I am insured with MiWay and was hit by a delivery truck while leaving a parking lot. how do i go about making a third party claim against his insurance. I have reported a claim to MIWAY and submitted a case number – do i now make this third party claim against his insurance through MIWAY? Also, I depend on my vehicle for work and am worried that this process will take long and i wont get my vehicle back sooon ! What do i do?

It is the client’s choice whether they want to claim their damage through the other party’s insurance cover or through their own insurance. Both choices has their own advantages and disadvantages.

1. Claiming the damage directly from the other party’s insurance company:

Advantages:

• You do not affect your claims history with your own insurance company which could count in your favour in respect of any possible future premium increases.
• You are not responsible to pay an excess.

Disadvantages:

• You are dependent on the other party’s cover with his insurance company, therefore you will first need to wait for them to complete their client’s claim before they will start working on your claim.
• Should the other party’s insurance find that their client did not comply to the terms and conditions of their contract with their client, maybe because he was driving under the influence, they will not be able to attend to your claim in which case you will need to claim against their client directly.
• They will decide what to pay you by applying the Law of Damages and Delict in accordance with which they could attribute a percentage of fault to you whereby offering to pay you less than your actual damage. For example if the other party skipped a stop street colliding with your vehicle, it could be said that you too did not take enough care in trying to avoid the incident, therefore they could offer to pay only 60% of your damage. This could result in a lengthily legal dispute between yourself and the other party’s insurance company.
• Should the other party’s insurance company agree to pay your damage, they will make you a cash settlement offer, usually by sending you a release form. Should you accept the offer, they will require of you to sign the release whereby accepting that once they pay the agreed amount into your account, you no longer have a right to claim any more money from them in respect of the same incident. In other words, should you take your vehicle for repairs and find that there was more damage than originally quoted for (maybe because it only became visible once they stripped the vehicle) you no longer have any recourse against the other party’s insurance company for the additional amount.
• Whether you can make use of a rental vehicle while you do not have the use of your own vehicle is usually a highly debatable question. Most insurance companies will not pay a third party car hire unless they use the vehicle to generate an income (for example a sales person that uses his vehicle to see clients).

2. Claiming the damage from your own insurance company:

Advantages:

• Your claim gets first priority.
• Your cover is in accordance with the terms and conditions of your contact with your insurance company which is usually to repair all the incident damage, irrespective of whose fault the incident was. The only requirement you usually have is to pay the first amount payable, which is your excess.
• Your insurance company will authorize a panelbeater to repair your vehicle. If you experience any problems with the panelbeater, your insurance company will sort that out for you.
• If there is additional incident related damage which was not seen when the original assessment was done, your insurance company will cover that.
• Provided you had cover for car hire you can make use of the car hire cover in accordance with the terms and conditions you agreed to with your insurance when you took the cover.

Disadvantages:

• Depending on the terms and conditions of your policy, you are responsible for the first amount payable, the excess irrespective whether the incident was your fault or not.
• Even though the insurance company will attempt to recover the damage paid in respect of the repairs to your vehicle which would include your excess, there is no guarantee that they will be successful in recovering the money. The recovery process could also be a very lengthily process since this is a legal dispute.
• The claim could influence any future premium increases.

Should you decide to claim the damage directly from the other party, you need to contact the other party’s insurance company directly. Ask to speak to their Legal department and confirm that the other party has registered a claim. If the other party has registered a claim, confirm the claim number and what documentation they will require to attend to your claim. Once you have send the required documentation, you need to follow up with them on a regular basis until you have received a response.

Should you decide to claim your damage through your insurance company, once they have validated your claim and authorized the repairs the matter will be send to the Legal department who will then if the merits is in their favour institute a claim against the other party. As noted above though a recovery is not guaranteed and it could be a very lengthily process depending on the facts of the specific matter.