Should i contact his insurance?

swifthit1

Hello people.
cutting things short.
Some guy has scraped across my car, i have no witness or cameras showing he has done it. But what i have got, is his silver marks on my car, and he has my car color marks on his car. when next to my car it looks like he has full left locked to get out and his front end has hit my back end.

He is adamant it isn't him, and he even has the cheek to say i probably hit him. i think its a lost cause, is it?

Quentin

You can contact his insurer and tell them you hold their insured responsible for the damage caused and ask them to confirm they will pay for your costs and take it from their reply, though unless you have a witness (or cc tv) then unless the driver agrees he did it, then it looks like a 50/50.

If that's how it ends up, you can claim 50% of your costs (including your excess if you claim off your own insurance)off his insurer (and vice versa).

You do need to inform your own insurer about the incident. Tell them it's for information only if you don't want to make a claim at this stage.

(It sounds like the third party may be making a claim against you)

AlexMac

Put it down to experience. If you involve the insurers, without witnesses the best you'll get is 50-50 shared liability. Factor in your excess (probably £250) and loss of no-claim for a couple of years, you'll both be several hundred quid down. Assuming there are only scrapes, a dent-chip repair company (like 'chips away' or similar) will fix it for £200 or maybe less.

I had a similar case, when a late-for-the-school-run-kimikaze pilot stopped dead in the narrow road in front of me then backed into me, causing minor scrapes to my and their bumper- a real poop off as my car was a 3-week-old new BMW! They ignored my suggestion that we speak by phone before any rash involvement of the insurers (I naively thought she'd maybe pay some or all of my chip-fix bill). Instead she called her insurer and alleged I'd driven into her. Result; three months of correspondence- a £269 bill for her insurer (although she had a £250 excess!) and about £450 for mine. I got off light with merely £175 excess and no impact on renewal premium as I have 30 years of protected no-claim, but I suspect the other driver lost hundreds of pounds for her lies.

So live with it! Life's not fair- its a 'no-claim' bonus. not a 'no blame' bonus.
(PS the only galling thing was to read her facebook description of the event, in which I was labelled a '75 year old psycho IN A HAT' (actually a rather distinguished trilby)!

Sgt_Pepper_2

What is the exact damage to both cars?