I was hit by a car while stopped at a school crossing.

[boo3]

I was driving home one afternoon after just collecting my daughter from school.
As we approached a primary school, the school crossing patrol, signalled the traffic to stop.
I did and there was one other car also stopped in front of me. Approx 40-50 seconds later while the school crossing patrol person was in the middle of the road and at least half a dozen children/parents were mid crossing a car drove straight into the back of me. He hit us so hard we were shunted into the car that was stopped in front of us.
Immediately the driver who hit us jumped out of his car and apologised saying he'd looked out of his window for a second and not notice we had stopped. He admitted he was at fault. We all exchanged details, I contacted my insurance company etc etc, Now six wks on the insurance company are saying the other driver is not admitting liability and it looks like it will take a while to investigate as to who was at fault they say its a grey area when trying to establish who was at fault...HOW could it be, How could I have avoided this.

[boxtops]

Boo3, I used to work in car insurance and the person at the back of a shunt is always held to be the one at fault (unless the person at the front has done something really stupid, of course). How he can contest this is beyond me but people do. We were involved in a shunt a few years back, the guy behind us rammed us at an interchange and the cars in front were stopped - the chap at the back had to settle all the claims. Car we hit claimed off us but we just bounced it straight back to our insurance company to deal with. They will try anything to get out of it, keep your details of what happened very clear in your mind. If you and the car in front hadn't been there, he could have run over the school kids on the crossing. Stand your ground - if the guy who hit you admitted that it was his fault, he's shot himself in the foot - make sure that you and his insurance know exactly what he told you at the time.

[tamborine]

Some motor repairers run schemes whereby they repair your car instantly & claim off the offenders insurance company for you....leaving you free of further worry.