# Car accident - Police report problem



## dj045 (Jun 11, 2013)

To cut a long story short, my car was in an accident (no other vehicles involved and someone else was driving) on the road. The police came, did a report, gave us a fine.

The car had to be towed to the affiliated repairers of the insurance company. Turns out the police report only detailed the damage on the left side of the vehicle and failed to see additional damage on the right side.

Hence, car repairers won't touch the right side damage.

Phoned insurance company, they say I need to take the car to the Police HQ and get an accident report for the right side.

Obvious problem is that the car is currently un-drivable. So Catch 22.

Any ideas what I can do?


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## JamesC123 (Aug 26, 2013)

Tough situation.

The fact that an Insurer relies on a Police Report to identify damage is disturbing. Even more disturbing is that a Police officer determines liability right there an then in the case of a multiple car accident.

Your Policy wording would probably note that a condition of the policy is that you must report all damage to the Police. You have done so and therefore have met that condition. The Insurer doesn't really have any right to expect much more from you as it is the attending officers fault for not noting the other sides damage.

In a country with good insurance dispute resolution you'd be best to stand your ground. Here it might not be worth the hassle. I guess your options are to ask the Insurer to arrange the tow if that's what they want. Alternatively call the police and explain the situation. Maybe they will help?


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

JamesC123 said:


> Tough situation.
> 
> The fact that an Insurer relies on a Police Report to identify damage is disturbing. Even more disturbing is that a Police officer determines liability right there an then in the case of a multiple car accident.
> 
> ...


Guessing you haven't been here too long then?


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## JamesC123 (Aug 26, 2013)

lol...about expecting the insurer or Police to help? haha


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

JamesC123 said:


> lol...about expecting the insurer or Police to help? haha


Both


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## Tropicana (Apr 29, 2010)

JamesC123 said:


> lol...about expecting the insurer or Police to help? haha


In almost any transaction , anything that goes wrong is either your "fault" or your headache.


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## dj045 (Jun 11, 2013)

Hopefully got this under control now.

We went back to the garage where the car was in limbo and called the Police to come to the garage. Once there we showed the officer the damage and the incomplete accident report. He said personally there was nothing he could do because he was not the original reporting officer. He advised us to take the report to Rashidya Police station so they can contact the officer (their name and number is on the report). We also took along some photo print outs to help with the explanation.

It seems like incomplete accident reports are a common thing as once at the Police station they simply adjusted and stamped the report with the additional damage we showed them and that was it. They didn't either bother to contact the reporting officer.

All we need to do now is take the new report to the insurance company and hopefully things will go smoothly from here.

Some additional words of advice, don't listen to what the insurance company is telling you as they had tried to suggest that we should get the left side repaired first so the car would be drivable, take it to the police station to get another accident report for the right side (and possibly incur another traffic fine), then take it back to them and pay an additional insurance excess for what would be a new insurance claim. Seems insurance companies here are just as slippery here as they are from my home country.


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## saraswat (Apr 28, 2012)

dj045 said:


> Seems insurance companies here are just as slippery here as they are from my home country.


True, they are the same everywhere ...


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