Should I call my insurers?

CatManDu

A neighbour (a couple of streets down) drove into my car on Sunday. I was overtaking a parked car so was on the right hand side of the road as I passed the t-junction for her road. She was looking right but then just pulled out without even glancing towards me on her left. I swerved (luckily avoiding the parked car) and beeped my horn but she still pranged the back wheel arch of my car, denting and scraping it along with scuffing the two panels either side. She has said she'd rather not go through insurance, her partner owns a body shop and is popping over to look and "quote" to give me an idea of how much it'll cost. It was 100% her fault (although she is yet to apologise and accused me of being in the wrong side of the road - when I told her she hadn't even looked left she said "well at least I was on the right side of the road!" Still didn't apologise even when I pointed out I was over taking and it was my right of way :mad)
I get that she wants to protect her no claims but I'm not sure about sorting it out without involving insurers - mostly because I'll need a courtesy car to get to and from work and school etc, but I'm also worried that I'll end up out of pocket somehow.
Has anyone sorted a problem like this without insurance? If so - how did you go about it?
Any other advice welcomed :money:

BeenThroughItAll

Yes. Call the insurer, even if you're not going to claim. It's a reportable incident.

Dakota_Deville

Highway traffic code - do not overtake at a junction exactly for this reason

Mercdriver

Something tells me that if you go via insurance to get this repaired rather than for information, that you might find yourself in a spot. It would be likely to be 50/50 at best. Overtaking close to a junction is in the Highway Code as something you shouldn't do.

angrycrow

Dakota_Deville wrote: »

Highway traffic code - do not overtake at a junction exactly for this reason

Ignore this, you were not overtaking, you were passing a parked car which required you to cross the centre line of the road. The other driver was joining the road you were established on and had a duty to give way to traffic on the road she was joining regardless of your position or direction. Other driver will be 100% at fault and if your insurers try and suggest otherwise ask for the complaints department.

Turning to the issue of repairs do you trust them to do a proper job or will they fill the panel full of filler to do it on the cheap. Your insurer will offer guarantee on the repair but unlikely the drivers husband will. Are they going to pay for hire whilst your car is repaired.

facade

angrycrow wrote: »

Ignore this, you were not overtaking, you were passing a parked car which required you to cross the centre line of the road. The other driver was joining the road you were established on and had a duty to give way to traffic on the road she was joining regardless of your position or direction. Other driver will be 100% at fault and if your insurers try and suggest otherwise ask for the complaints department.

I get this a few times a week. Usually I'm passing a huge line of nose to tail parked cars and about half way past, when someone just appears at a junction in front and turns towards me.
Then there is an altercation when they realise that I can't simply make my car disappear, and have no intention of reversing 75 yards past parked cars, and they usually drive up onto the kerb (they don't worry about pedestrians) rather than reverse back in.

Never seems to occur to them to look where they are going.....

(Even more fun when they shoot across traffic to turn right into a sideroad and meet me passing the inconsiderately parked car close to the giveway line- one of the reasons I have a dashcam )

GwylimT

Dakota_Deville wrote: »

Highway traffic code - do not overtake at a junction exactly for this reason

This was a parked car. If the following rule applied, the road user would have to carry out a three point turn and find an alternative route to avoid passing a parked vehicle.

GothicStirling

Maybe proceed with caution would be a good rule to have followed?

wapow

GothicStirling wrote: »

Maybe proceed with caution would be a good rule to have followed?

Do you even drive???