UK cities
45+
Direct coverage
Contact
Speak to UK accident support
Send us a message or call our team. For new accidents, you can also start the digital accident form.
- 24/7 UK dispatch
- £0 upfront cost
- Independent engineer
- Like-for-like replacement
24/7
UK response
Recovery dispatch and live claim handlers, 365 days a year.
Response
<60m
First contact SLA
Cost
£0
Upfront to driver
How do I contact CityGrip after a non-fault accident?
Call 0330 043 3409, email support@citygripclaims.co.uk, or use the online accident form. Call first if the vehicle is unsafe, blocking traffic, on a motorway or needs recovery. Use the form if you are safe and want to provide a structured evidence record.
The details that let a handler open the file cleanly
You do not need a perfect evidence pack to contact us. The first conversation is about making the vehicle safe, preserving the evidence that may disappear and deciding whether the claim should start through recovery, repair management, replacement vehicle screening, insurer notification or a Motor Insurers' Bureau route.
If you are still at the scene, safety comes first. Move to a safe place if you can, call 999 if anyone is injured or the road is blocked, and exchange names, addresses, registrations and insurer details with the other driver. If it is safe, take wide photographs showing the road layout, traffic lights, signs, lane markings, vehicle final positions, debris and impact points. Short video panning around the scene can be useful where still photographs miss lane position or visibility.
If the accident happened earlier, gather the documents that will help the handler: your registration, make and model, mileage, insurer, policy type, the third-party vehicle details, police reference if one exists, dashcam, witness names, any repair or storage paperwork, and any message already received from the at-fault insurer. For taxis, private hire, courier, fleet or commercial vehicles, include licence, operator, route, telematics or earnings evidence where relevant.
We keep ordinary enquiries, complaints and data-rights requests separate. Claim support uses the main contact route; complaints use the complaints email and policy route; subject access, deletion and correction requests use the data protection route. That separation matters because each route has a different response standard, audit trail and escalation process.
Choosing the right channel
Call, form, email or complaint route?
Call now
Use phone if the vehicle is not driveable, the road is blocked, police or National Highways are involved, or recovery and storage need to be arranged before charges build up.
Accident form
Use the form if you are safe and want to submit a structured record with evidence, third-party details, consent choices and signature capture.
Email support
Use email for follow-up documents, repair invoices, photographs, dashcam links, engineer reports or written questions after the file is open.
Complaints or data rights
Use the dedicated complaints or data protection addresses so the request is logged against the correct policy, timescale and responsible person.
How the first contact becomes a claim file
Once your message or form arrives, the first task is triage. A handler checks whether the vehicle is safe, whether recovery or storage is urgent, whether the third-party insurer is known, whether police or National Highways are involved, and whether any evidence source needs to be requested before it disappears.
If recovery is needed, the file opens around the vehicle location, driveability and destination. If the vehicle is already recovered, the handler checks the storage location, release position and whether an independent engineer can inspect before repair or salvage instruction. If the vehicle is driveable, the file often starts with repair management, engineer inspection and replacement-vehicle need screening rather than a tow.
The insurer-contact stage is separate. We record what has already been said to the at-fault insurer, whether any recorded statement has been requested, whether any first offer has been made, and whether the insurer has tried to direct the repair into its own network. That history helps the handler decide whether to notify, challenge, clarify or pause until evidence is ready.
Consent is handled carefully. Accident-management consent, data-sharing consent, marketing consent and injury-referral consent are separate decisions. We do not treat a support enquiry as consent to market to you or to refer an injury claim. If personal injury is mentioned, the handler explains that CityGrip is not a law firm and that any legal advice must come from an authorised solicitor.
RESPONSE PRIORITIES
03
Section 3 of the walkthrough.
What we prioritise first
Not every message is handled in the same order. Safety and evidence preservation come first, then insurer deadlines, then ordinary document updates.
Urgent files are those where the vehicle is blocking traffic, sitting in expensive storage, on a motorway recovery route, uninsured-driver evidence is time-sensitive, or CCTV may need to be requested before a short retention period expires. Those enquiries are routed to a handler for same-day triage. Lower-risk updates, such as additional photographs, repair invoices or address changes, are added to the file and acknowledged through the ordinary support route.
Where a complaint, subject access request, deletion request or vulnerable-customer adjustment is included inside an ordinary claim message, we separate it internally so the correct policy owner handles it. That avoids the common problem where a customer thinks they have raised a formal complaint but the message is treated only as a claim update. It also means urgent vehicle-safety decisions are not delayed while a separate regulatory or data-rights request is being logged.
Channel-specific service levels
What each contact route does and how quickly it responds
CityGrip operates separate intake routes because each one carries a different regulatory clock, a different responsible owner and a different evidence trail. Knowing which route to use saves time and avoids the common error of a complaint being treated as a claim update or a subject access request sitting in a general inbox until the statutory window has narrowed.
The accident-intake telephone line is answered by a triage handler around the clock. Same-day acknowledgement is given for messages received before 18:00 on a business day; messages received later are acknowledged the next working morning. Vehicle-safety calls (blocking traffic, motorway recovery, unsafe storage) are triaged inside the call and routed to a recovery controller without a callback queue. Repairer and engineer commission requests are coordinated through the claims handler assigned to the file, not through the intake line, because the handler holds the engineering authority and the at-fault insurer correspondence history.
Complaints sent to the dedicated complaints address are logged on receipt with a written acknowledgement inside three business days and a final response inside eight weeks - a framework voluntarily modelled on the Financial Conduct Authority FCA DISP 1 Handbook and CMCOB 7, even though CityGrip is a UK accident claim management business and is not directly bound by either. Data protection requests sent to the data address are handled by the data lead and must receive a response inside one calendar month under ICO right of access guidance. Vulnerable-customer adjustment requests are flagged on receipt and a named handler is allocated, removing the request from the general queue.
Each route has limits. Telephone calls cannot grant a formal complaint acknowledgement in writing; an email is still needed. The accident form cannot replace a written subject access request; data requests must specify the individual and the records sought. Partner referrals to authorised legal firms cannot be made without separate written consent, and engineer commissioning cannot be authorised through a general inbox because the instruction is a contract step that requires a handler signature.
Accessible-format options
Equality Act 2010 adjustments and Consumer Duty support
Anyone contacting CityGrip can request an accessible format under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010, which places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage when accessing a service.
On request we provide large print correspondence, plain-English summaries of insurer letters and engineer reports, easy-read versions of consent forms, and written confirmations of telephone discussions. British Sign Language relay calls are supported through the user's preferred relay service; we will accept an inbound relay call on the standard hotline and will book an outbound relay slot if the customer specifies a time window. Translation into a community language is arranged through a professional interpreter rather than a family member where the conversation involves consent, insurer instructions or a settlement figure.
Where the customer lacks mental capacity for the decision in front of them, a third party can be appointed under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. A registered lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs, a court-appointed deputy or a written authority signed in the presence of an independent witness will be accepted; the file is then conducted with that representative as the contact of record. For customers without a formal arrangement, we apply the FCA vulnerable-customer framework in FG21/1 and the Consumer Duty principle set out at PRIN 2A: slower pace, written follow-ups, no time-pressured decisions and a recorded note of the adjustment on the file.
What we never ask for
Information CityGrip will not request through a contact form
A genuine accident-management intake does not need bank login details, a National Insurance number, a password or photographic identity documents before the file is even opened. If you receive a message that asks for any of those things in the name of CityGrip, treat it as suspicious and call the published hotline number to verify.
We will not ask for online banking credentials, card CVV numbers, sort codes for a payment that we have not first confirmed in writing, or passwords to any insurance, DVLA, HMRC or government account. We will not request a National Insurance number through a public form; it is not needed to open a non-fault accident management file, and the only related point at which earnings evidence is reviewed is if a partner law firm later assesses a loss-of-earnings claim with separate written consent. Photographic identification is not required to instruct accident management; it is requested only at the point of formal claim instruction and is held under the data-minimisation principle in UK GDPR Article 5(1)(c).
Requesting these items by deception is a criminal offence under sections 2 and 3 of the Fraud Act 2006, and as a claims management firm we are required to operate clear customer communications under CMCOB 4.2. If you are unsure whether a message asking for sensitive information genuinely came from us, forward the message to the complaints address and we will confirm in writing.
Call recording
What we record, what we do not, and how to request a copy
Inbound and outbound telephone calls to the accident hotline are recorded for quality assurance, training, dispute resolution and regulatory evidence. A recorded notice is played before the conversation begins so that the caller can choose to continue or to switch to email. Internal calls between handlers and third-party insurers, recovery operators or engineers are also recorded where those organisations operate their own recording.
We do not record video calls, do not retain dropped voicemails beyond the handler retrieval window, and do not record incidental conversations made on personal devices outside the rostered handler system. Recording does not apply to messages sent through the website contact form, the accident-evidence form or email, which are stored under the ordinary data-retention policy rather than the call-recording policy. Recordings are retained for a period proportionate to the regulatory purpose, in line with the ICO call-recording guidance, and securely destroyed afterwards.
You can ask for a copy of any recording in which you are the caller under your right of access at UK GDPR Article 15, and you can ask for erasure under Article 17, subject to the regulatory and legal exemptions that permit retention for complaint defence, fraud investigation or ongoing litigation. Send the request to the data protection address with enough detail to identify the call (rough date, telephone number used and the handler name if known) and we will respond within one calendar month.
Injury notification timing
The 14-day OIC notification window - day 13 versus day 15
For low-value road traffic injury claims involving adult drivers and passengers in vehicles, the Official Injury Claim portal is the route created under the Civil Liability Act 2018. Contacting CityGrip before any injury notification is sent gives the handler time to brief you on the difference between accident management (vehicle recovery, repair, replacement) and the injury route, which is separate.
If you contact us inside 14 days of the accident, there is space to gather medical evidence, line up an independent engineer for the vehicle, decide whether a replacement vehicle is needed and have a calm conversation about whether a Pre-Medical Offer should be accepted or declined. A claim notified inside the portal cannot be withdrawn lightly once liability admissions and valuation steps have begun, so day 13 is generally too early to act without triage and day 15 is no longer an early-stage decision because some evidence sources, such as roadside CCTV, may already have been overwritten by then.
If you contact us after 14 days, accident management can still proceed. Vehicle-side recovery, storage and credit hire authorities remain available under the established credit-hire and credit-repair case law, and the injury route remains open within the three-year limitation period set out in section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980. What changes after 14 days is the urgency of evidence preservation: dashcam and CCTV requests, witness statements and engineer inspection of the vehicle before salvage instructions become time-sensitive.
If you are unhappy
How to escalate a complaint
Every complaint starts in writing to the dedicated complaints address. Our internal framework is voluntarily modelled on the FCA Dispute Resolution sourcebook, DISP 1, and the claims-management complaint-handling rules in CMCOB 7. CityGrip Accident Claims is a UK accident claim management business and is not directly bound by either; we apply the same standards as a quality benchmark.
Within three business days of receipt, the complaint is acknowledged in writing. Within eight weeks of receipt, the complaint receives either a final response letter, which explains the outcome, the reasoning and the next-step options, or a written holding response that explains why a final response has not yet been issued and when one is expected. The Financial Ombudsman Service does not have jurisdiction over CityGrip itself because we are not an FCA-authorised firm; the FOS does cover complaints against any FCA-authorised partner we may have introduced you to. Solicitor-conduct complaints are handled by the SRA / Legal Ombudsman. Data-handling complaints can be made to the ICO, and any unresolved complaint against CityGrip can be referred to the County Court. The relevant FOS scheme is described at the Financial Ombudsman Service. The FCA’s own consumer-facing description of complaint rights is at FCA - how to complain.
A complaint is not the same as a subject access request. If the underlying issue is the accuracy or use of personal data, the data protection address handles the request under the UK GDPR. Both routes can be used in parallel where the customer is unhappy with the handling and also wants a copy of the data on file; the two routes do not interfere with each other and neither route pauses the regulatory clock on the other.
Vulnerable-customer adjustments
What we recognise and what we do differently
The FCA expects regulated firms to recognise the four drivers of vulnerability - health, life events, resilience and capability - and to adapt service so that outcomes are not worse for vulnerable customers than for any other customer. That expectation is set out in finalised guidance FG21/1 and reinforced through the Consumer Duty in PRIN 2A. CityGrip Accident Claims is a UK accident claim management business and is not directly bound by either standard, but we voluntarily apply the same framework as our quality benchmark.
We treat the following circumstances as triggers for adjustment: a recent bereavement; a declared mental-health condition or recent diagnosis; cognitive impairment, dementia or recovery from a head injury; English as an additional language; hearing or sight impairment; physical injury following the accident itself; serious financial difficulty including arrears, benefit-only income or recent job loss; and any other circumstance the customer chooses to tell us about. The customer does not have to use the word "vulnerable" to receive the adjustment; a description of the difficulty is enough.
On recognition, the file moves to a longer response window of up to ten working days for non-urgent decisions, written confirmation is sent after every call, decisions that cannot be reversed are paused until the customer has had time to consider them, calls are conducted in plain English without insurer jargon, and a third-party representative is invited onto the file with the customer's written authority. Where the vulnerability is financial, no payment request, credit-hire signature or repair authority is sought until the customer understands the no-upfront-cost basis on which the file operates.
Out of hours
What happens if you call at 03:00 or over a Bank Holiday
The accident hotline is operated continuously because road traffic collisions do not stop at 17:00. Out-of-hours calls are answered by a triage handler with authority to instruct recovery, arrange secure storage, give safety advice and open the file; they do not have authority to settle or to make a binding insurer-facing decision overnight, which is reserved for daytime claims handlers with the file context.
At 03:00 on a weekday, a call about a live scene - vehicle in a live lane, occupants outside on a motorway hard shoulder, third party leaving the scene - is treated as an emergency: the handler will first remind the caller to dial 999 if anyone is injured or the road is blocked, in line with gov.uk motorway guidance, and then to contact National Highways on 0300 123 5000 for any incident on the strategic road network. Recovery is then booked while the caller remains on the line.
Weekend and Bank Holiday contact is handled in the same way. The handler will open the file, instruct any urgent recovery and storage, and book a daytime callback from the assigned claims handler on the next working morning so that insurer correspondence, engineer commissioning and replacement-vehicle decisions are made by the named owner of the file rather than overnight. Where the customer prefers not to receive an early-morning callback, a written-only update can be requested instead.
Frequently asked questions
- What should I include when I contact CityGrip after an accident?
- Include the date, time and location of the accident; whether anyone was injured; whether the vehicle is driveable; your registration; the third-party registration and insurer if known; photos, dashcam or witness details; and whether police attended or gave a reference. You can still contact us if you do not have everything yet.
- Should I call or use the online accident form?
- Call if the vehicle is blocking traffic, not driveable, on a motorway, in unsafe storage, or if you need immediate recovery. Use the online accident form if you are safe and want to upload a structured record with evidence, consent choices and insurer details.
- Can I contact you before speaking to the at-fault insurer?
- Yes. Many non-fault drivers contact us before giving a recorded statement, accepting a repairer, or agreeing to a replacement vehicle from the at-fault insurer. We can explain the accident-management route and what evidence should be preserved before a decision is made.
- Do you give legal advice through the contact form?
- No. The contact form is for accident management enquiries: recovery, storage, repair, engineer inspection, credit hire and insurer communication. Personal injury or legal-advice enquiries are referred only with your separate written consent to authorised legal partners.
- How are complaints, data requests and ordinary claim enquiries separated?
- Claim enquiries go to the support team, complaints go to complaints@citygripclaims.co.uk and data protection requests go to data@citygripclaims.co.uk. Keeping those routes separate helps us apply the correct response deadline, escalation route and audit trail.
- Can vulnerable customers contact you in a different format?
- Yes. Tell us if phone calls, written communication, language, timing, disability, injury, distress or financial difficulty affects how you prefer to communicate. We can slow the process down, summarise steps in writing and separate consent decisions more clearly.