Settling Car accident damage privately

vinnyv

My Wife had an accident recently and was her fault given the circumstances.
They exchanged names and mobile number and parted own ways, unfortunately she forgot to take the registration number of the third party car involved.
We immediately called our insurance company to report the incident and gave them the third party contact details.
MY insurance company then attempted to call the third party with no avail, later on we got a call from the third party saying that my insurance company tried to call him and he didnt take the call. He proceeded to ask why we want to go through insurance when we can sort this out privately savign us the cost of excess and premium hike if the job may only come to £150.
So we asked him to get a quote for the repairs, 2 hours later he came back that a garage had quoted him £350 and he is willing to accept £300 and swallow the cost of £50. Coveniently our excess is £350, although we didnt pass this information onto the third party.
To cut a long story short, we agreed we would like to settle this privately.
For reason unknown he does not answer his phone but reponds via text, I guess evidence could be the reason.
We said we would like to pay by cheque, he has come back and said that he doesn't have time to bank a cheques beacuse of his work so he can collect cash from us or we do a bank transfer.
We said we can do a bank transfer but need in writing that we have agreed this sum for the incident on day x at x time reg no. By the way we have asked for his registration no and he has ignored the request.
He replied can you do the transfer tonight and I will bring a signed letter to you tomorrow, this obviously rang some alarm bells. We replied back stating that we cannot do a transfer until we have had in writing confirming the agreement.
Since then we have not heard back from him at all.
Because we have already reported the incident to my insurance company already, I'm inclined not to chase him up and let him contact his insurance company if he needs to and let them deal with it.
Any advice, the ball is in his court about my terms to settle privately. as a matter of course do I need to do anything further?
Do i just ignore it if he doesn't come back to me and is it his solely his responsibility to report the incident to his insurance company if he wants to persue further?
Just want to make sure there are no come backs and I don't land myself in hot bother?

lisyloo

Was he in the car at the time?

If anyone was present in the car then you have to be very careful because they have 3 years to claim for personal injury.
If there were minors present I believe it's 3 years from their 18th birthday so could be a very long time limit.
Even small bumps can cause whiplash (or to be more specific claims of whiplash).

My concern is that if you make full & final settlement for the car damage. Even if you tie it up legally, then you still risk a personal injury claim if anyone was present in the car at the time (or claims they were).

My instinct is that this sounds very dodgy.
He clearly wants no paper trail for some reason (perhaps he is uninsured or it's not his car and he doesn't want to admit it to the owner).

Personally if it was me I would be insisting on insurance as it sounds dodgy to me.
If there was no-one in the car can you be absolutely certain that there wasn't a child or baby that was unseen?

I be treating this with a barge pole.
You do not have to justify your reasons to him.

Quentin

This guy has mislead you.

You don't have to pay any excess when your insurer deals with a third party.

And you can reimburse your insurer if it's cost effective and retain your NCD.

By agreeing a cash payment privately you leave yourself open to more claims coming from him in future. As you have reservations, if he contacts you again tell him that you have decided to let the insurers deal with it and suggest he contacts his insurer about the matter.

mikey72

Sounds very dubious.
I would report it to your insurance for information only.
Stress you do not wish to make a claim. If he pursues it then, refer him to the insurers.
If he does, tell your insurance you would like to settle, (if it is still £300).
Having said that, you do not pay any excess on third party claims, only your own, so all you are protecting is your loss of ncd. (I'm assuming you're not claiming for your own car) Your premium will still be loaded though, as you have had an accident, and you will have to declare it.

vinnyv

Hey all,

This is very re-assuring advice, thank you so much.

There wasnt anyone in the car at the time just him, looked late 20's sutied and booted.

I don't want to be watching over my shoulder alll the time, so I will go back to him and tell him to go through insurance. I really dont want the hassle and have to worry about any come backs.

Also thanks for the heads up on excess, I didnt realise. My NCD is protected anyway.

Thanks again, always helpful community.

vinnyv

I have called the guy, as usual not answered so have left a voicemail letiing him know to contact the insurers and let them deal with it.

Also text him, so we have record

To be honest I'm not expecting him to come back, as my suspicions are similar to the replies about the legitimacy of his insurance or ownership of the vehicle.

Will post feedback if anything comes back.

Quentin

Now you have left that message, should he get back in touch by phone you can politely tell him he needs to deal with his insurer and tell him you are terminating the call.

Pass any correspondence you get straight on to your insurer (unanswered) to deal with.

vaio

I agree with the barge pole comments above

vinnyv wrote: »

......To be honest I'm not expecting him to come back, as my suspicions are similar to the replies about the legitimacy of his insurance or ownership of the vehicle.

Will post feedback if anything comes back.

He might not come back but don't forget that the legitimacy of his insurance or ownership doesn’t affect your liability to pay for an accident that was your fault

vinnyv

I stand corrected, he text me back with "OK illl get my insurance involved" Short, sweet and to the point.

Wait to hear back from my insurance company!

lisyloo

He might not come back but don't forget that the legitimacy of his insurance or ownership doesn’t affect your liability to pay for an accident that was your fault

I don't think anyone was suggesting trying to get out of paying.

I was just pointing out that some people do appear to behave oddly if they are in fear of something.
For example if someone is driving their partners car they may fear domestic violence.
This is of no concern to vinny and doesn't change anything but the other person might be trying to get the repairs done without the owner finding out and insurance companies/garages phoning or writing to the owner. This jsut might explain their rather odd behaviour.
Of course they might also be wanting to pocket the cash and leave the damage. Again this does not affect vinny or event the insurer provided full & final settlement is agreed.

mikey72

lisyloo wrote: »

I don't think anyone was suggesting trying to get out of paying.

I was just pointing out that some people do appear to behave oddly if they are in fear of something.
For example if someone is driving their partners car they may fear domestic violence.
This is of no concern to vinny and doesn't change anything but the other person might be trying to get the repairs done without the owner finding out and insurance companies/garages phoning or writing to the owner. This jsut might explain their rather odd behaviour.
Of course they might also be wanting to pocket the cash and leave the damage. Again this does not affect vinny or event the insurer provided full & final settlement is agreed.

Ah, the good old days.
Someone backed into my (old, old) car on holiday once, in a car park.
Nipped round to a local garage who gave us an estimate, they paid me, I gave them a receipt for full and final settlement, paid for the holiday with it, and pounded out the rear panel with a lump hammer until the boot shut again.