Car accident advice - who is to blame?

mr_megs

To be honest for a scuff on a £1200 car with no clear cut blame (or witnesses) on either side I would not have involved the insurers at all.

This is going to cost you more than £1200 in the long run. I assume you will have to pay 50% of your repair as you have TPFT, and 50% of your excess. You will also have a fault claim on your insurance history now which will increase future insurance premiums for 3 - 5 years.

A similar thing happened to me, a 50/50 was offered by insurers but myself and the 3rd party decided to cover our own repairs and not claim on the insurance. This is what I wanted to do originally but the woman went straight to her insurers!! So we ended up both paying out for our own repairs but also had to take an "incident" record on our claim history, which pushed up both of our premiums.

unholyangel

mr_megs wrote: »

To be honest for a scuff on a £1200 car with no clear cut blame (or witnesses) on either side I would not have involved the insurers at all.

This is going to cost you more than £1200 in the long run. I assume you will have to pay 50% of your repair as you have TPFT, and 50% of your excess. You will also have a fault claim on your insurance history now which will increase future insurance premiums for 3 - 5 years.

A similar thing happened to me, a 50/50 was offered by insurers but myself and the 3rd party decided to cover our own repairs and not claim on the insurance. This is what I wanted to do originally but the woman went straight to her insurers!! So we ended up both paying out for our own repairs but also had to take an "incident" record on our claim history, which pushed up both of our premiums.

Insurers typically ask (when you apply for a quote) if you have had any incidents regardless of whether it resulted in a claim/you were at fault. Some also have a clause in their policy saying you need to inform them of any incidents - again regardless of whether it results in a claim/who was at fault.

I would've went through insurance also - no way in hell would I be risking 10 years imprisonment for insurance fraud just so you could save a few quid at renewal.

mr_megs

no way in hell would I be risking 10 years imprisonment for insurance fraud

:rotfl::rotfl:

thepeopleschamp

Thanks for mentioning this. I was going to say the same thing. I would have had to inform the insurers regardless whether I was going to claim through them or not. I haven't actually agreed to get any repair work done yet, just reported it to them and they are going to get in touch with the other party's insurance company now to see if they accept blame which I doubt they would. Im sure there are other garages out there that will do it cheaper. This was just one garage which I used previously that quoted this ridiculous price and they said this was to do the whole side. If its just one door then it costs £400 +VAT which again is quite alot.

System

thepeopleschamp wrote: »

This was just one garage which I used previously that quoted this ridiculous price and they said this was to do the whole side. If its just one door then it costs £400 +VAT which again is quite alot.

It isn't a ridiculous price as with that amount of damage the whole side of the car has to be repainted to do it properly otherwise the repair will stick out like a sore thumb especially if it is metallic paint.

£400+ VAT is not a lot for one door. I can only guess you've never bothered to look at how much paint is nowadays and it takes more than an hour to do the job.

You could always get a door from a scrapyard and do it yourself though.

thepeopleschamp

Thanks for the sound advice but I have seen how much it costs. My father had his Passat repaired and was charged £150 to respray the left side of the car from one wheel arch to the other.

bris

Tarambor wrote: »

It isn't a ridiculous price as with that amount of damage the whole side of the car has to be repainted to do it properly otherwise the repair will stick out like a sore thumb especially if it is metallic paint.

£400+ VAT is not a lot for one door. I can only guess you've never bothered to look at how much paint is nowadays and it takes more than an hour to do the job.

You could always get a door from a scrapyard and do it yourself though.

Yes it is a ridiculous price, the whole side of the car doesn't need to be painted that's just a ridiculous thing to think.


£400+VAT is insurance prices, independents if you know where to look are half that at most.
A skilled painter can in a lot of cases repair and blend the paint to match, if not then the affected panel need painted only. You want a good match go to the right paint shop, there is no reason for a mis match, that's just a poor workman.

thepeopleschamp

I got a quote for £400 from a local garage. Im waiting to hear back from insurers and if they arent very helpful then will just go ahead with this.