Excess money not paid back to client

About more then a year ago we were involved in an accident. The guy that caused the accident waa a foreigner. The guy was willing to pay us our excess but the insurance advices us not to take any money from him because then our claim will be null and void and we will be liable for the whole amount payable. So since then we havent received our excess money back from the insurance. And according to them the guy that caused the accident refused to pay the claim as he had no insurance. So what i want to know is that its been over a year, I paid my insurance every month so why am I the one the gets penalized because someone with no insurance drove into me..