Car insurance excess

[naboo]

My car insurance policy - AXA SmartDive 5 - known as Class 2+ by most companies - has an excess of 2000B.

I had an accident a couple of months ago. Single track road, blind bend, head on collision a low speed. Insurance guy came and there was a very long discussion that I stayed out of on the whole. The other guy was claiming I was at fault and that he had stopped before I hit him, I had a dashcam that showed he was still moving, though admittedly I was traveling faster.

Discussion ended very abruptly, my insurance guy had found out the other guy had no license, expired tax and no insurance and had said to the guy that if he wanted to make a claim on my insurance, there would need to be a police report stating I was at fault, but the police would fine him more than the cost to repair the vehicle - he had a broken indicator light and scratch on the bumper, my newer car was considerably more crumpled. The police never attended.

Now at this point, I thought I might get away with not paying the excess as the other guy had no license, but the insurance rep said it was 50/50 fault and I'd have to pay the excess at the repair center once the work was complete - by law in this case you are responsible for your own damages. I didn't want to push any further as the other guy had a little kid and clearly a few grand was going to be a lot more to him than to me.

Fast forward a few weeks, car is repaired, I go to pay the excess and they say the insurance has covered it all.

Question - was this a case in which I was not required to pay the excess? Was it an admin error? Or did AXA decide to cover it for me as a goodwill gesture as I've been their customer for three years and this was my first claim?

[Pinot]

Good will gesture from an insurance company - good one!

[richard_smith237]

I suspect an Admin error.. ..."the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing"... which for many large companies seems to be the case, overseas too...

Chalk it up to good luck.

It's good to read that the insurance handled the situation fairly and that having a dash-cam quickly solved any debate proportioning blame to a 50:50 (which sounds fair according to your description of events).