bumper bumped

stranger12

Hi All,



to my surprise, this morning I found my car bumped as someone had reversed into my car and made a runner.

luckily one of the neighbours has seen the car which is local.

I did find it and took photos of the bumper showing the scratch marks of my car on it .

should I report it to police or my insurer?

even though my car has only scratches on it, it might need a whole re spray in excess of £600 or more.

Quentin

You could report this to police - is your witness prepared to assist police?

If not is neighbour prepared to assist your insurer?

If so report what happened to both police and insurer.

If not see if claiming and paying your excess as well as any loss of unprotected NCD and increased premiums over up to 5 years makes a claim cost effective

stranger12

have reported to police and 1 week still nothing

Quentin

Assume you aren't going to and find out if making a fault claim is cost effective (versus paying for the repairs yourself at a back street garage)

stranger12

Well it is not worth reporting to insurance as from experience they will increase your premium for the next few years even though I am claiming against third party and assuming they were successful in obtaining the money .
in another word this is if I use their legal services which I paid £30 or so for
If they pay out then my insurance will hike up every year for a considerable amount

Quentin

If you're claiming off the third party's inurer then you need to report the incident to your own insurer

Your legal cover is for getting your uninsured losses back ( not for pursuing your whole claim - unless you are only covered for third party claims by your policy)

Korkyb

After causing some minor damage to the wheel arch of a parked minibus (bleeding ice) I decided to avoid insurance companies if at all possible.


Luckily the company that owned the minibus was of the same mind telling me that declaring even a no fault incident could really affect their insurance premiums.


£300 later to repair the damage (only £50 more than my excess) and everyone was happy.


It may be the other driver could be willing to do something similar if approached.

csgohan4

Korkyb wrote: »

After causing some minor damage to the wheel arch of a parked minibus (bleeding ice) I decided to avoid insurance companies if at all possible.


Luckily the company that owned the minibus was of the same mind telling me that declaring even a no fault incident could really affect their insurance premiums.


£300 later to repair the damage (only £50 more than my excess) and everyone was happy.


It may be the other driver could be willing to do something similar if approached.

Not declaring the accident is generally against the T+C of insurers. If they find you repaired it by yourself and not declared when you have an accident in the future, you could end up with a cancelled policy.

Quentin

Korkyb wrote: »

£300 later to repair the damage (only £50 more than my excess) and everyone was happy.
.

Your £250 excess is irrelevant (you wouldn't have had to pay it had this been dealt with by your insurer)

teddysmum

Quentin wrote: »

Your £250 excess is irrelevant (you wouldn't have had to pay it had this been dealt with by your insurer)

Surely they would have to pay, then add it as part of the claim (if not the offender), but this poster, who is not the OP, said that they caused the accident, so were at fault.

Quentin

teddysmum wrote: »

Surely they would have to pay, then add it as part of the claim (if not the offender), but this poster said that they caused the accident, so were at fault.

Yes Korkyb was to blame, so his insurer would have paid the third party's claim against him

There would have been no £250 excess to pay when the only claim made was for damage to the third party vehicle