False claim after car accident

Nearly_Old

Long story (hopefully) short:
I had a very minor incident in a car park but the witness and the other party continuously referred to me "smashing into" the other car whilst my true speed was no more than 1mph.

I offered to pay as it was basically just a bit of machine polishing - plastic trim on my car had left a couple of small marks on the other car. When the other party phoned he was very aggressive so I just handed it over to my insurers. I sent them a very detailed account of the incident. Take some photographs of your car to (hopefully) show very little damage.

At renewal the claim was still oustanding so I lost 2 years NCD but a couple of months later I received a letter from my insurers with a contact name and phone number. Because I had given a totally different account they had investigated the other party's claim and would not be making any payment. My NCD was reinstated, money refunded and it was cleared from my history.

Hopefully if the other party in your case makes a fraudalent claim you will get the same treatment from your insurers.

pendulum

Gotta love the armchair experts saying he's taking the !!!! requesting £800.

He says he can't open the boot and that the boot floor is dented. That is quite possibly true. If it is true, then £800 sounds about right.

Lavendyr

pendulum wrote: »

Gotta love the armchair experts saying he's taking the !!!! requesting £800.

He says he can't open the boot and that the boot floor is dented. That is quite possibly true. If it is true, then £800 sounds about right.

Absolutely this, but in this case it does sound as though the other party's car may be worth so little that the insurance co would just write it off rather than pay for the repair.

My neighbour drove into my front bumper (twice!) a couple of years back when my car was parked and stationary (I was in the house when I heard the crunches!). Cost £800 to repair (with quotes up to £1k) as whole new bumper plus respray required. Went through insurance and I wholeheartedly recommend OP does the same. That is what it's there for. No point doing otherwise.

jayne2011

Reading this... I just want to shake you op lol!
Please just go through the insurance company.
My hubbys car was hit by a van, the bloke gave him £250 cash, 2 weeks later. I dont think the bloke had insurance, and my husband didnt get a quote till a week after collecting the money. £650 damage.
Looked like nothing, but there was hidden damage.
Then my husband bumped into someone on an island, car wasnt worth more than £600 (the car he hit). The other driver claimed for £1800!!! Payments have gone up £30 a month.
I still don't understand that and I have told my husband to get in touch with his old insurance company, as it doesnt add up!
We had to get insurance with another company, and made a saving of £450 over the year.
Just do the right thing, and report it, before he reports you!

Surbybird

debsy42 wrote: »

I witnessed a 5pm rear-end shunt last week. The girl whose car was hit didn't even get out of her car as she assumed that as it was a low speed bump that her car would be ok and in fact looking it it, I couldn't see any damage. I recommended just to be on the safe side that she try opening her boot and sure enough, it wouldn't budge. So, things are not always clear-cut and there may be a chance he is telling the truth. Let the insurance company sort it out, that's what you pay them for and when you come to renew next year make sure you shop around for the best deal.

Indeed, that's true.

Someone ran into the back of my car at a roundabout, they were travelling at less than 10mph. They cracked my rear bumper and knocked out my number plate light. No visible damage to the other car.

The driver didn't give her insurance details so I paid the fee and looked up her insurers on the AskMID database. I rang the driver and offered her the opportunity to not go through the insurance and she declined. Still declined to give me her insurance details too.

I rang her insurers and reported the incident, they rang her and then rang me back and told me to send it to their repairers and they'd fix it because she'd admitted liability.

The repair cost over £1000 due to hidden damage under the bumper, new parts and a respray.

You can't always tell by just looking.

K

fivetide

Surbybird wrote: »

The repair cost over £1000 due to hidden damage under the bumper, new parts and a respray.

You can't always tell by just looking.

K

Of course a repair centre would have no interest in finding themselves extra work to be billed at high cost on a guaranteed payment at all....

I've swapped several cracked bumpers off cars with ones from scrappers and never found any sort of issue. Well nothing that a good clean and a bit of WD40 counldn't sort anyhow.

5t.

redux

If that car needs a bumper, that will cost a couple of hundred or more, and if it's body coloured the paint will be a hundred or so. And it's a few hours work just preparing and painting. So that amount of £800 is plausible if there's a bit of other damage as well.

My car is damaged at the back at the moment. The towbar is bent and needs replacing but wasn't specified in the quote by the insurer's nominated repairer as they can't get an automatic price from the car manufacturer. There is no damage to the rear panel inside the bumper.

A new bumper, clip-in covers for the middle and left of the bumper, straighten left wheel arch a bit, paint, materials, labour, is about £1000, and that's with fairly cheap labour.

It adds up to more than the value of the car. As I'd like to keep it I've been offered an amount in lieu of the repairs and I'll get secondhand bits and do the job myself, but that's a separate subject really. You can't oblige this person to do the work himself like that.

If the impact really is as light as you say, and you are sceptical about the damage and potential repair cost, then stop worrying about that as he'll have to convince repairers and the insurer's assessor.

Talk to your insurers, as everyone keeps saying. That's what they are there for.

motorguy

Strider590 wrote: »

Sounds like he's taking the !!!! (as he's unwilling to confirm the costs with a quotation, etc), go via insurance, they'll write his car off, they'll offer him £500 for it and for his greed he'll end up out of pocket by a good £500+.

Not only this, but he'd probably make an injuries claim after you settled without the insurance (it'd potentially be worth £2000 to him), which means your premiums would go up anyway.

I would seriously hand it to the insurance and forget about it.....

Before we all jump on the taking the !!!! / fraudulent whiplash claim bandwagon, i had a guy drive into the back of me at low speed. For all the world it looked like about £300 to fix. Unfortunately behind the bumper was damaged, and the total bill came to £2,800! :eek:

Also i felt grand at the time but the following day i had whiplash in my back. I'm still getting pain with it daily three years later.

motorguy

Muscle750 wrote: »

End of the day your insurance will not increase by £800 because you had a claim made against you he is taking the preverbial

How do you know that?