Car insurance companies

JAMES_75

The hand break on my car failed and rolled into my "elderly" neighbours car 2 days ago. Agreed not to go through insurers and we have both been busy getting quotes. He now says that he has reported the accident (and my car reg) to his insurers. Both still not looking to claim but will my insurance company be contacted? And will that affect my insurance?

Quentin

Your policy conditions require you to report all incidents like this (irrespective of whether or not a claim is made).


You cannot "sue" the TP for breaking the agreement you made with him - he is also bound by his policy conditions and looks to have decided not to disregard them!



By not reporting this to your insurer you breach the policy conditions which would allow them to cancel your policy.


Now that the incident has been reported to the tp insurer then they will have added it to the shared database that insurers use to check up on policyholders to see if they have unreported incidents on their record.


You do need to now report this!


Assuming you still intend to pay for the repairs then you will have this on your record as a no fault claim, which could impact your future premiums.


You can get an idea of any increase by doing dummy quotes online with and without this incident in your history

missile

Yes and yes

vaio

I thought that unexpected failure of hand brake mechanism wouldn't make you liable for the damage to the other car. Liability flows from negligence so provided you set it and had no reason to think it might fail then there is no negligence and hence no liability

If I'm right then your insurer could well decline to pay for the damage to the other car.

caveat_emptor

Once it's on your insurers books it will affect your insurance and you will pay more whether you make a claim or not.
I've been in similar situation when another car ran into the back of mine causing minor damage that the third party paid for. I reported it to my insurers and they increased my premium as a result.