim number, then I don't have any evidence that they're insured, so I'll go with that. It's only $3K damage, so it's as much about my curiosity to see how it pans out as anything else.

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Carantoc said..
Funny that. Same happens to me quite regularly.

"What's this new dent in the back/side/front/top of the car, dear ?" I ask

"Oh, err, umm, yeah, nah, but yeah, but nah, ....somebody hit me. Yeah, somebody hit me...." she replies.


You can try a letter of demand or something similar, but experience tells me that a bunch of flowers and you copping the full cost with not another word said is just a whole lot easier.

Reminds me of when she reversed the car into a large brick wall, citing the tree blocking her view of the wall as her excuse, although I never got a decent explanation on why she decided it was okay to reverse over the top of the tree.

So, eventually got them to pay. A short and polite email that stated I was going to reluctantly have to report the incident to the police and start a minor debt claim that could impact their credit rating got them into action. Money in the bank the following day.

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Harrow said..
'A short and polite email'

mmmm, right.

You mean you sent Email, Ishmael, Bruiser and the rest of the boys around late at night on their Harleys to deliver the news.

All nice and polite like.