damage to car while parked at country show

cmayflower

I attended a country show yesterday, I parked well away from the car on my passenger side, and kept my driver car door open to ensure the next to park that side of me gave plenty of room. On returning to my car there is now some paint damage and a small dent where a car door has been opened onto my passenger door. the vehicle that was parked next to me when I first parked had either gone or moved, there is no way of me knowing which vehicle/driver has caused the damage. I have fully comp insurance and full NCD, I have today gone down to a local branch of a car body repairer to gage an estimate, it is around £800 worth to put right. How do I know if this is covered on my insurance? I have never claimed on any car insurance before.

Tiexen

cmayflower wrote: »

I attended a country show yesterday, I parked well away from the car on my passenger side, and kept my driver car door open to ensure the next to park that side of me gave plenty of room. On returning to my car there is now some paint damage and a small dent where a car door has been opened onto my passenger door. the vehicle that was parked next to me when I first parked had either gone or moved, there is no way of me knowing which vehicle/driver has caused the damage. I have fully comp insurance and full NCD, I have today gone down to a local branch of a car body repairer to gage an estimate, it is around £800 worth to put right. How do I know if this is covered on my insurance? I have never claimed on any car insurance before.

You can put in a claim, you will have to pay the excess, and you may lose some of your no claims discount - you need to workout if its worth it or just suck it up and pay yourself.

cmayflower

My no claims is protected so I don't think I would loose that? 350 excess is a lot less than 800 and as I have never made a claim in my 30 plus years of driving I don't think any future premium should be affected greatly. Am I right in my assumptions?

bengalknights

Unfortunatly premiums wont care about history only about what happened, it could go up lots or little its basically a lottery.

lisyloo

If it's a small dent could you get a cheaper repair done rather? (£800 sounds like an entire panel being painted and colour matched).


It's up to you but excess plus loss of NCD plus loading (because you're the sort of driver that goes to places where these kind of things happen and therefore higher risk) for the next couple of years will all add up. If you want a gut feel for the amount then I'd say £600, based on working these things out before with dummy quotes, but of course depends on your excess.


If you are going to get dummy quotes to see how much your insurance would go up in various scenarios, then use a false name as otherwise it can look like fraud and cause you problems.


but yes you are fully entitled to claim and get it fixed properly, you just need to consider whether it's worth it.


Personally I'd just leave the dent, but my car is 20 years old and already has dents.

Tiexen

cmayflower wrote: »

My no claims is protected so I don't think I would loose that? 350 excess is a lot less than 800 and as I have never made a claim in my 30 plus years of driving I don't think any future premium should be affected greatly. Am I right in my assumptions?

yes your correct, however if you change insurance regularly you will have to tick the "have you made a claim" box

cmayflower

Thank you lisyloo, my car is spotless other than this, and yes the £800 is for the entire panel being painted and colour matched, there isn't a great deal of choice where I live for places that do this work. I'll be going with the claim, it is worth it to me to get it fixed. Thank you

TadleyBaggie

ChipsAway did a whole door for £350 for me recently.

cmayflower

ooh that sound like a good option to look up, I see they have someone local to me, and they give estimates, thanks for the reply.

lisyloo

Chips away did a sub optimal job for us.
It was metallic paintwork.
They said they could match and when it was not perfect they said !!!8220;well it won!!!8217;t be a perfect match with metallic!!!8221; but they never told us up front the match would be sub optimal.

I would suggest you ask them up front if they can match it properly.

We dropped it because it was subjective and we were being (justifiably) fussy, but qualifying it up front will put you in a better position should you need to dispute.

Nearlyold

If the ding is not too wide or deep, you could try googling "Paint-less Dent Removal" though the paint could be too damaged for this to work, or try googling "Smart repairs" - they are the sort of guys who prep cars for dealers, some are really good but others not so.