How to avoid Accident and Car Insurance Claims This Winter

As winter approaches and the days get short it is sensible to think about additional driving requirements at this time of year, particularly if you live or drive in rural areas; taking just a few precautions can avoid accidents and car insurance claims and the possibility of being off the road at Christmas.

Make sure that you are carrying with you the following items, and if you are unlucky enough to be involved in accident miles from home, these little things might just save your life:

1. Additional Clothing: Fleeces, Hats, Gloves and Coats
2. Blankets in the car: If you are stuck after an accident in a blizzard, once your engine cools the car repidly turns into a fridge.
3. De-Icers and Scrapers
4. Something to drink: If you are stuck for a long time it would be useful to carry liquids to avoid dehydration, preferably hot in a flask.
5. A fully charged Mobile Phone
6. Car Breakdown Insurance and the number to call!
7. A Map: Even if you have Sat-Nav in your car, a map will help you fing the nearest property or town if you are stuck.
8. A high visibility vest of something to attract attention.
9. Money: make sure you do not travel without cash and a credit card

Following this accident and emergency for the winter checklist, will at the very least make your accident or breakdown less distressful.

You can also avoid accidents and disasters leading to car insurance claims if you ensure that your vehicle is fit for the trip in Winter conditions. Follow this checklist and avoid unnecessary and expensive claims.

1. Ensure your engine oil level is correct and top up if necessary.
2. Check the fluids paying particular attention to the vcar's radiator, brake fluids, engine coolants and screen wash.
3. Check your tyres! Ensure that they are of the minimum legal tread and are inflated to the manufacturers recommended pressures. You can usually find the correct pressures for your tyres on a plate on the edge of the drivers door!
4. Check your lights! You will need to ensure that all your lights are working correctly. Be aware that it is an offence to drive with insufficient lighting at certain hours of the day and if you are unfortunate to have an accident , this could invalidate your car insurance claim. Check Headlights, Sidelights, Rear Lights and Brake lights to see that they are all working.
If you are on your own, if you park the car close to a reflective surface you will not need assistance to see that they are working.
5. Check your Visibility! Ensure your windows are clean inside and out. If you have problems with heating and air blowers, get them fixed before the start of the very cold period

Drive safely this winter - It's deadly out there!

Compare Car Insurance Quotes & Schemes at the best Winter 2009 prices from the best quality policies.

Car Insurance Scammer Jailed - Rear End Shunter Shunted!

Car insurance scammer Mohammed Patel thought he was onto a winner when he was paid GBP500 per car for staging car accidents.
He earned himself GBP 46,000 staging 93 accidents in South Manchester UK, and bought luxury prestige cars with the proceeds for himself and his girlfriend.

It all went wrong for him yesterday when he was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for fraud.

The court heard that Patel was photographed by suspicious workers in a office block which overlooked a roundabout where accidents were occuring on a daily basis. The workers filmed Patel staging rear end shunts by deliberately braking hard in front of other vehicles, sometimes up to three times in one day.
He would then exchange the details of the car owner for who he was employed with the unsuspecting motorist. The car would then be taken away to a garage where much more serious damage was inflicted on it before the claim was put in to the car insurance company.....

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Car-Insurance-Fraudster-Mohammed-Patel-Jailed/Video/200910315410521

The police are still hunting the other members of the gang who arranged the insurance frauds.

The UK Insurance Fraud bureau estimate that GBP 350 million pounds is stolen each year in fraudulent car insurance claims adding an estimated 40 to every car insurance policy sold in the UK.....

If you are involved in an accident use your mobile or cellphone to take some images of the vehicles and the Driver!
Visit Car-Insurance.TV for online Car Insurance advice and Cheap Car Insurance.

Rolls Royce Car Insurance - You need a Supermarket to get it!

At Car-Insurance.tv you can compare quotes for Rolls Royces old and new, when you use our simple to use Rolls Royce Car Insurance scheme comparison tool.

Car-Insurance.tv is a unique specialist, performance and classic car insurance supermarket where you can compare quotes from over a hundred approved schemes at the cheapest rates available online!

It's a pity the Driver in the following story didn't visit Rolls Royce Classic Car Insurance online before smashing his pride and joy into his local supermarket!

On second thoughts maybe it's good he didn't!

Heres the story..............

A man accused of driving a Classic Rolls Royce through a supermarket window in Hampshire has been remanded in custody.

Six women suffered cuts and bruising when the car shattered the window of the Tesco store in River Way, Andover, on Wednesday afternoon.

Robert Caton aged 50, of Cusden Drive, Anodover, was charged with recklessly endangering life, dangerous driving and criminal damage.
He was orginally remanded to appear at Winchester Crown Court on 5 June.
Mr Caton has also been charged with failing to provide a specimen


Man admits Rolls Royce Supermarket crash. Six women suffered cuts and bruising when the window shattered


A 50-year-old man has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving after his Rolls Royce crashed through the front window of a supermarket in Hampshire.

Robert Caton, of Cusden Drive, Andover, also pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to provide a specimen.

Six women were hurt when he drove into Tesco in River Way, Andover, on 20 May.

Caton pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal damage while being reckless as to whether life was being endangered, which the prosecution accepted.

The case heard at Winchester Crown Court, was adjourned for sentencing on 25 September 2009 and Caton was remanded in custody until then.

Judge Keith Cutler asked for pre-sentence reports to be prepared by the probation service on Caton.

The six women who were injured suffered cuts and bruising when the Classic Rolls Royce Silver Spirit, A Reg car shattered the main window.

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Sat Nav May Invalidate Your Car Insurance

The Association of British Insurers is warning that policyholders claiming for accidents that were a direct result of the use of in car Satellite Navigation systems, could find their car insurance invalidated in certain circumstances.

The statement comes following the most recent of a spate of accidents involving drivers of cars that were relying upon the use of directional in car sat-nav systems. The problem is quite often they either don't work to the programmed co-ordinates or they mistakenly take you off down some route or side track where your vehicle cannot possibly safely go.

In the latest incident last week, a man from North Yorkshire nearly drove of a cliff in the dark .....



and tragedy was only avoided by a small dry stone wall that stopped his BMW.



Robert Jones continued to follow the instructions when they told him the narrow, steep path he was driving on in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, was a road.
Mr Jones, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, only stopped when his BMW hit a fence above Gauxholme railway bridge on Sunday morning.
Police have charged Mr Jones with driving without due care and attention.
The 43-year-old, who works as a driver, said he relied on his sat nav for his job.

If you are arrested for driving without due care and attention your car insurance may well be invalid. Take particular care when following instructions from others while driving!

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You are Paying for that Uninsured Driver!

The amount you pay for your car insurance premiums is directly influenced by the number of uninsured idiots on the UK roads. The problem has exacerbated in recent years and is costing billions, which the likes of you and me are paying for in hiked premium charges to cover these morons. Fortunately the Police and Insurance Companies are now hot on the trail of the perpetrators. Dave Healey explains.........

We are constantly reminded that the cost of car insurance is exacerbated by the number of uninsured drivers on the roads, and it is certainly true that in the United Kingdom all car insurance companies are required by law to pay into the Motor Insurance Fund (MIF).
This pool of money was designed to protect and recompense the innocent public from damage or injury caused by uninsured drivers and untraceable hit and run drivers.

The fund was set up over sixty years ago immediately following WW2 when the licensing laws and car insurance regulations were still being formulated and put onto the statute books.
The war years had seen the number of cars and vehicles in the UK rise exponentially and for the first time women were systematically taught to drive in their thousands, to help the war effort.
At the end of the war Britain's roads were beginning to become cluttered and returning troops and foreign bases exacerbated the number of unlicensed cars and drivers on UK roads without car insurance to record levels.
As the number of accidents involving uninsured drivers rose steadily, public outcry forced the government to act and in 1946 a Government 'Quango' called the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) was established to oversee the whole operation of public compensation for damage, where no car insurance covered the costs.
The MIB is to this day funded by a proportion of every policy sold, and to date has paid out over £2 billion in total. The MIB have calculated that the cost to each of us when we purchase car insurance is an additional £15 to £30 per policy to cover uninsured drivers, which amounts to more than £200 million every year.
Furthermore, recent statistics from the Bureau indicate the problem of driving without car insurance has not declined over the intervening years since its foundation, and show that the UK continues to have a very poor record, with one in every twenty cars on the road being driven without proper car insurance cover.
Drilling down into the statistics further, reveals that the amount of damage caused by drivers without car insurance each year far exceeds the amount paid out in claims every year through the risk fund.
It is often difficult to receive full compensation even if you have identified the uninsured driver, who may well have been prosecuted by the police, and you make a claim through the MIB.
A satisfied claim, that is those claims that are paid out, usually only occur when a particular claim has run the full course of the law and a judgement handed down.
In a case of a hit and run driver without car insurance who is unidentified, the MIB does not pay all legal costs, which can quickly run into thousands, but merely makes a contribution with a deduction to cover the balance of legal costs and expenses.

Thus the hidden costs and misery caused by the actions of those who choose to drive without car insurance is far greater than the official statistics of two hundred million pounds every year.
It is with these figures in mind that the MIB became the centralised point of a new database, the Motor Insurance Database, created at the turn of the century. The database is updated daily with details of every person and their car, who buys a car insurance policy. This information is now immediately available to all police forces throughout the Country, who through automatic number plate recognition systems, can instantly send a car registration number to the MID.
This allows the system to immediately indicate to a police office in the field, cars that are being driven and the driver has valid car insurance in force.
Dave Healey is a car insurance systems expert who was responsible with others for the design of the MID. He also designed the first car insurance supermarket and is also a specialist car insurance underwiter who has been underwriting Classic Car Insurance polices for the last thirty years.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Healey
http://EzineArticles.com/?Car-Insurance---Uninsured-Drivers-Cost-You-Money!&id=2136605

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Car Insurance accidents will cost you even if not your fault

Car Insurance - No Fault No Blame Accidents Can Cost You Dearly

At some time during your driving life you are statistically likely to be involved in an accident, whether you are to blame for the incident or not. It doesn't matter how good a driver you consider yourself to be you may still fall victim to others misjudgments and driving errors.

Typical examples of these types of accidents which are assumed no fault to the driver on the end of it are; rear end shunts, being hit at a traffic crossing by a car that's jumped the lights, stationary vehicles being hit by passing drivers, hit and run scenarios, uninsured drivers failing to report a car accident or if you are really unlucky you may fall victim to one of the many organised criminal gangs that stage accidents to defraud car insurance companies.

If you are involved in an accident whether it is you fault or not, it is a condition of your car insurance policy that you do not admit liability of any kind, at the scene of the accident. This can be particularly frustrating if you are the victim, because even though the other driver may be obviously at fault, they are not allowed to admit it.

When making a claim to your car insurance company ensure that you detail all events at the incident of the accident including a sketch or photographs of the scene and the damage. If the police attended be sure to include the incident number. It will be the responsibility of the car insurance company to communicate with the other parties insurers and lawyers if necessary. Whilst this process is continuing you will be deemed to have had an accident and a claim against the policy. The details of the accident will be passed to the Car Insurance Claims Database which is updated daily and all car accidents are submitted to it by car insurers. The problems that arise are that even if an accident is obviously not your fault, if the other side contests this, the case may drag on for a year or two and unless your policy provides otherwise, you will have to foot the bill of any extraneous costs run up during this time, such as the provision of an alternative hire car.

If there is any doubt over fault, then the Insurance companies may decide that the case is a 'knock for knock' which means that each party covers their own costs and expenses. Both policies will be deemed to be a fault and no claims bonuses adjusted. If the parties are disagreed about what happened the case will proceed to court and it will be up to you, your insurance company and any expert witnesses they may employ such as motor engineers and claims assessors, to prove or establish who was at fault. . The circumstances of a car accident may show both drivers were partially at fault. In a court of law, fault is allocated to each driver based on prescribed accident scenarios. It will be up to a District Judge to determine fault according to the rules of negligence law and the Highway Code.

If your car insurance policy falls due for renewal during this period of determination of fault then it could cost you dear. Your policy record will be flagged as having had a claim and consequently, unless you can convince your Car Insurance Company otherwise, you will be charged additional premium, unless you have bought protected no claims bonus.

This can be as much as a sixty percent increase in the previous year's premium if you had a good driving history with no claims in the previous three to five years, depending upon which car insurance company you are covered with. You will also be responsible for the cost of any uninsured losses, which are not covered by your car insurance policy.

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