Accident in hire car - insurance?

LittleMrsThrifty

My employer recently hired a car for me to use for work. I (completely accidentally) opened the door (hard) onto the (brand new) car next to me. Of course I owned up, apologiesed and said I would ensure the car was fixed.

The damage (dent and scratch) is going to cost £350 to repair.

I could claim via the hire car insurance with my employer paying the excess - they won't be happy but it will mean I don't have to pay anything. However - will I have to declare this incident when I come to renew my own car insurance in September? If it is likely to put my premium up significantly for years to come I may just pay up the £350 and be done with it.

Thanks in advance.

scheming_gypsy

the t&c's of your insurance policy say you should and the Do-Right Police will be along shortly to tell you that you need to declare it because your policy says so.


but when you do 'for information only', you'll have to declare it for the next 5 years so it's best to just hand the cash over and get a receipt.. then pretend it never happened.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

good for owning up to it many dont, in this case i would offer the token payment of £350, if the guy wants to go down that rout. but after he thinks about a repair and how he will get back and forth to work etc that £350 may increase with curtesy car fee's.

you need to have a indepth chat with that guy to have the repair done that is convienient for him.

LittleMrsThrifty

Thanks this is really helpful. I was told by a couple of friends that I wouldn't have to declare it but I didn't think that was right.

The insurance company for the hire car won't let me claim as the amount is under their minimum claim limit (?!) so I asked the car owner (a manager at the company I work for) if he could take it to be fixed and have the garage call me when it was finished to pay the bill. They said no that they'd rather not get it fixed at all as I'd be being punished for my honesty.

It's a funny old world!

I feel like I'm in a reverse money moral dilemma now. It is a brand new car, the damage is very noticeable and although accidental it was my fault. I think I'll drop a cheque up to his office and then forget about it.

scheming_gypsy

maybe it's a leased car and they don't want you to bother paying for the repair as it'll no doubt get a few more scrapes before they give it back?

LittleMrsThrifty

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

maybe it's a leased car and they don't want you to bother paying for the repair as it'll no doubt get a few more scrapes before they give it back?

I wondered that but he said he bought it from new in February.

rev_henry

Don't really know what you should do, other than keep working for that company if the managers are such nice people!

CaptainKidd

There is something not right here that he dosent want his brand new car fixed? Also how do you know its going to cost £350 to repair? is this just an estimate from friends etc. Where on the car is the damage?

mikey72

Maybe he just parks in tescos a lot.
If you want scratches and dents you should see my car. I probably washed it about 8 times from new as well.

LittleMrsThrifty

CaptainKidd wrote: »

There is something not right here that he dosent want his brand new car fixed? Also how do you know its going to cost £350 to repair? is this just an estimate from friends etc. Where on the car is the damage?

The quote was from a garage - main dealer where the car was bought from. The damage is on the passenger door.

pitkin2020

So he has gone to the trouble of getting a quote for the repair but now it can't be done through the insurers he has said forget about it??

I would ask for it writing lol!!