Non-Fault Accident Claim and Accident Management in London
If another driver caused the accident, the claim should not cost you a penny. Recovery, storage, a like-for-like replacement vehicle and repairs are recovered from the at-fault driver's insurer, not taken out of your pocket.
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A non-fault accident claim is a claim made against the at-fault driver's insurer instead of on your own policy, so the cost of putting things right falls on the person who caused the damage. English law aims to put you back in the position you were in before the collision, which is why recovery from the roadside, secure storage, repair or the market value of a written-off car, a replacement vehicle while yours is off the road, your out-of-pocket losses and any injury are all recoverable. Because it is not your own policy responding, there is normally no excess to find and no repair bill to settle. CityGrip Recovery collects the vehicle and manages the claim through to settlement. Call 07960 200253, or start online at citygripclaims.co.uk/accident-form.
What counts as a non-fault accident, and what accident management actually is
A non-fault accident is one where another road user caused the damage and you did nothing to contribute to it. There is a trap in the wording, though, and it catches people out constantly. When a driver says "non-fault" they mean they were not to blame. When an insurer says "non-fault" they mean something narrower and more technical: that they recovered every penny of what they paid out from the other side. Until that recovery is complete, an insurer may still hold the incident open as a fault or pending claim on your record even though you were stationary at a red light. Understanding that gap is the key to every money question further down this page, because it explains why a driver who genuinely did nothing wrong can still see an excess taken, a discount held back and a premium move at renewal.
Accident management is the category name for a service that steps in between you and that machinery. An accident management company arranges the recovery, arranges secure storage, arranges a replacement vehicle, arranges the repair or the total loss valuation, presents the whole package of losses to the at-fault driver's insurer and pursues it to settlement. Your own insurer will not do most of that. Your insurer's job is to indemnify you under your policy, which means you claim on your own cover, you pay your own excess, you take whatever courtesy car your policy provides (often a small hatchback, sometimes nothing at all) and you take the hit on your claims record while they chase the other side in their own time. The accident management route runs the claim directly against the person who caused it, so your policy never has to respond.
It matters that you know what we are and what we are not. CityGrip Recovery is a vehicle recovery operator and accident management service based at 68 Ruckholt Road, Leyton, London E10 5NP, working alongside our sister claims service at citygripclaims.co.uk. We are not a firm of solicitors and nothing on this page is legal advice about your individual circumstances. We are not an insurer. We do not decide who was at fault, because liability is a matter for the insurers involved and, if they cannot agree, for a court. What we do is get your vehicle off the road safely, keep it somewhere secure, keep you mobile, assemble the evidence and the costs properly, and put them in front of the right insurer with the right paperwork.
The first hour: what to do at the scene, and who to call in what order
Stop. Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires a driver to stop after an accident that causes injury or damage, and to give their name and address, the name and address of the vehicle's owner and the vehicle's registration mark to anyone with reasonable grounds to ask. If details are not exchanged at the scene, the accident must be reported to a police station or a constable as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within twenty-four hours. Insurance details must be produced where personal injury has been caused. Then make the scene safe: hazard lights on, out of the live lane if you can move, everyone behind a barrier on a fast road, and 999 if anyone is hurt or the carriageway is blocked.
Next, gather the evidence, because it decays fast and the vehicles will be moved within minutes. Photograph both vehicles from several angles before anything is shifted, then the final resting positions, the road layout, any skid marks or debris, the road surface and the weather, road signs and lane markings, and the other vehicle's registration plate in a shot where the plate is legible. Take the other driver's full name, address and telephone number, and their insurer and policy number if they will give it. Names and numbers for independent witnesses are worth more than almost anything else when liability is later argued. Save your dashcam file straight away before the loop overwrites it, and note whether any bus, shop, house or junction camera would have seen it.
Then the calls, in this order. Emergency services first if anyone is injured. Recovery second, so the vehicle is not left where it can be hit again, ticketed or picked over. Your own insurer third, and this part is not optional: nearly every motor policy makes notification of any accident a condition of cover, whether or not you intend to claim, and failing to notify can prejudice or invalidate the policy. Notifying is not the same as claiming. You can tell your insurer an accident happened and state clearly that you are not making a claim on your policy because you are pursuing the at-fault driver directly. Call us on 07960 200253 at any point in that sequence, and we will take the recovery and the paperwork off you.
Who pays for the recovery, the storage and the repairs, and why
The whole model rests on one principle of English law, and it is worth knowing the name of it because it is the answer to almost every "who pays?" question. It is restitutio in integrum: the injured party is entitled to the sum of money that will put them in the same position they would have been in had the wrong not happened. Lord Blackburn stated it in Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 25, and it is still the measure. Applied to a road traffic accident, it means the at-fault driver's insurer is liable not just for the dent but for every reasonable consequence of the dent: getting the car off the road, keeping it somewhere while liability is worked out, repairing it or paying its market value, keeping you mobile in the meantime, and covering what the collision cost you out of pocket.
So recovery from the roadside is a head of loss, not a favour. Storage while liability is investigated is a head of loss too, which is why a car should not simply sit accruing charges nobody has authorised, and why a vehicle held at a police compound or a third-party yard needs release arranging quickly. The test applied to all of it is reasonableness. Reasonable cost, reasonable duration, reasonably incurred. That is why we document the condition of the vehicle on collection, record why storage was needed and for how long, and put the charges to the insurer with the reasoning attached rather than presenting a bill and hoping. If you want the detail of how the roadside side of the job actually works, our accident recovery and emergency services page covers the equipment, the loading and the scene management.
The other half of the same coin is your duty to mitigate. In British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co Ltd v Underground Electric Railways Co of London Ltd [1912] AC 673, the House of Lords held that a claimant must take all reasonable steps to reduce their loss and cannot recover for damage caused by failing to do so. It does not require you to do anything a reasonable, prudent person would not ordinarily do, and it does not mean going without a car to save the other side money. It does mean not running up costs you did not need. Being straight about what you actually needed, and when, is what keeps a claim clean and recoverable in full.
Your excess, your no-claims bonus and your premium: the honest answers
Take the excess first, because it is the question people ask within an hour of the crash. If you claim on your own comprehensive policy, your excess is normally payable up front. Your insurer deducts it or asks the repairer to collect it, and you get it back later once they have recovered their outlay from the at-fault insurer. That can take months, and if liability is split you may not get all of it back. If instead the claim is made directly against the at-fault driver's insurer, there is no policy excess to pay in the first place, for the simple reason that it is not your policy responding. Nobody has agreed a contractual excess with you on somebody else's insurance. That single mechanism is the main reason drivers use an accident management route at all.
Now the no-claims bonus, and here is where most of the industry oversells. You will read a lot of copy promising your bonus is "protected" or "safeguarded" whatever happens. The accurate position is more careful than that. An insurer can record an incident against your policy while liability is being investigated, and your discount can be affected during that period even though you did nothing wrong, because until the money is recovered the insurer is out of pocket. The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes guidance on fault claims and no-claims bonuses, and the position it applies is that where the insurer has recovered its outlay by the time of renewal, an existing no-claims discount should not be reduced because of that claim. If yours has been, that is a complaint worth making.
Premium is a third and separate thing, and it is the one people conflate with the other two. A protected no-claims discount protects the discount percentage. It does not protect the base premium the discount is applied to. Insurers price on claims frequency and exposure, so an incident on your record can move your renewal even where the discount itself is untouched, and a non-fault incident will still show on the Claims and Underwriting Exchange. Nobody can honestly promise you a flat renewal. What using the non-fault route does is keep the claim off your own policy, so your insurer pays out nothing, has nothing to recover, and has the weakest possible reason to move your numbers.
Credit hire explained plainly, and what you are actually signing
Credit hire is the mechanism that gets a replacement vehicle onto your driveway without you paying for it. Rather than hiring a car with your own card and claiming the money back months later, you enter a hire agreement with the hire provider, take the vehicle immediately, and payment is deferred while the charges are pursued from the at-fault driver's insurer. On a claim where liability is clear and you did what you were supposed to do, you never see a bill. That is the whole point of it, and it is why a driver on an ordinary income can stay mobile after a crash they did not cause instead of losing work for six weeks waiting for somebody else's insurer to make a decision.
Because it involves deferred payment, credit hire has been through the courts repeatedly, and the case law is worth knowing because it explains the paperwork. In Dimond v Lovell [2002] 1 AC 384, the House of Lords held that credit hire charges are recoverable in principle, but the extra benefits bundled into a credit hire agreement (the deferred payment and having somebody else run the claim) are not themselves recoverable from the defendant, so the measure is generally the basic or spot hire rate. The same case held that a credit hire agreement can be a regulated agreement under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and is unenforceable against the customer if improperly executed. In Lagden v O'Connor [2003] UKHL 64, the House of Lords held that where a claimant genuinely cannot afford to hire at basic rates, the full credit hire charge is recoverable, because the wrongdoer must take the claimant as they find them. And in Stevens v Equity Syndicate Management Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 93 the Court of Appeal held that where a basic hire rate is applied it is the lowest reasonable rate from mainstream suppliers in the claimant's locality for a comparable vehicle, not an average.
So what are you signing? A hire agreement for a specific vehicle, at a stated rate, for the period you need it, with your promise that the information you have given is true and that you genuinely needed a vehicle. You are usually also asked to complete a mitigation statement or questionnaire, which is a short statement of truth about why you needed the car, what else was available to you and what you use it for. That is not a trap, it is the document that defends your hire against exactly the challenge the cases above describe. Read what you sign, ask what happens if liability is lost or split, and get the answer before you take the keys. Our position is simple: if the claim is genuine, the evidence is clean and the mitigation statement is accurate, the charges go to the at-fault insurer and not to you. If you were partly at fault, or if liability is genuinely in doubt, we will tell you before you commit rather than after.
Your replacement vehicle: like-for-like, how long you keep it, and intervention offers
"Like-for-like" is used loosely across this industry, so it helps to know where the real standard comes from. The ABI General Terms of Agreement, the voluntary agreement between subscribing insurers and credit hire organisations, sets out the operating rules. Under paragraph 4.4 of the 23 April 2021 wording, the hire organisation will normally provide an appropriate class of replacement vehicle based on the customer's need, and customers may opt for a higher class, or a longer hire, at their own cost. Need is the yardstick, not badge envy: a family of five who need seven seats and a self-employed fitter who needs a van both get matched on what the vehicle does for them. Paragraph 4.5 records that where the damaged vehicle is a prestige vehicle over six years old, a similar prestige replacement is the exception rather than the rule, which is worth knowing before anyone promises you an identical car.
On duration, the GTA gives the mechanism rather than a number, and anyone quoting you a fixed number of days without seeing your case is guessing. Under paragraph 4.6 the hire period starts when the customer both needs and takes delivery of the vehicle. Under paragraph 4.8 it ends no later than twenty-four hours after repairs are completed. Where the vehicle is a total loss, paragraph 4.14 sets separate provisions tied to the date the final total loss payment reaches the customer or their representative, so the clock is linked to you actually being paid rather than to the insurer deciding. Paragraph 4.9 requires an insurer wanting to end a hire to give at least one working day's notice. Paragraph 5.3 records what the daily settlement rate includes: free delivery and collection, twenty-four hour breakdown cover, unlimited mileage, and full liability, theft and damage insurance subject to a fifty pound excess.
You may also get a call from the at-fault driver's insurer offering you a free car directly. That is called an intervention, and it is not automatically a bad thing, but do not accept it blind. In Copley v Lawn; Maden v Haller [2009] EWCA Civ 580 the Court of Appeal held that a claimant does not fail to mitigate by turning down such an offer where the offer does not make the cost of the hire to the defendant clear, because without that figure the claimant cannot make a realistic comparison. The practical lesson is to get the offer in writing, including the class of vehicle, the duration and the cost, and to compare it against what you would otherwise incur before you decide. If you want us to look at an intervention offer you have been sent, call 07960 200253 and we will read it with you.
Repairs: your choice of garage, and what to do if you are pushed to an approved network
Be careful with what you read elsewhere on this, because several sites assert a "legal right" to choose your own repairer and cite legislation that does not actually say that. No UK statute confers an express right to choose your repairer in those terms. What is true is this: an insurer can recommend and incentivise its approved network, but it cannot compel you to use it, and a policy term that purported to force exclusive use of an approved repairer would be open to challenge as an unfair term under Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The FCA's Consumer Duty also requires firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, which is hard to square with steering a customer into a repair they do not want.
Where the claim is against the at-fault driver rather than on your own policy, the position is more straightforward again: the choice of repairer is yours, subject to the cost of the repair being reasonable. Insurers push their networks because they have negotiated rates and turnaround targets with those garages, which is a legitimate commercial interest but is not the same as your interest. If you have a marque specialist you trust, a lease or warranty condition requiring genuine parts, or a car where the wrong paint match is a permanent problem, say so early. If you are told you must use a particular garage, ask for that in writing and ask which policy term is being relied on. We will arrange an inspection and a repair with a garage capable of doing the work properly, and put the cost to the at-fault insurer with the estimate and the engineer's report behind it.
If your car is written off: salvage categories, market value and low offers
A write-off means the insurer or engineer has decided the vehicle should not be repaired, and the claim converts from a repair claim into a payment of the vehicle's pre-accident market value. Since 2017 the ABI Code of Practice for the Categorisation of Motorised Vehicle Salvage has used four categories, and they now turn on the type of damage rather than on repair cost against value. Category A means scrap only, with no parts to be removed. Category B means the body shell must be crushed, though some parts may be salvaged. Category S means structurally damaged but repairable. Category N means non-structural damage and repairable. S and N replaced the old C and D. If your car is categorised S or N you can, in principle, retain the salvage and keep the vehicle, with the salvage value deducted from your settlement, and you should think hard about the resale and insurability consequences before you do.
Market value is where the arguments happen. The Financial Ombudsman Service assesses market value using the motor trade valuation guides, naming CAP, Glass's, Autotrader and Percayso, and where an insurer's offer sits materially below the highest guide figure without supporting evidence such as adverts or an expert opinion, the Ombudsman is likely to direct settlement at the highest guide value. That is a useful benchmark to hold in your head when a first offer lands, because a first offer is very often not a best offer.
This is not a fringe grievance. On 27 March 2024 the FCA published the findings of a multi-firm review into insurers' valuation of vehicles. It found that some firms reported average settlement values lower than available guide prices, criticised blanket deductions (including a twenty per cent blanket deduction applied to vehicles that had previously been written off) and criticised low opening offers used as a negotiating tactic, and said firms must make best-estimate initial offers and demonstrate good customer outcomes under the Consumer Duty. If your offer looks low, do not simply accept it. Gather three or four live adverts for the same model, mileage, age and specification within a sensible radius, add the service history and any recent tyres, cambelt or MOT work, and put a written counter-offer in. We will do that work for you as part of managing the claim.
Uninsured drivers, hit-and-run, third-party-only cover, and when the other side goes quiet
Start with a point that reassures a lot of people: your claim against the driver who hit you does not depend on the level of your own cover. It is a common law claim in negligence against them, so a driver with third-party only or third-party fire and theft cover has exactly the same entitlement to recovery, storage, repair, a replacement vehicle and out-of-pocket losses as a driver with fully comprehensive cover. That is precisely the group accident management serves best, because a third-party-only driver has nothing to claim on at home. If your own policy would not have repaired your car, the at-fault driver's insurer still should.
If the other driver had no valid insurance, or cannot be traced at all, there is still a route. The Motor Insurers' Bureau operates two agreements with the Secretary of State for Transport. Claims where the at-fault driver was uninsured fall under the Uninsured Drivers' Agreement 2015, which applies to accidents on or after 1 August 2015. Claims where the driver cannot be traced, which covers most hit-and-runs, fall under the Untraced Drivers' Agreement 2017, which applies to accidents on or after 1 March 2017. They are agreements rather than statutes and neither is retrospective. The practical difference matters: the untraced route is more restrictive on property damage, and under the 2017 agreement MIB is not liable for a property damage claim unless an award for significant personal injury has been paid to a claimant arising out of the same event and the loss exceeds a specified excess. Significant personal injury there means injury resulting in death, two or more nights of hospital in-patient treatment, or three or more sessions of hospital out-patient treatment. Reporting a hit-and-run to the police promptly is essential on that route.
Then there are the ordinary frictions. The other driver gives a false name or a registration that does not match the vehicle. They admit it at the scene and deny it a week later. Their insurer acknowledges nothing for a month. None of that is unusual and none of it means you have no claim. It means the evidence has to carry the case, which is why the photographs, the witness numbers and the dashcam file matter so much. The GTA sets some pace expectations for subscribing insurers: under paragraph 4.1 the hire organisation must notify the at-fault insurer of a potential claim immediately their identity is known, under paragraph 4.2 insurers must respond within five working days, and under paragraph 6.7 insurers will settle claims within one calendar month of dispatch of the full payment pack. If liability is genuinely disputed or an allegation of contributory negligence is made, we will tell you plainly where that leaves the claim rather than letting you find out at the end.
Injury, the whiplash tariff, and the time limits that end your claim
An injury claim sits alongside the vehicle claim rather than inside it. The car damage is one loss; pain, suffering, loss of amenity, treatment costs and lost earnings are others, and they have their own rules and their own deadline. Part 1 of the Civil Liability Act 2018 defines a whiplash injury as an injury to the soft tissue in the neck, back or shoulder, including a sprain, strain, tear or rupture, suffered while using a motor vehicle other than a motorcycle on a road in England or Wales, or while being carried in one, where the duration does not exceed and is not likely to exceed two years. Damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity for those injuries are set by a fixed tariff. The Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 introduced it on 31 May 2021, and the Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025 uprated it for injuries occurring on or after 31 May 2025. Under the current tariff the figures run from £275 for an injury lasting not more than three months to £4,830 for one lasting eighteen to twenty-four months, with slightly higher figures where a minor psychological injury was suffered on the same occasion, and a court may uplift an award by up to twenty per cent for exceptional severity or exceptional circumstances.
Where a claim goes depends on its value. Under Part 26 of the Civil Procedure Rules the general small claims limit is £10,000, and for the injury element the limit is £5,000 in a road traffic accident claim, £1,500 in other personal injury claims, and £1,000 in an RTA claim where the claimant falls into one of the vulnerable road user categories in rule 26.10, which include motorcyclists and their pillion passengers, cyclists, horse riders, wheelchair users and pedestrians. RTA injury claims worth £5,000 or less in pain, suffering and loss of amenity, where the claimant is eighteen or over and the accident happened on or after 31 May 2021, go through the Official Injury Claim service, which is run by the Motor Insurers' Bureau. We can describe that framework to you and refer you on, but we will not put a number on your injury and neither should anybody else before you have been examined.
The time limits are the quiet killer, and they are different for the two halves of the claim. Under section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980 an action founded in tort must be brought within six years of the cause of action accruing, which for damage to your vehicle means six years from the date of the accident. Under section 11 a personal injury claim must be brought within three years of the accident or of your date of knowledge, whichever is later, and section 33 gives the court a discretion to allow a claim outside that period where it is equitable. Different rules apply for children and for those who lack capacity. Long before any of that bites, though, the real cost of waiting is evidential: dashcam loops overwrite, witnesses move, CCTV is deleted on a thirty-day cycle and memories of who indicated when go soft. The strongest claims are the ones started in the first few days.
What it costs you, who we work for, and where to go next
On a genuine non-fault claim you pay nothing. The recovery, the storage, the replacement vehicle and the approved repair are all recovered from the at-fault driver's insurer as heads of loss, and any settlement for your vehicle or your injury is yours. Our fees are low and deliberately transparent, and we will tell you what they are before you sign anything rather than after the money has landed. That is a positioning choice, not a marketing line. Parts of the claims-management sector have historically taken large deductions out of settlements, layered referral fees on top of each other, or presented a driver with paperwork whose real cost only became visible at the end. We think the person who was hit should end up with the money, and the arrangement should be explainable in one sentence. We will not name anybody, but if another firm cannot tell you plainly what comes out of your settlement, ask again until they do.
Some drivers have far more riding on this than a dented wing. If you drive a van, a Luton, a flatbed or any vehicle that is also your income, the loss is not the repair, it is the fortnight you cannot work. The same applies to private hire and PHV drivers, whose licensing, plating and insurance make a random hatchback useless as a replacement. A same-class replacement matters most exactly where the vehicle earns, and loss of earnings is itself a recoverable head of loss where it can be evidenced with invoices, bookings or accounts. Tell us at the first call what the vehicle does for a living so the replacement is specified correctly from day one rather than swapped a week later.
The scenarios we see most are the ordinary ones: rear-ended in stationary traffic, where the evidence is usually the damage pattern and the position of the vehicles; hit while legally parked, where the key evidence is the position of your car and any independent witness or camera; an unsafe lane change or a merge on a dual carriageway, where dashcam is often decisive; a driver pulling out of a side road across your path, where the give-way markings and the point of impact tell the story; and roundabout collisions, where lane discipline and entry point matter more than anything either driver remembers. For the plain-English version of what you are entitled to, read our non-fault accident rights explained guide. For local road detail and how claims work in your part of the capital, see our car accident claim pages for north, south, east and west London. For the roadside side of the job, see our accident recovery and emergency services page. When you are ready, call 07960 200253 or start online at citygripclaims.co.uk/accident-form.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to pay my excess if the accident was not my fault?
Not if the claim is made against the at-fault driver's insurer rather than on your own policy, because there is no excess agreed on somebody else's insurance. If you do claim on your own comprehensive cover, your excess is normally payable up front and is then recovered from the at-fault insurer once liability is settled, which can take months and may not come back in full if liability is split. Using the non-fault route avoids paying it in the first place.
Will a non-fault claim affect my no-claims bonus?
It can, and any firm that promises otherwise is overselling. An insurer may record the incident while liability is investigated, and your discount can be affected during that period even though you did nothing wrong, because the insurer is out of pocket until it recovers. The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes guidance on fault claims and no-claims bonuses, and the position it applies is that where the insurer has recovered its outlay by renewal, an existing discount should not be reduced because of that claim. Claiming against the at-fault insurer instead keeps the claim off your policy entirely.
Will my insurance premium go up even though it was not my fault?
It might, and that is separate from your no-claims discount. A protected no-claims discount protects the discount percentage, not the base premium it is applied to, and insurers price on claims frequency and exposure, so an incident on your record can still move a renewal. Nobody can honestly guarantee a flat renewal. What the non-fault route does is keep the claim off your own policy, so your insurer pays out nothing and has the weakest possible reason to change your numbers.
Is the courtesy car really free?
On a genuine non-fault claim, yes, it costs you nothing. The hire charges are a recoverable head of loss and are pursued from the at-fault driver's insurer, not from you. You will sign a hire agreement so the vehicle can be supplied on credit rather than paid for, and you will be asked to complete a short mitigation statement confirming you genuinely needed a vehicle. Provided the claim is genuine and that statement is accurate, you never see a bill.
What is credit hire?
Credit hire is the arrangement that puts a replacement vehicle with you immediately without you paying for it. Instead of hiring a car on your own card and trying to reclaim the money later, you enter a hire agreement with the provider, take the vehicle straight away, and payment is deferred while the charges are pursued from the at-fault driver's insurer. It is how a driver who cannot afford weeks of hire charges stays mobile and stays working after a crash somebody else caused.
What am I actually signing when I take a credit hire vehicle?
A hire agreement for a named vehicle at a stated rate for the period you need it, plus a mitigation statement or questionnaire confirming why you needed a car and what else was available to you. In Dimond v Lovell the House of Lords held that a credit hire agreement can be a regulated agreement under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and is unenforceable if improperly executed, so the paperwork exists to protect you as much as the provider. Read it, ask what happens if liability is disputed, and get the answer before you take the keys.
What happens if liability is disputed or the claim fails?
We will tell you before you commit rather than after. Credit hire is intended for claims with genuine prospects of recovery from the at-fault driver's insurer, and if liability is genuinely in doubt or contributory negligence is alleged, we will explain plainly what that means for the hire and for the rest of the claim. If you were partly at fault, recovery is usually reduced in proportion rather than lost, but you should hear that at the start and in writing, not at the end.
Can I choose my own repairer?
In practice, yes, and be wary of sites claiming a statutory right, because no UK statute confers one in those terms. An insurer can recommend and incentivise its approved network but cannot compel you to use it, and a term requiring exclusive use of an approved repairer would be open to challenge as an unfair term under Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Where the claim is against the at-fault driver rather than your own policy, the choice is yours subject to the cost being reasonable.
What if I only have third party or third party fire and theft cover?
It makes no difference to your claim against the driver who hit you. That claim is a common law claim in negligence against them, so it does not depend on the level of your own cover. A third-party-only driver has the same entitlement to recovery, storage, repair or market value, a replacement vehicle and out-of-pocket losses as a fully comprehensive driver. This is precisely the situation accident management is most useful in, because you have nothing to claim on at home.
Who pays for the recovery and the storage after an accident?
The at-fault driver's insurer, as part of putting you back in the position you were in before the collision. That principle comes from Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co and it is why recovery and storage are recoverable heads of loss rather than favours. The test applied is reasonableness: reasonable cost, reasonably incurred, for a reasonable period. We document why the recovery and the storage were needed and present the charges with that reasoning attached.
How long can I keep the replacement vehicle?
For as long as you genuinely need it, which is tied to the mechanism rather than a fixed number of days. Under the ABI General Terms of Agreement the hire period starts when you both need and take delivery of the vehicle, and where your car is being repaired it ends no later than twenty-four hours after repairs are completed. Where your car is a total loss, separate provisions link the end of hire to when the final total loss payment actually reaches you. Anyone quoting a fixed number of days without seeing your case is guessing.
What does like-for-like actually mean?
It means a vehicle matched to what you need the car for, not necessarily an identical model. Under paragraph 4.4 of the ABI General Terms of Agreement the replacement is normally an appropriate class based on the customer's need, and you may opt up to a higher class at your own cost. Paragraph 4.5 records that where the damaged vehicle is a prestige vehicle over six years old, a similar prestige replacement is the exception rather than the rule. Tell us what the vehicle does for you, particularly if it is a van or a licensed private hire car.
What if my car is written off and the offer looks too low?
Challenge it, because a first offer is often not a best offer. The Financial Ombudsman assesses market value using the motor trade guides, naming CAP, Glass's, Autotrader and Percayso, and where an offer sits materially below the highest guide figure without supporting evidence it is likely to direct settlement at the highest guide value. The FCA's multi-firm review published on 27 March 2024 found some firms settling below available guide prices and criticised low opening offers used as a negotiating tactic. Gather live adverts for the same model, age, mileage and specification and put a written counter-offer in.
What do the write-off categories A, B, S and N mean?
Under the ABI salvage code used since 2017, Category A means scrap only with no parts to be removed. Category B means the body shell must be crushed, though some parts may be salvaged. Category S means structurally damaged but repairable. Category N means non-structural damage and repairable. S and N replaced the older C and D, and categorisation now depends on the type of damage rather than repair cost against value. You can sometimes retain the salvage on an S or N, with the salvage value deducted from your settlement.
How long do I have to make a claim?
Two different limits apply. For damage to your vehicle, section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980 gives six years from the date of the accident. For personal injury, sections 11 and 33 give three years from the accident or from your date of knowledge, whichever is later, with a court discretion to extend where it is equitable. Different rules apply for children and for people who lack capacity. In practice you should start much sooner, because dashcam footage overwrites, CCTV is deleted and witnesses become impossible to trace.
What if the other driver was uninsured or drove off?
There is still a route through the Motor Insurers' Bureau. Claims where the at-fault driver was uninsured fall under the Uninsured Drivers' Agreement 2015, for accidents on or after 1 August 2015. Claims where the driver cannot be traced fall under the Untraced Drivers' Agreement 2017, for accidents on or after 1 March 2017. The untraced route is more restrictive on property damage: MIB is not liable for a property damage claim unless an award for significant personal injury has been paid arising out of the same event and the loss exceeds a specified excess. Report a hit-and-run to the police promptly.
Do I have to tell my own insurer if I am not claiming on my policy?
Yes. Almost every motor policy makes notifying the insurer of any accident a condition of cover, whether or not you intend to claim, and failing to notify can prejudice or invalidate your policy. Notification is not the same as making a claim. Tell your insurer the accident happened and state clearly that you are not claiming on your policy because you are pursuing the at-fault driver directly, so your cover stays intact and your own claims record stays clean.
Can I claim for injury as well as the damage to my car?
Yes, and it is a separate claim with its own rules and its own three-year deadline. Damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity for whiplash-type injuries in England and Wales are set by the fixed tariff introduced by the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 and uprated by the 2025 amendment regulations for injuries occurring on or after 31 May 2025. Road traffic injury claims of £5,000 or less in pain, suffering and loss of amenity generally go through the Official Injury Claim service run by the Motor Insurers' Bureau. Get examined before anyone puts a number on it.
What does it cost me to use CityGrip?
On a genuine non-fault claim, nothing. The recovery, storage, replacement vehicle and approved repair are recovered from the at-fault driver's insurer, and any settlement for your vehicle or your injury is yours. Our fees are low and stated up front rather than taken quietly out of the end result. If any firm cannot tell you plainly what comes out of your settlement before you sign, keep asking until they do.
What if I was partly at fault, or fault is disputed?
You may still recover, usually reduced in proportion to your share of responsibility, and that is a decision for the insurers involved or ultimately a court, not for us. What we will do is be straight with you about it from the first conversation, gather the evidence that supports your version, and explain what a split liability finding would mean for the repair, the hire and any injury element before you commit to anything.
How do I start a claim?
Call 07960 200253 if the vehicle is still at the roadside or you need it collected today, and we will arrange recovery first and paperwork second. If the immediate emergency has passed, start online at citygripclaims.co.uk/accident-form with the registration of both vehicles, the date, time and location, the other driver's details if you have them and any photographs or dashcam footage. We will come back to you with what you are entitled to and what happens next.
Updated August 2026. Lines open 24 hours. Call 07960 200253.
Had a non-fault accident? Let us take it from here.
Call 07960 200253 for recovery now, or start your claim at citygripclaims.co.uk/accident-form. We will explain what you are entitled to, and what our fee is, before you sign anything.