Auto Insurance Claims: ACCIDENT, preponderance of evidence, own insurance

Question

ACCIDENT   I was in an accident on 24/08/12.My car and the truck that hit my car on the back were both turning on to the same direction on two different lanes.Details were sent out to their broker and this is the email I received from him upon sending a follow up email on the claim I listed."To date, no decision pertaining to acceptance or rejection of liability has been taken, nevertheless, given the circumstances as put forward it is highly unlikely that liability will be accepted, without the case being advanced to litigation".
How much time do I have to get a lawyer to assist me with my claim.How should i reply to them? Should I also send them pics of photos taken at the scene?

Answer
Gertrude,

I'm sorry to hear about the accident; I hope all parties were OK.

Looking at your number plate it appears you are from the UK or another Commonwealth nation.  I am not familiar with the auto claims process outside the USA so beyond some general information I'm afraid I won't be much help.

I would suggest filing a claim under your own Collision coverage, or whatever it is called in your area that covers damage to your own vehicle through your own insurance carrier.  Let them sweat the details with the adverse carrier; that is their job and not yours.

Based on the the very limited scenario presented, I would hazard a guess that each driver is claiming the other came into their lane, causing the collision.  Without witnesses, this usually becomes a word vs. word claim: neither party has evidence to prove legal liability on the other.  The onus is on the claimant to prove liability against the other party; in this case, your burden (or your insurance company's, if you file a collision claim and they then attempt to subrogate the adverse carrier for your damages and deductible) is to prove, by a preponderance of evidence, that their insured breached a duty owed to you and therefore their act of negligence is the proximate cause of your damages.  Without that, their carrier will stand by their insured (as yours would stand by you, if the other driver attempted to claim for their damages against your policy).

If it is a true driver vs. driver loss, without witnesses or other hard physical evidence that proves negligence and therefore liability, it is unlikely an attorney will be able to get any further than you.  You can litigate, but you then have to ask yourself is it worth the expense, and is the evidence there to reasonably succeed?

Such a scenario - being told that in order to force the other carrier to accept liability, you would need to litigate - does not (in my experience) happen in the USA; it is often a violation of various states' Unfair Claims Practices acts to suggest this.  At least, not as explicitly as is being stated to you.

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful, and someone more familiar with the claims practices in your jurisdiction can be of greater assistance than I.