Over a third of motorists say they’ve suffered financial losses after being involved in a road traffic collision that wasn’t their fault.

An RAC survey found that 36% of drivers have lost out financially because of a “non-fault” accident, with some citing costs as high as £3,000.

Some survey respondents said they had to pay their insurance policy excess; others incurred travel expenses or loss of earnings; and some had to settle the cost of a personal injury compensation claim.

Even the average amount paid out by motorists to cover policy excesses in non-fault insurance claims runs into hundreds of pounds.

The RAC questioned over 2,000 motorists and found that 19% said they’d been involved in a car accident in the past five years. A clear majority of 69% said the other driver had been at fault.

But worryingly, almost one in three motorists said they didn’t have legal expenses insurance in place to cover uninsured losses after accidents.

Those who didn’t have such cover cited all sorts of reasons, saying they thought it was too expensive, a waste of money, or they didn’t think they would ever need it.

Yet among those who did have a legal expenses insurance policy, the average claim was settled for a staggering £5,096.

RAC Legal Services general manager Paul Evans says: “Many people believe that the at-fault party’s insurer will cover all the costs following a collision, but this is not the case as even in the best scenarios drivers still have to pay their excesses which could easily be £150 or more.”

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