Hit another car whilst parking

AliceBanned

fivetide wrote: »

Yes but again - state information only. No need to say you were even at fault. Simply a bumper touch in a car park. Nothing more.


BTW if you claim for it then try to pay them back chances are they will have your trousers down as all sorts will be added to the bill.


Hopefully, the guy is as good as his word and gets it sorted for you at a reasonable price.


When you pay him, get a receipt, signed, that says "full and final payment" just in case he decides the car was full of people who all now have whiplash etc.

Thanks. There was no one in the car at the time so I don't see how they could prove otherwise. Unless the copious busy-body unpleasant and unhelpful (to me) witnesses decided to make up a story..

AliceBanned

I phoned them just now. Feel so much better as they are so reasonable. . The guy just said that this kind of thing happens a lot and as I have protected no claims, if nothing else happens between now and renewal (July) then it won't impact on my no claims at all.

So if it costs a lot I may just put it through the insurance. In fact I probably will if it is more than £150. Because even though the insurance co. is being very reassuring, I bet my next premium would go up.

Quentin

If you have protected ncd then you won't lose any over this claim. (You only lose unprotected ncd if you are to blame, if you are blameless and make a claim with unprotected ncd as soon as your insurer is reimbursed you get your ncd reinstated).

In your case you will keep your ncd if you leave this to the insurers to deal with.

Do dummy quotes online with and without this claim on your record to see what difference it makes to your premium to help decide what to do.

Quentin

fivetide wrote: »

Yes but again - state information only. No need to say you were even at fault. Simply a bumper touch in a car park. Nothing more...

One of the reasons we are required to report incidents is so our insurers are prepared should a claim turn up against us.

So although you can report an incident for information only (meaning you are not making a claim at this stage), you cannot expect that they don't want the full details including your opinion on blame/fault.

arcon5

Your no claims may be protected. IE if he makes a claim on your insurance you still get the 7 years instead of the would be 8 years. This doesn't mean your future premiums won't go up next year if you declare a claim. The discount may be the same - but the base price will shoot up.

Your insurance can't be that expensive anyway with 7 years no claims so you really need to do a dummy quote stating the claim and 7yrs so see the price difference.

AliceBanned

OK thanks, I'll do a dummy quote and find out. My insurance at the moment is £280 for the year (Ford SportKa 1.6L)- I have been driving for 18 years and never made a claim where I have been at fault. I would have a longer period of protected NCD, but didn't used to ask for it to be protected - until some idiots stole my first car and trashed it and couldn't be traced. I had only been driving for 3 years and at the time it wasn't enough to have it protected, but I learnt from this that the protected NCD was fairly important, having lost over three years of NCD due to no fault of my own.

I have to try and keep the car costs down as I pay £3k per year in train fares to get to work so the car is just for weekends/leisure, though still essential.:D

fivetide

As arcon said NCD is the discount off the premium so while the NCD won't go down the premium might rise.


e.g.


£100 premium, 50% NCD = £50 to pay




£200 premium, still 50% NCD post crash = £100 to pay


Extreme example to make the maths simple.




And unless they ask, no I wouldn't be admitting fault. Never been asked over the phone personally only on the official claim forms.

Hoof_Hearted

It seems like the bloke's whose car you scraped is being reasonable. Personally, I would have waited for the quote and then assess the situation. I know people on here always tell you to inform your insurance company, but a lot of people don't when there is an amicable settlement of a minor scrape.

Captain_Flack.

fivetide wrote: »

As arcon said NCD is the discount off the premium so while the NCD won't go down the premium might rise.


e.g.


£100 premium, 50% NCD = £50 to pay




£200 premium, still 50% NCD post crash = £100 to pay


Extreme example to make the maths simple.




And unless they ask, no I wouldn't be admitting fault. Never been asked over the phone personally only on the official claim forms.

Thanks for stating the obvious, but how would you explain hitting a stationary vehicle?

AliceBanned

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

It seems like the bloke's whose car you scraped is being reasonable. Personally, I would have waited for the quote and then assess the situation. I know people on here always tell you to inform your insurance company, but a lot of people don't when there is an amicable settlement of a minor scrape.

Yes he was very pleasant - could be a company car or something for all I know, or he just has little stress in his life and felt sorry for me as I was a bit upset. I was going to just wait for the quote, but there were witnesses at the scene who were being rather unpleasant. I decided on balance not to risk upsetting my insurance company if anything got back to them first - at worst they could have cancelled my insurance, the costs may have been too large for me to pay, then I'd be in a much worse position.

After speaking to the insurance company I felt a bit better - yes my premium may go up but hopefully not hugely, and they did say as one small strike it won't affect anything. I'm going to do a dummy quote now and find out.