Money Moral Dilemma: Should we pay to repair our neighbours' car?

Marvel1

No, they have insurance.

tain

cjdavies wrote: »

No, they have insurance.

It would be nice if it was that simple.

For instance, if the claim is less than their excess, then you would be pretty harsh to demand they still put it through their insurance. Bye bye to ever being friends with that neighbour.

BarryBlue

This is where it pays to take out legal cover as an add-on to your car insurance. The person whose van caused the damage to the other vehicle is clearly liable and the car owner should get their legal cover to pursue the matter with the other party's insurance.

My wife's car was damaged by a faulty electronic gate at an apartment block and the property's insurance didn't want to pay up. So our legal cover company pursued the management company through the court to recover the cost for her insurer.

I am amazed how many people seem to think that the owner of the vehicle that caused the damage has no responsibility whatsoever for the matter.

Kynthia

Let's say a vandal threw a Molotov cocktail at your car and it caught fire, then the neighbours car caught fire due to its proximity. Why should your insurer pay out for two cars? It wouldn't as it wasn't your fault, through any action or lack of action (negligence).

It's the same if your house catches fire through no fault of your own or negligence, and sets your neighbours house on fire. Or if your pipe bursts and floods the flat downstairs. Or if a storm blows your well maintained fence panel into your neighbours motorbike. Or if someone steals your car and crashes it into your neighbour's house. Unless it was caused by your action or unreasonable lack of action, your insurance won't pay for someone else's loss when they are insured. Whether it pays out for an uninsured loss I don't know. I also don't know if a judge would agree if the neighbour sued you but considering you weren't at fault I suspect so.

crmism

On the very bald facts you have given, I find it quite impossible to follow your logic. Surely you could have elaborated rather more on the circumstances that led to the fire?

Look at it this way, though - your neighbour's car wouldn't have been damaged if your van hadn't caught fire, so are you really trying to say that you aren't in some way wholly responsible for their loss, no matter how the fire began?

It matters not one iota whether the fire took hold accidentally, or whether you weren't around at the time. You can't say to them "Hard luck", either. Your neighbour is entirely innocent. You should do the right thing and pay up.

unforeseen

hazyjo wrote: »

No.


What if it had caught fire in a car park? Would you expect to pay for the damage to all the surrounding cars?

The insurers of the car that started the Echo arena blaze would have a hell of a bill

PasturesNew

Whoever caused it, their car needs fixing and the source of the issue was within your control/ownership.

Morally you should pay to get it fixed.

They were minding their own business when choices you made screwed up their car/life.

Morally you should pay to get it fixed.

If the shoe were on the other foot YOU'D expect your car to be fixed by them.

Morally you should pay to get it fixed.

boliston

I would imagine the cost of repairing a fire damaged car would be several hundred if not more - if the van owner has a lot of spare money they could consider chipping in but for a lot of people finding that amount of money without claiming on insurance would not be easy

happyinflorida

I'm not an insurance expert but we are legally obliged to get insurance so that all eventualities are covered when an accident happens. This fire was an accident, so your insurance should, IMO, be paying out.


I'd tell your neighbour that you will be making an official complaint to your insurance company. Look up on a search engine regarding this matter first to find out what the legal situation is in the UK. Make sure you get UK law and not USA law as search engines always seem to bring up everything in the USA first, very annoying I think!


If you find your insurance can legally refuse to pay, then if you can afford it, I would look at paying out to repair their car in order to keep neighbourly relations good.


Nightmare neighbours are just that, you don't want to start anything off because of this, so I would do something.



If you can't afford to pay out, is there something else you could do for free ie agree with them, to do something, like their gardening, mowing their lawn, for a certain amount of time to repay them the value of the car damage.

onlyroz

I don't understand why your insurance company won't pay. Can you ask for a second opinion?

As for whether I would pay for the damage to my neighbour's car - I think it would depend on how much the repair cost is. A few hundred quid and I think I would stump up as a good will gesture. A few thousand and I might offer to pay their insurance excess.