When I was in practice for 18 years as a specialist solicitor it was my great pleasure to be in a position to help a great many members of the public. One of the things I enjoyed most about my job was sharing my knowledge with my clients in such a way that it enabled them to understand what were often very complex legal issues.


As a specialist in road traffic matters I was often surprised at how little people understood about motor insurance. Considering how many of the adult population of this country own and therefore insure motor vehicles of all types it often amazed me how few people actually understood the operation of their own motor insurance. This is not their fault in any way but is simply reflective of the fact that the insurance industry has never been particularly inclined, it seems, to tell people the ins and outs.

This lack of knowledge extended to my professional colleagues who practiced in other areas of the law. I ended up giving lectures to other lawyers on motor insurance but fear not this is not simply a re-print of one of my lectures! Good job really or you would soon be asleep like many members of my audience.


It is easiest to understand in its simplest form. The most basic form of motor insurance permissible in the UK is "third party cover", though generally these policies also cover the vehicle if it is stolen or destroyed by fire hence "third party fire and theft".

The giveaway is in the reference to a 'third party'; i.e. not the insured person but someone else. Motor insurance is to a large extent - and to use a technical term - a policy of indemnity. In other words your insurer stands in your shoes when you are at fault as a motorist and compensates those whose property you have damaged or whom you have injured. Motor insurance is therefore, in essence, about the damage you do to other people not what happens to you or your vehicle.

A lot of people have the more expensive fully comprehensive insurance, so how does this differ from third party fire and theft policies?

The only difference with a fully comp policy as against a TPF&T policy is that your insurer will pay for the repairs to your own vehicle regardless of whether the accident was your fault or not. This includes paying to you the value of your vehicle if the cost of the repairs would be greater than the value of the vehicle (this is often referred to as a "write-off").

So let me give you an example:

Let's say you have bought a motor car for ﾣ25,000. You are driving your car and unfortunately you are distracted and don't realise that the car in front has stopped so you run into the back of the other vehicle at considerable speed causing not only extensive damage to the vehicle in front but also injury to the other driver. Your own car is badly damaged and you have sustained a broken right leg.


Let's say that your car is insured with a third party fire and theft policy: what will your insurers pay? In respect of the driver that you ran into, they will pay for the repair or else the value of the vehicle if it cannot be repaired. They will pay damages to the other driver for their injury as well as their losses and expenses arising from the accident and their injury. Without going into great detail of what the different types of damages are likely to be, the legal principle behind this is that "the damages are to put the person in the position they would have been in had the accident not occurred".


Now, the burning question is: what will your insurers pay to you? The answer is very simple: they will pay you absolutely nothing. But I hear you say "the repairs to my car are going to cost ﾣ20,000; who is going to pay that?" Again the answer is very simple: you!

Now, what if your car was insured by a fully comprehensive policy? The situation for the other driver would be the same but the insurers would also pay for the repairs to your vehicle or pay you the value of the vehicle if it wasn't economic to repair it. Like the other driver you were also injured and have suffered losses and expenses as a result of the accident. Who will pay you compensation for your injuries, etc? Again the answer is simple: no one. Your own insurance - even if fully comprehensive - covers only the repairs or write-off value of your car. You can't claim against the other driver's insurers as the accident was entirely your fault.

Now let's turn the scenario completely around: you are now the driver of the car in front and another driver has driven into the back of your stationary vehicle. As in the previous example your car is badly damaged and you have suffered injuries, however this time the accident is clearly the other driver's fault.

As before lets look at the position if you have third party fire and theft insurance. This time the accident is not your fault, so what will your insurers pay for? The answer is again very simple: nothing.

Just for completeness sake, if you had fully comprehensive insurance your own insurance would pay for the repairs to or the value of your car. Bear in mind however that when you collected your repaired car you would have to pay the excess on your motor policy. This means that you would be out of pocket until the excess was recovered from the other driver's insurers. Also, in paying for the repairs to your car your own insurers have had an outlay. This might affect your no claims discount until such time as the cost of repairs is recovered from the other driver's insurers. In neither case are you going to be particularly happy at all.

So it is now clear that every item of compensation, loss or expense arising from the accident has to be recovered from the other driver's insurers. That is why, rather strangely, the damages, losses and expenses arising from a motor accident are called "uninsured losses".


The other driver's insurers are not, however, going to turn up at your house one evening with their cheque book and pay what they owe you, sadly. (and if they do, beware: they certainly wouldn't pay you the full value of your claim!).

Most people either don't have the knowledge or the time to get involved in the hassle of recovering their own uninsured losses. Schemes have grown up over the years to provide a service in recovering for you your uninsured losses, not surprisingly such schemes are called uninsured loss recovery or ULR schemes.


At its heart One1One Accident Aftercare is a ULR scheme but we call it an "accident aftercare" scheme as this title is more readily understood by the public. The scheme, however, does rather more than simply recover the correct amount of money for you from the other at fault driver's insurers.


You may recall earlier (though you may have gone to sleep by now) that I gave a definition of compensation in UK law. For those who didn't realise that I would be asking questions later the definition is as follows: "to put the person in the position they would have been in had the accident not occurred". So that you can take full advantage of this definition we have to do a lot more for you than just collecting in your compensation, losses and expenses for you.

A very good example of the above is the provision of a replacement vehicle while yours is off the road either being repaired or because it is unusable due to the accident. Remember, had the accident not occurred you would have been continuing to have the use of your own vehicle whatever that may be. It is therefore very much in line with the above definition for One1One to supply you with another vehicle as near as possible the same as yours while your own is off the road.


The cost of the vehicle becomes an uninsured loss and is recovered by us, like all your other uninsured losses from the other driver's insurers. This is one of the ways that One1one is able to minimise the inconvenience that being in an accident inevitably involves.

Another example of using the principle of damages proactively on your behalf are the One1One vehicle repair arrangements. By seeing to the arrangement of the repairs to your vehicle for you we are then able to recover the cost as an uninsured loss from the at fault drivers insurers. This not only saves you more hassle and inconvenience but means that your own insurers have not had to pay for the repairs. The net result of this is that you don't have to pay your excess and there will be no impact on your no claims discount - now you're happy.

Without going into detail about every possible type of loss, expense or damage, suffice it to say that One1One will recover for you all the losses, expenses and damages to which you are entitled.

click here to READ ANOTHER INFORMATIVE ARTICLE
click here to JOIN ONE1ONE FOR FREE NOW