Van insurance company lied

I feel that my husband has recently been very unfairly treated by our van insurance company.  He had an accident a couple of years ago and the company settled the insurance claim for the van almost straight away.  However the claimant (other person in the accident), has now decided to claim for damages to a sum of £1407!

This went to Sheffield County Court and we were advised by our insurance company that we would be represented by their own solicitors.  I rang the insurance company the day after court case (3rd of February 2007) and was told that the case had been settled and paid.  Well they were obviously lying because I rang Sheffield County Court recently and the claim has apparently not been paid.  Now my husband has ended up with a CCJ on his file. We would have paid the claim ourselves if we had known this was going to be the result of the useless lying insurance company.

I think this is a serious matter.  Does anyone know whether or not it might be possible to sue the insurance company in this case?  Should we just pay up for the claim ourselves and then try to recover the money back from the insurance company, thereby getting the CCJ removed as soon as possible?

If anyone has a similar situation to this or has had similar dealings with an insurance company I would like to know.  Also, if someone could recommend a good solicitor that would deal with this kind of case that would be very helpful.

Our insurance company is based in Ipswich and they are not going to get away with destroying our credit history.  To make matters worse we are trying to get a mortgage at the moment.  WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

By: By: Kazzerella