tactical trader

Last week my wife and me were involved in the most awful accident, we were driving along a short stretch of dual carriageway minding our own business when, suddenly, a motorbike was heading straight for us at high speed.

The rider, who was clearly exceeding the speed limit, was on the opposite carriageway and overtaking another vehicle, somehow he lost control and hit the central reservation. He and his bike were catapulted about 15 feet into the air and because there was no crash barrier the bike carried on its journey straight into our path.

I managed to steer away from it but the collision was inevitable, we were hit on the back wheel and spun around to a 45 degree angle. The rear wheel was broken in two and the front of the bike disintegrated on impact, rebounding across the main carriageway. There can be no doubt that we were incredibly lucky to walk away, the rider was less fortunate, he was killed in impact with a lamp post.

To make matters worse it now transpires that he may not insured and this brings me to the point of my tale. When I bought my policy I was encouraged to pay extra for legal expenses cover, this also included a hire car in the event that I was involved in a situation that was not my fault.

Because of the fatality the area was treated as a crime scene and the car was impounded as evidence, as you would expect the normal insurance company loan car process would not apply so I contacted the providers of this extra cover to make a claim.

I was told not to bother because the cover only applies where the other driver has insurance and that this is quite logical as they would have nobody to claim back the costs from. What I object to most strongly is that this was not made explicit in any of the terms and conditions of the policy and certainly not in any of the marketing literature.

I eventually found a brief reference buried away in the small print but even this referred to a policy wording that I had not even been sent.

I assumed that the whole point of this extra cover was to provide cover when you most needed it and above and beyond your normal cover, this was certainly how it was sold to me. I was never told of this massive exclusion.

I can only conclude that these policies are a compete waste of money, there are plenty of ambulance chasers on the internet who will take up a case where recovery of losses is certain so why pay out for the very same thing? This is one more in a long line of insurance scams that never come to light until it is too late.

So if you have any such policy I urge you to check exactly what it covers, given that so many uninsured drivers populate our roads you could find, as I did, that you will not have the peace of mind when you need it most.