19 y/o driver - minor prang - advice please

cornerstone13

Yesterday afternoon my 19 year old son had a minor accident - the classic of waiting behind someone at a roundabout, large gap in traffic on roundabout, assume first car has gone - only to find they hadn't ! The damage to both his car and the TP seems minor - possibly only cosmetic.

They exchanged names and details inc insurance companies. My son is anxious to preserve his 2 years no claims (v. valuable at his age) and is intending to call the TP to say that he would prefer to avoid going through insurance and ask for the cost of the repair.

Our questions:
Should he report the accident to his insurance company now, regardless of whether the claim goes through ?
Would/should this affect his future no claims bonus, even if no claim is eventually made ?
Should he call the TP or wait to see if they contact him - as their damage could be so minor they might not bother to do anything about it.
Can he be 'forced' to report the accident to his insurance company by the TP.
(If the cost of TP's repairs are high, he would want it to go through the insurance co)

Thanks for any advice you can give.

knowledgeman

Its important your son establishes the costs etc first, he also needs to realise the other party might prefer to involve insurance companies

The other issue is your sons idea of repair may not match the other parties

An example of which is my friend once hit someone they got a quote to get the bump knocked out which was very reasonable, unbeknown to him the other party got the car repaired at a franchised garage and it costs hundreds more

The insurance all agreed regardless of the cheaper repair quote the other garage was reasonable and he had to get them to pay out

The moral being what your son thinks is repaired and the other party might be very different

You say cosmetic damage, but if bumpers need replaced etc you are looking at a costly repair

_Glycerine_

You are meant to notify your insurer of any incidents, although this can effect future premiums if you do notify them even if you decide not to claim against the insurance. They will put it down as a non fault incident. This will also appear on the claims underwriters exchange so that other insurers are aware if you went to another company at renewal.

It wont effect ncb if no claim is made, but if tp goes to claim against your son, he will then lose ncb. Would probably be best to contact TP asap and hopefully find solution not involving insurer.