Car driven into and driver left scene

5parky86

Alter_ego wrote: »

For the sake of £50 or even £150 he should pay up, it's in his own interest.

You'd think, but I don't think he's fully grasping the situation.

5parky86

Finst wrote: »

Usually you can go directly to his insurer - its in his insurer's interests to do so as it keeps costs down. Or you can go through your insurer. Or you can report it to your insurer who may offer to refer you to one of these accident management companies who will do it for you, and try to screw the other side out of hefty car hire premiums while your car is being repaired.

Which of the 3 is the best option for you is not something I can really help with. I would suspect going direct to his insurer would be the best if you have the time to chase them etc.

Cheers. The problem is her car's worth under a grand, and with having been quoted ~£300 by a small garage you can guarantee that it will be more like £600-700 once the approved garages and handlers etc. take their cut and she's worried it'll just be written off.

5parky86

tripled wrote: »

You'd be as well off going through his insurance anyway. Someone cut into my again Renault on a roundabout a few years ago, but the damage to my car was just a scratch on the plastic door trim (their whole wing was caved in). When it came to renewal time and I played with quotes, I found that "Incident - No Claim Made" put the quotes up more than "3rd party at fault" in my case.

He's also perfectly in his rights to insist on using his insurance. What happens if he ponies up £150 cash, then you come back and say that something else is wrong and you need another £150? I'm not saying you would, but you can understand his reluctance to shell out on a dodgy backhand deal.

It sounds to me like you either need to offer to settle at whatever his excess is or accept you have go through his insurace. The efforts at blackmail clearly aren't working.

Ok thanks. Yeah I can understand that, he'd potentially leave himself wide open for us to return to him or try a claim post-payment. I'll have to have a look into the insurance increases, cheers for letting me know about that.

DUTR

5parky86 wrote: »

Ok thanks. Yeah I can understand that, he'd potentially leave himself wide open for us to return to him or try a claim post-payment. I'll have to have a look into the insurance increases, cheers for letting me know about that.

Usually, you have to inform the insurers of an incident at an early possible convenience, asking the 3rd party not to go through thier insirers as if you are doing them some sort of favour is just not on,
it does seem that your party has more to lose in the long run through this unfortunate incident.

5parky86

DUTR wrote: »

Usually, you have to inform the insurers of an incident at an early possible convenience, asking the 3rd party not to go through thier insirers as if you are doing them some sort of favour is just not on,
it does seem that your party has more to lose in the long run through this unfortunate incident.

I don't think I've implied that we are doing them any favour. The purpose of this thread was to understand the situation fully. Given that they never intended to notify us that the they had been liable for the accident and the ensuing hassle that they created, a bit of compromise would be expected, but unfortunately they don't seem willing, and given the circumstances and consequences it is difficult to understand as to why.

ICantPayYou

Has he given you his insurance details? I thought you had to supply these by law, even if he pays cash for your damage. I would still inform the police, he left the scene of the accident, if you let this go on any longer you may end up with no money, no ability to claim and a damaged vehicle!

5parky86

ICantPayYou wrote: »

Has he given you his insurance details? I thought you had to supply these by law, even if he pays cash for your damage. I would still inform the police, he left the scene of the accident, if you let this go on any longer you may end up with no money, no ability to claim and a damaged vehicle!

Yeah I think that's the route we'll take it may be easier all around. It only happened Wednesday so it should be fine. We've already the notified the police also, we will just have to figure out whether to pursue the leaving the scene.

ICantPayYou

5parky86 wrote: »

Yeah I think that's the route we'll take it may be easier all around. It only happened Wednesday so it should be fine. We've already the notified the police also, we will just have to figure out whether to pursue the leaving the scene.

Yeah, don't be so trusting, as things stand at the moment you have no proof that he is even insured.

Peteholl89

You could pay a few quid and use AskMID to get his insurance details if he doesn't give you them himself.
As it is their driver to blame the 3rd party insurance company are likely to be lenient towards you choosing where to have your vehicle repaired. I would imagine they would jump at the chance to settle a claim for 180 plus vat and them providing a courtesy car for a couple of days.
Much better for them then you using a credit hire company and billing them £70+ per day. You could remind them of this when you call so they are aware you know that credit hire is an option.

forgotmyname

Even if you claim directly from his insurance you still need to notify yours of the incident.

If you notified the police that they left the scene then you need to leave it upto them to decide if they will prosecute.

I reported someone many years back after spotting some damage to my parked car. There were some builders working on the house next door and they took his number down.

Initially the policeman on the desk was not that interested and said i had broken the law for not reporting it within 24 hours.
And said was i sure i wanted to continue.

I said how can i report something i knew nothing about until now and yes i do want to continue.

I heard nothing more until a letter arrived saying they had prosecuted him and fined him x amount and given 6 points and the name of his insurer.