I pranged my car, should I claim?

mrjamin

I had a run in with an invisible bollard in a carpark and have been left with a nasty ding on the side of my car - repair quotes are coming in between £1600-£2000 ex VAT - crazy expensive because I happened to prang it at the point where three pretty significant pieces of bodywork meet (yay me!). Car is worth around £5000 in a private sale (without prang).

As far as I see it, I have a few options:

- Leave it as is and absorb the impact it has on the value when we come to sell (had been considering selling it and getting a bigger car Soon™ anyway)
- Leave it as is trade it in and get a newer, bigger car sooner rather than later
- Claim on the insurance (Direct Line, policy in the region of £400 per year, £500 voluntary excess) and lose 7 years' NCD.
- Pay for the repair out of my own pocket

If I'd not pranged it, I'd have sold it privately and bought used from a dealer, am now leaning towards trading it in as-is from a used dealer.

Am I missing any other options? What can I expect the claim to do to my policy, or rather to what extent should I expect my insurance policy to increase by?

gilbert_and_sullivan

Presumably the quotes were from larger bodyshops, with carpets, receptionists and managers to fund.

Ask around for that handy little one man and his dog body shop in your area, you'll find the result far more to your liking.

NeverEnough

It all depends on the value of yur car really, without any damage- if its a recent, fairly expensive car then its worth fixing it, although I would be asking repair places for quotes for private repair rather than hitting yur NCB, which seems to be an unprotected one?

If its a relatively cheap car, worth at best around £2-3k, it may not be worth the expense of fixing it- perhaps phone around and check with dealers what their trade-in value would be for one without damage, also check Parkers or Glasses Guide for trade figures and before parting with cash to repair the car, see what local dealers will offer you without the repair. They can always have it repaired far cheaper than you ever will.

Quentin

mrjamin wrote: »

- Claim on the insurance (Direct Line, policy in the region of £400 per year, £500 voluntary excess) and lose 7 years' NCD.....What can I expect the claim to do to my policy, or rather to what extent should I expect my insurance policy to increase by?.........

You won't lose 7 years NCD for making 1 claim!

Check your policy, most insurers would reduce NCD by 2 years for a single claim, usually from a max of 5. If that is how your policy works, then you will have 3 years NCD at renewal.

Do some dummy quotes on line with this claim in your history (and 3 years NCD) to get an idea of what the next premium will be. (It will certainly be cheaper than you were anticipating with nil ncd!)

marlot

You only lose 2 years of your NCB, but your base premium would rise.

Try putting your details into an insurance comparison site - twice - first time as you are now, and second time how you'd be after the claim - and see what the hit would be.

EDIT: Posted same time as Quentin. Quentin is right - most NCBs would drop 2 years, but as they usually top out at 5 years, you'd probably be back to 3 years NCB

fivetide

NeverEnough wrote: »

It all depends on the value of yur car really, without any damage- if its a recent, fairly expensive car then its worth fixing it, although I would be asking repair places for quotes for private repair rather than hitting yur NCB, which seems to be an unprotected one?

If its a relatively cheap car, worth at best around £2-3k, it may not be worth the expense of fixing it- perhaps phone around and check with dealers what their trade-in value would be for one without damage, also check Parkers or Glasses Guide for trade figures and before parting with cash to repair the car, see what local dealers will offer you without the repair. They can always have it repaired far cheaper than you ever will.

OP says quite clearly car worth 5k damage free....

Apart from that, advice is right, they might knock a grand off so you'll not be too bad.

You should get it done cheaper at a little independent place though as said already, if it isn't causign any structural issues and won't be a fail on the MOT your other optio is leave it and run the car into the ground.

Final option depending on the car and how easy it is to get the parts off - get some panels in the same colour (bumper etc) and swap them over.

And as it wouldn't be MSE without it... do look around next time, it's a lot cheaper

5t.

mrjamin

Thanks all, super helpful.

The quotes are all from independent places (some bigger than others, granted), however a not-insignificant part of the cost comes from parts which will not vary between bodyshops/one-man-bands. One piece is pretty much totally mangled, it's just unfortunate that that single piece extends the length of the car, up the rear and along the top as well!

So, I think I will go down the insurance route. Just done a mock quote based on a claim and it's looking pretty good.

forgotmyname

You value the car at £5000 what what would the real world of car buyers value it at? Yesterday someone wondered why their car had had zero calls from buyers when advertised at £9250? When a quick autotrader search had 2 identical spec cars for £1000 - £2000 less.

You maybe down to 3 years no claims after this claim and increased premiums for 5 years. And £500 excess also.

Make sure you do all the sums.

thelawnet

I think you have to consider the total cost of the claim.

It can be steep.

I just did a dummy quote, with 10 years no claims.

£528.96

Changed it to '1 claim' and '4 years' (which would be the effect of 1 claim with my insurer), 'I was at fault'

New price
£913.95

second year

£869.91

Third year

£832.92

Fourth year

£598.98

Basically the premium is loaded by around 50% AND you lose some of your NCD. Total cost of the claim is around £1100.

Which is obviously still worth it for a £1500 loss.

YMMV.

If the starting 6 NCD had only been 6 years, the cost of the claim would only have been around £700

Basically I would suggest if you pay less than £500 for insurance it's almost certainly worth making the claim assuming you want the car fixed, but if you pay more for insurance, say £1000, then it's not going to be worth it, as the insurance loading will cost more than the claim is worth.

londonTiger

All claims will increase your premiums, but IMO a claim you make due to you driving into an object just makes you look like a terrible driver and someone whose more likely to claim than average.

From an insurers point of view, you're a a "bad bet" for them, and they'll probably lose more money on you than make money. So they might not want anything to do with you and give you ridiculous premiums next time round.

Just my gut feeling though, not from any actual experience.