The fully comp minefield
If you hear words like this from your fully comprehensive insurers: ‘it sounds to us like it was a non-fault accident. Do not use your fully comprehensive insurance, it is much better for you to use our approved repairers, do not claim on your insurance and save yourself the policy excess and having an accident on your records,’ alarm bells should ring. Because, while it all sounds lovely and entirely sensible it is, in reality, an absolute minefield… Your fully comp insurance is a matter of contract. So long as the risk is insured, your insurers have to fix your bike’s collision damage and you do not need to prove anything. All you need to do is pay your excess. If you use your fully comp insurance your insurers will have a conversation with the other driver’s insurers, and if the accident was their fault, they recover your repair costs (outlay is the technical term) and reinstate your no claims bonus (NCB). If it was six of one they will apportion between the insurers and bang goes your NCB, and if it was your fault your insurers pay out and your NCB will be lost. However, when the other guy’s insurers are paying for you, you have to prove negligence. If it is denied, then you may be off to Court, and if your bike is still under warranty should a non-franchised dealer get his spanners to your bike, your
‘If I get knocked off my bike, my fully comprehensive insurers are paying for it’
warranty is invalidated. There is an understandable but nevertheless mythical urban, well, myth, that a non-franchised dealership work does not invalidate your warranty. While that is true for cars, it is not so for motorcycles. So if you do have a spill, and you have a fully comprehensive policy, use it. Get your bike repaired and do not be fobbed off chasing the third party, possibly all the way to Court. If your case ‘splits’ i.e blame is split between you and the other driver, or liability is successfully defended, you become liable for the repair costs. In order for the claims management company to bring a successful claim for the repairs, you have to be personally liable for them. Your insurer and their brokers naturally want to shift this risk to someone else’s insurers, so do not let them off the hook. You have paid for fully comp so use it, and do not accept the illusory advantage of ‘keeping your no claims.’ You have reported a collision. Until it is all sorted out between the insurers you have no NCB. Finally, many of these claims are held open as ‘unresolved’ allowing both parties insurers to load policies, improperly, without NCB and making you a less attractive proposition to their competitors. When it is their own money they are recovering, they tend not to play these games. In my view, if I get knocked off my bike, my fully comp insurers are paying for it, and they can sort out the problem afterwards.