Hit a badger, need advice!

jc123rules

I hit a badger pretty hard towards the end of last month and it caused quite a bit of damage. The cooling & AC rad are rendered useless (leaking), front bumper is unrepairable, both fog lights have gone, outside temp sensor has been ripped out, bottom of front panel has been broken (non-existent) and to top things off the badger even managed to snap my exhaust's back box off on the way out

Here's my situation, I'm 19 and I'm just under 3 weeks away from getting my 1st no claims bonus, if I put in a claim now just before I get my no claims what will happen to my insurance premium? I managed to source a new main colling rad so I fitted that so the car was just about useable again, I went and got some quotes because obviously I really want the no claims as I'm still a young driver but the garages said it was gonna cost £1000-1450 to get the car fixed even with the new rad I bought.

So you can see my problem, I'm not really sure what to do because I've heard if I put a claim in now my insurance will go up 20% and if that's the case I don't see how it's fair as you can be the safest driver in the world and still hit a bloddy big badger!


Any advice would be great , by the way my car is a mk6 ford fiesta and I'm with Quinn Direct under a fully comprehensive policy with me as the named driver.

adamc260

'Technically' speaking you need to inform your insurer of any incident.

If you make a claim, you'll pay your excess, have your NCB affected and your premium will shoot up for it! So it's really working out whats going to be best for you

Your first years NCB generally gives you 30% discount off I would imagine... a fairly large premium! Got a 0% Credit card you can put it on and pay it off over the term? =/

gregd_3

Try getting some quotes from the comparison website based on making a claim/not making a claim then make up your mind what to do after this.

It might be that because you are an inexeperienced drivers and also suffered a claim that some insurers wont even quote you a price or, it will be very expensive.

PS - you sure it wasn't a cow you hit with that much damage!!

adamc260

gregd wrote: »

Try getting some quotes from the comparison website based on making a claim/not making a claim then make up your mind what to do after this.

It might be that because you are an inexeperienced drivers and also suffered a claim that some insurers wont even quote you a price or, it will be very expensive.

PS - you sure it wasn't a cow you hit with that much damage!!

If your going to do that, make sure you use a fake name/address (thats a few doors down)/tel no and probably best not to put your car reg in, manually find your car No trace and all :P

jc123rules

gregd wrote: »

PS - you sure it wasn't a cow you hit with that much damage!!

No word of a lie, the biggest badger I've ever seen! The badger popped out of nowhere, it ran across the road, saw my headlights and decided to run staright back across right into my path (was so close to not hitting the thing)


Thank's for all your help, ran some quotes through with a theoretical claim based on the garage repair quotes and the cheapest option that came up was my current insurer Quinn Direct at £4100

Think I'm going to get the car repaired myself and pay it off monthly, once again thank's for all your help!

gregd_3

jc123rules wrote: »

Think I'm going to get the car repaired myself and pay it off monthly, once again thank's for all your help!

Wise move!!

no-oneknowsme

jc123rules wrote: »

I hit a badger pretty hard towards the end of last month and it caused quite a bit of damage. The cooling & AC rad are rendered useless (leaking), front bumper is unrepairable, both fog lights have gone, outside temp sensor has been ripped out, bottom of front panel has been broken (non-existent) and to top things off the badger even managed to snap my exhaust's back box off on the way out

Here's my situation, I'm 19 and I'm just under 3 weeks away from getting my 1st no claims bonus, if I put in a claim now just before I get my no claims what will happen to my insurance premium? I managed to source a new main colling rad so I fitted that so the car was just about useable again, I went and got some quotes because obviously I really want the no claims as I'm still a young driver but the garages said it was gonna cost £1000-1450 to get the car fixed even with the new rad I bought.

So you can see my problem, I'm not really sure what to do because I've heard if I put a claim in now my insurance will go up 20% and if that's the case I don't see how it's fair as you can be the safest driver in the world and still hit a bloddy big badger!


Any advice would be great , by the way my car is a mk6 ford fiesta and I'm with Quinn Direct under a fully comprehensive policy with me as the named driver.

From the wording of your post - the bit above in red , it sounds as though you own the car but you are only a named driver on the policy (ie someone else is recorded as being the main driver). Is this correct or was it just the way I picked it up?

Morph4610

How's the badger?