"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote in message
...
On 17 Apr 2005 19:40:19 GMT, Ian Smith wrote
in message :

No comment really, beyond the fact that I wonder how their courts
would cope if every case of a pedestrian being injured when hit by a
car resulted in a three year court case.

It pretty much does. Insurance companies will delay paying until the
very last possible moment. I think it took me over two years to get
the first part of compensation (for the trashed bike) when I had my
worst crash, and the final settlement came only after visits to
specialists in London and all sorts of other crap.


Two to three years is pretty much par for the course in anything more than a
very straightforward case. One of the reasons for this is that the
limitation period for injury claims is three years - any court action has to
be started within that period, but it does not have to be started before.
Insurance co's will often protract settlement for as long as possible - I
suppose the longer they keep the money the more they think they can earn on
it, and in any case for bad injury cases it can often take quite a while for
the prognosis, and therefore the value, of the claim to become clear,
whether or not it gets to court.

In any event the delay doesn't affect the courts at all - cases don't start
in court, they only sometimes end there. Because they may take a long time
getting to court it doesn't mean they take any more court time once they're
there.

Rich