Have to go to court for my insurer?

[Willy]

Hi - about 18 months ago a taxi ran into the right rear quarter of my car when he was trying to turn left around me as I was also turning left. I claimed through my insurance company and thought that was that and I was not at fault. Yesterday I received a call from a lawyer working from my insurance co who must be trying to recover the cost from the taxi driver's insurance co. He has a different story (of course), and has a passanger account which is different again. The long and short is that my insurance co wants to pursue it in court and have me attend to give evidence on their behalf.

I'm kind of over it now and this to me is a bit of a PITA. I don't know what else I can provide bar what I've already stated, but they want me to appear rather than provide a signed statement etc. So my question is, do I legally need to attend? The reason I have insurance is to not need to deal with this sort of claims activity, and I'd really prefer not to have to put up with the aggrevation.

Thanks.

[Comrade Ash]

You'll probably find that a condition of you being insured by your company is that you rock up and do their bidding if they need you to when it comes to one of your claims.

[Day]

You'll probably find that a condition of you being insured by your company is that you rock up and do their bidding if they need you to when it comes to one of your claims.

Yep. I thought we paid insurance companies so we didn't have to pay the cost of the court case but in exchange attend to assist in them fighting on our behalf. Did you get the excess back on your claim?

[Willy]

Thanks ... never paid the excess, insurance co just did the repairs

[oscar]

if you really didn't want to go and told them so, they would probably just get a witness summons, then you have to go or face an arrest warrant

just agree and put in a claim for loss of earnings for the day at court - assuming you work

[Hardy]

Your written statement can not be used in court, because the taxi driver will not be able to ask questions of a piece of paper.

One reason these cases run in court is because insurance companies offer not to charge any excess if the insured can blame someone else for the accident. So although you have insurance to cover all the costs, for so long as you blame someone else and don't want to pay any excess then you are at risk of going to court. The easy solution if you don't want to go to court is to accept liability for the accident and pay the excess.

[Willy]

Thanks for the replies folks ... looks like I have little option but to take the time out then. Since I'm certainly not accepting liability from being hit from behind