What happens when you get into a car accident, that you believe is not your fault, but you only have third party insurance?
That's the question three different drivers asked when they were involved in three separate accidents.
Gary Houng-Lee's Chrysler Voyager isn't doing much voyaging these days.
"We're in a lock up in a shed, where the car's been locked away because it's not driveable," he said.
He was in a car accident last October in Auckland, where a truck and trailer pulled out from an intersection when he was meant to be giving way. Gary was turning right, into the street that the truck was coming from.
"The last thing you'd expect is for him to pull out and he did and I was thinking 'oh my gosh' and I hit him.
"I didn't know that had a give way sign at the time, but I knew that my rules were I had the right of way," he said.
Gary has third party fire and theft insurance with AMI, which means if he gets into an car accident and it's his fault, his insurance company will pay up to $20 million for damage to someone else's car or property.
But the only way damage to his car is covered is if the other party is uninsured, and is at fault.
That fault part is important.
Cheryl Milner, from Whangārei, also had third party, fire and theft cover.
"I'm quite aware of the road," she said.
"I'm quite a cautious driver. In some ways I'm probably a bit of a, I don't know, I'm not really a nana driver, but I'm definitely not zip zoomy."
But Cheryl and her wheels are turning heads. People are starting to recognise her car now. Not for how nice it is, but because of the dents in the front of her car.
The dents are left over from a car accident Cheryl had in February. She had pulled over to answer her phone, took the call and then was pulling out of her park, back onto the road.
"I was a decent way, nearly halfway up the car in front of me," she said.
"I see this flash of a car. I scream. I brake and the car just slams into me."
Cheryl feels very strongly the other driver is to blame, but they're not taking responsibility.
At the time Cheryl had third party insurance with Tower, and had a similar to policy to Gary.
Amanda Scorgie, from Auckland had third party insurance too, without the fire and theft cover. But her policy had that same emphasis on fault.
She's been using her partner's work ute since her accident in March.
"The traffic was quite built up, so we were at a standstill," she said.
"I pulled into the median with my indicator on to suggest that I'm obviously travelling down to my right and a car pulled out from the stopped traffic and side swiped the whole left side of my car.
"I was shocked, very shocked, because it just came out of nowhere and it almost pushed the car onto the other side of the road," she said.
"There was no way that he could claim that I was at fault, due to the damage of the vehicle."
All three put in claims with their insurance companies. All three believed they were the innocent party, and in Gary's case, his insurer AMI, agreed.
"They said it looks pretty clear to them that I was in the right and that they would follow it through," he said.
But the other party's insurance company, SMARTpak Crombie Lockwood, disagreed.
"They said that no, their person was not at fault, then my insurance company said, sorry Gary, we can't do anything for you."
This left Gary with few options.
"I'm not happy at all because I felt that if they stood in the gap for me, they're a lot larger and they know how to deal with insurance," he said.
"I just paid the bills for the last 50 years."
But AMI, who are under IAG, say under his policy, an insurance company isn't required to assist its customers in pursuing recovery for damage to their vehicle.
An IAG spokesperson said: “We helped Mr Lee on multiple occasions, by making contact with the other party’s insurer on his behalf.'
"If customers are not happy with the outcome of their claim, they have the option to have their case determined by the Disputes Tribunal."
Cheryl's insurer at the time, Tower Insurance, said the other party was at fault and like IAG, say they aren't required to push her case further.
Tower Insurance CEO Blair Turnbull says: “In this case we went above and beyond for our customer and assisted her to lodge a claim with the other insurer.”
But Cheryl isn't happy with Tower Insurance's service.
"I'm not happy with the way they've treated me after I've been with them for so many years and pretty much if was you know, all the best," she says.
"I lost complete faith in the integrity of the insurance companies to actually do right by the person affected."
To this, Turnbull says: “We are always striving to best support our customers and it is disappointing to hear that our customer feels we haven’t achieved this.”
Chief executive of the Insurance Council of New Zealand, Tim Grafton, says this is where the disappointment factor may come in.
"Many of our companies now have plain English policies, to try and make our policies more understandable to people."
He says third party cover does help.
"If you had an accident and you ran into the back of a Lamborghini, which I don't know what a Lamborghini costs but it might be $300,000, and if it was a write-off, then you would be liable for that $300,000 if you were at fault, so it does provide you with valuable cover."
Amanda says her insurance at the time, AA Insurance, helped her as much as it could, before she took on the other party's insurer, QBE Australia. But it still wasn't easy.
“It got to the point where I was on the phone in tears," she said.
"I was actually demanding that I'm gonna have to go to the media and I'm gonna have to take this further."
After weeks and weeks of back and forth, and talking to several different departments, Amanda finally got a result from QBE Australia.
It paid out the value of her written-off car.
A QBE spokesperson told fair go the decision was straightforward but regretted the delay in getting there, which shows the process can work and not just for write offs.
Third party cover is meant to help with damages, especially when like Gary, the driver isn't at fault.
"We've come to you in good faith to insure our cars,” Gary said.
"You know how the system works, and you should follow it through to ensure that your client gets the car repaired even if its paid for by the other insurance company".
In Gary's case, the other driver's insurer SMARTpak Crombie Lockwood said their client wasn't at fault, so they wouldn't be covering Gary's damages.
"It just makes you angry," he said.
"It's not only me, it's everybody else that's on third party are going to have the same issues".
In Cheryl's case, the other party's insurer was NZI, also under IAG. An IAG spokesperson responded to her case and says: “Following the statements and evidence provided by Ms Milner and our customer, we considered both parties to be equally at fault for this accident.”
But Cheryl asks, "How can you drive forward and hit something directly, you know, drive straight into something and not see it?"
IAG has invited Cheryl to provide further evidence, if that doesn’t work, her only option is the Disputes Tribunal.
The boss of the Insurance Council says your insurer can help with that, and Cheryl says she's going to keep fighting.
"I'm gonna continue to pursue it until my car's fixed."
Third party cases come down to who was at fault and whether it can be proved.
Andrew McGregor is an expert crash investigator and although he can't determine who is at fault in an accident, in Gary's case, he can determine who should've given way.
Fair Go took him to the site of Gary's accident to see if he could help us make sense of it all.
"At first glance the truck should have given way to the car," he said.
This means that the truck should have stopped at the intersection and given way to Gary who was turning right.
But Andrew says the road code also says that just because somebody has to give way to you, doesn't necessarily mean you have right of way. He also states that modern safety etiquette says that its everybody's responsibility to keep each other safe.
We sent Andrew's report to SMARTpak Crombie Lockwood to see if it would reconsider their decision about Gary's case.
They did, a positive result for Gary.
SMARTpak Crombie Lockwood officially says: "Once we learnt from Fair Go that Mr Houng-Lee was not satisfied with the outcome, we passed the file to the insurer to review the claim.
"Upon review, and further discussion with our client, liability has been accepted on their behalf and Mr Houng-Lee’s third party claim will be progressed."
Although satisfied with the outcome, Gary says it hasn't changed his mind about third party insurance, and he wouldn't use that as an option of insurance again.
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