Hi,
According to the Road Traffic Act, you can (or could) avoid the requirement for Third Party insurance, by depositing £1,000,000 with the Attorney General. The Supermarket Chain who owned the pantechnicon that wrote of Barbara's SAAB obviously found this to be cheaper than paying for insurance.
The supermarket ignored all correspondence from our insurer, at which point most victims will cease fighting.
Luckily, at my insistence, Barbara had paid the extra (£10?) for Legal Protection.
The supermarket settled on the courthouse steps, which meant the return of Barbara's full NCD, and the wiping of any "black mark" from her insurance record, plus the virtual return of the "first £1,000" of any claim. Our insurers will have recovered the sum they had payed for Barbara's "write off", and presumably their "costs". Barbara can now reply "FULL CLAIM AGAINST OTHER PARTY" to any question about her insurance history.
According to what I read in the Press, Third Party insurance now costs more than Fully Comp ... which I presume the insurers can justify?
602