Advice Needed: Let him claim or settle privately

Psymondo

Hi, I had a minor car park bump the other day and initially the guy said we'd settle without going through insurance. However, despite the inevitable increase to my premium I decided to do the right thing and report it to my insurance :A

However my question is - do I just leave it up to the insurance and let the guy claim his money back and it be recorded as a incident that was my fault with a claim against it, or do I still stump up the cash for the guy to get the dent repaired (hopefully sub-£500) and just have the insurance claim closed as an information only incident?

I don't mind paying £500 if it'll save me a couple of hundred quid each year on my insurance for the next 5 years (my NCD is guaranteed so that is not effected either way).

Does anyone know when calculating the premium if there is much difference between an information only incident and an incident with a claim against it?

If I do let it go to a claim will I be informed how much it cost the insurer and will I have an option to pay for it to remove it from my records? Or does the fact I'm not actually making a claim myself (there was minimal damage to my car) mean that will be little difference to my premium whether the other guy claims through his insurance or not?

I've never had to claim before so it's all new to me - for example I was surprised that as I'm not making a claim myself I don't have to pay any excess but the guy I hit will end up forking out his excess to pay for my mistake, seems a little backwards to me but there you go...

Any help/tips/advise greatly appreciated. I just want to limit the damage to my premium next year...

InsideInsurance

You can do quotes on Aggregators (eg confused) once with a info only and the other with a made claim. Its normally advisable to change a couple of details about yourself and your car to prevent issues that can happen in the future.

An excess is uninsured, if liability is not disputed his insurer MAY waive his need to pay the excess but if they didn't he would be able to claim back the excess from your insurers (if he has legal expenses then that cover will do the excess reclaim for him). Alternatively if you accept liability then he could claim directly from your insurance thus again avoiding the excess issue.