Aint no justice in this world

It was a nice sunny Tuesday, Moi day afternoon, I had just left one of my workmates wedding when driving down Kenyatta avenue a stupid man in a Pajero sped out of Muindi mbingu street on to Kenyatta avenue and straight into my small gari. He took out my left side light, tore into my bumper and completely destroyed my left wing. Despite the guys valiant attempt I was not hurt and so all I had to worry about was my gari. I aksed the guy what he wanted to do about the mess he created and he insisted that he was insured and so I should take it up with his insurance company. A cop came buy looked at the accident, indicated that they guy was on the wrong and used a stone to mark the position of our cars before asking us to move to Uhuru park to settle our maneno's.

The idiot driver kept insisting that the thing should be taken up with insurance so the cop radio'd central police to have a police cop come complete and accident form or some other strange thing like that. Two and half hours later (he must have been in Nakuru or Narok) the cop showed up with an ugly yellow book took our statements insurance details and asked me to go to Milimani the next day buy an accident abstract form for 200/= and then go to Central to have the form completed. I got the abstract a few days later and in it the cops stated that the guy was to blame but no one was to be prosecuted for the accident. Why that idiot was not going to be charged with careless driving or extreme stupidity remains a mystery to me.

Come the next week I reported the case to my insurance company and they indicated that I should take my car to any garage of my choice and after paying an excess of 20K they will be happy to sort it out. I was in shock. I was hit, I did not do anything wrong, the guy who hit me was insured and so I did not see why I should be paying anything. I tried to reason with the guy telling him that there must be a difference between a guy who damages his car by hitting a tree and an innocent guy who gets hit. After a long discussion the guy says that the only reason we are even talking is that I am comprehensively insured. I ask the guy what would happen if I had been a pedesterian and the guy says that in such a case I would have to go to a lawyer. To console me he added that once the car is repaired they will seek to recover the costs from the insurance company of the guy who hit me and if we are lucky they may pay and then I may get my excess paid back.

I then contacted the guys insurance company and told them my dilemma. The person I spoke to told me to file a claim with my insurance company when I told him I did not have money to pay the excess he said that I would then have to lodge a claim to them in writing with a copy of my DL, police abstract and a quotations from a garage. He gave me the name of a garage which quoted 65K for repairs my jua kali mechanic indicated he would charge 8K and knowing the guy he will do the job for 6K. I lodged all the documents and when I called the insurance company again I spoke to someone else who told me that they were in the process of sending me a letter advicing me to file the claim with my insurance company especially since the guy who hit me had not reported the accident to them. What if the guy died in the accident I asked? The guy just laughed. I took the guy through the injustice associated with me an innocent party having to pay excess for damages caused by their client and after a long while the guy confessed that his insurance company would prefer to deal with my insurance company so that incase my insurance company has any of their outstanding claims they can net them off. It then became clear to me that if I paid the excess there was no way I was going to get refunded.

Its now two weeks later, my car is not repaired and so am driving around with a hanging bumper and a mud-guard that is touching the wheel. As for the guy who hit me, his car had massive bull-bars and so hardly has a scratch on it.

I have worked with insurance companies before, and their management are always complaining about how hard it is to sell insurance since the market sees them as liars and conmen. Sooner or later an insurance agent is going to come and try sell me life insurance will anyone blame me if I refuse to buy?

I need a good ambulance chaser.