A driver who damaged her vehicle in a late-night crash will be reimbursed for her losses after a dispute ruling determination.

The insured lodged a claim after the single-vehicle accident at around 11:30pm on May 3 last year. She said she had been driving at about 50km/h before swerving her car onto a curb to avoid hitting an animal on the road. 

Her car collided with a roundabout and became airborne for a short distance, according to investigators, before crashing down. The vehicle sustained significant damage to its front and was assessed as a total loss. 

Insurer QBE commissioned a forensic investigator, referred to as FAIR, to review the incident and elected to decline the claim based on their findings. 

FAIR reported that the claimant’s vehicle had been unroadworthy and defective, saying she had driven the car with a deflated tyre for at least a kilometre.

The investigator said the driver “would have been provided with ample opportunity to recognise the nearside rear tyre’s deflated condition and respond in an appropriate manner prior to the collision”. 

But the report acknowledged no marks on the road were found to indicate that the tyres had been defective. 

FAIR said that, at the time of their investigation, a spare tyre had been put on the vehicle, and the allegedly deflated tyre had been placed in the car’s back seat. It had been changed after the vehicle was picked up by the tow truck on the night of the accident.

The report observed that two of the vehicle’s tyres had not been roadworthy in accordance with regulations, noting that both displayed tread depths below the legal limit. 

FAIR noted that the vehicle had a sticker on its inside window that said it was due for a service in October last year and that the car’s service logbook had not been completed since 2017. 

“The defective and partially smooth condition of both the vehicle’s nearside tyres would indeed have contributed to vehicle instability and its inability to develop proper grip upon a wet roadway,” FAIR said. 

The investigator said that the vehicle’s “errant path into collision” had not been consistent with a loss of control while attempting to avoid an unexpected hazard and did not believe that an animal ran into the driver’s path. 

The complainant disputed the investigator’s findings and provided the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) hearing with an invoice from her mechanic stating that the vehicle had been serviced a month before the claimed event, as well as a receipt for four tyres that had been purchased. 

She alleged that the vehicle had been tampered with after it was towed based on findings in FAIR’s report, which suggested that the tyres had been changed.

AFCA said the insurer could not rely on its unroadworthy exclusion because the available evidence showed that the car’s tyres had been interfered with.

It noted that the defective tyres identified in FAIR’s report were not the same as those purchased by the claimant when she had her car serviced. It also said the two undamaged tyres were the same brand of tyres as the ones purchased by the driver. 

“There is clear evidence that after the vehicle has been towed away, it has been interfered with by at least one tyre being changed,’ AFCA said.

The ruling required QBE to accept the claim as a total loss and pay the complainant appropriately.

Click here for the ruling.