I've just been to a car accident just now, need advice

DUTR

Hintza wrote: »

The other party will most likely self insure for small dings. If he tells his insurer then he will pay a higher premium. You pays your money and takes a chance.

Do you tell your insurer when you have reversed in to a bollard (or similar)?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4887487

You just alert them for information purposes only, in this case there is a 3rd party who may wish to make a claim, so it's not so straight forward, premiums are not always affected , it depends if the insurers had to do any work, if the claim is fully recovered then the premium is not affected (or doesn't seem to be).

rus4u

Ronneh wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with the police or insurance. Take the hit and repair it yourself. Learn from it

that's what I am thinking, thanks

DUTR

rus4u wrote: »

that's what I am thinking, thanks

You don't have that luxury if the other driver has contacted the insurers, did you not exchange any dialogue with the driver? Also, Chances are the lorry has cameras on it to back up or refute a claim.

cootuk

Being a larger haulage company, the driver may have to put in some accident report back at base for the damage and they might inform their insurers incase you put in a spurious claim for injury.
Pretty standard for any company that runs a fleet.

Happychappy

GwylimT wrote: »

You need to contact the police as you need to report your accident. Insurance isn't a headache, it is much easier as they do all the work for you, instead of you having to chase a stranger.

If you and the lorry driver stopped and exchanged details, I.e name, address, reg No's, name and address of the owner, then you do not report it to the police as they will more than likely not even take the report.

You have no legal obligation, unless someone is injured and one of the drivers didn't produce insurance for the injury RTC or failed to stop, then you need to report, as soon as practicable, but in any case within 24 hours, but in your case as you exchanged details, you have no legal obligation to report, and quite frankly they have better things to do then be an insurance agent.

forgotmyname

When i was on the lorries we filled in accident forms for everything. The way i looked at it. Its not my insurance. Fill the forms in and forget about it.

Is it your car or some form of lease deal where you may hand it back? If your handing it back then they pay pull up any substandard repairs and send you a large bill. Reds can fade over time. So it may appear like a brilliant repair now but by the time you hand it back it maybe noticeable.

arcon5

I think the advice not to report to insurers is really bad in this case. A haulage firm running a fleet of lorries is highly unlikely not to report a non-fault accident. Especially since they'll be claiming on your insurance not theirs. The risks to them being caught and problems arising are much more significant .

arcon5

spacey2012 wrote: »

Looking at the pictures, it would support a theory of the truck drifting lanes and colliding through not paying correct attention.
But it is your premiums.

Do you think he was on the phone during the collision ?

Or more likely op cut him up and forced him out of his line whilst trying to avoid a collision.

Jamie_Carter

spacey2012 wrote: »

Looking at the pictures, it would support a theory of the truck drifting lanes and colliding through not paying correct attention.
But it is your premiums.

Do you think he was on the phone during the collision ?

Unless the OP has the exact time of the collision, it would be impossible to prove that the truck driver was on his phone now, unless there were witnesses.

DSM

I think your on a bit of a sticky wicket here and don't fully agree with what some have posted above. I assume you are a young driver and are concerned that your premiums will rocket if you notify your insurer.


Have you tried doing some trial insurance searches on confused.com etc. to see how it affects premiums to judge whether the gamble is worth the risk to you?


If you aren't after making a claim, maybe just let them know that you have had a bump and both you and the third party agreed at the scene that neither was going to pursue it any further and leave it at that. Do it by good old fashioned letter if you are uncomfortable speaking on the phone and you can pick and choose your words carefully. Just be sure to be truthful.


As mentioned above from other posters, Fleet companies will report everything internally and most have cab cameras/gps as backup which I presume will be kept on file where incidents are reported for their own evidence. Whether they take the incident further or simply repair in house is the first gamble. The second gamble could come from the driver himself. Without knowing the person and their trustworthiness, what is to stop them preparing to sting you with a claim (i.e. Whiplash) by having time off work through illness and then reporting it? After all, they will probably get a nice break from work and a few grand for the effort. Its one of the reasons our premiums are so high as it is because is so easy to fiddle with absolutely zero deterrent for false claims. His company will be able to support his side of the story through attendance/sick records but you will not have a leg to stand on so to speak. I presume you wouldn't know if this was to happen until your insurer contacted you to verify the incident. Your failure to disclose the incident may void your cover thus I presume the claim would then be solely on yourself.


On the flip side, you may also never hear anything about it ever again but that's the gamble.


Consider this scenario. You're on your way to work and you skid on ice/mud/oil into a wall or worse a third party. The front end is bent up pretty bad. You contact your insurer to make the appropriate claim and they say fine no problem we'll sort it out for you. A couple of days later they receive a call or letter from the other insurer of the truck to report the incident you had earlier that year which is the first they had heard about it. Its the kind of scenario insurers just love because its just making their job easy for them. Insurer rubs his or her hands together with big smile on face because your insurance was voided the moment you failed to notify them of the previous incident and they will drop your bent car off at your home with all associated recovery bills in the glove box because this is now your problem and not theirs. That's not to mention that any future insurance premium you apply for will be eye-wateringly expensive, if they chose to offer you cover at all...


I wouldn't want to see you in the above scenario, which isn't that far fetched, and you have to decide if the risk is worth taking against notifying them.