Ran over a dog

flatulantyounggoat

Someone lost control of their dog, it ran straight into the front of my vehicle causing about £600 worth of damage to my front bumper. Thankfully I wasn't hurt or any other party, and I was driving well under the speed limit. The dog survived (somehow)

In terms of the damage, where do I stand? I'm concerned about going through the insurance route as really want to avoid the premium hike and loss of NBC. I have the owners details and would potentially look to take civil recovery if they don't compensate me for the damage.

Having said all this, I have superb dashcam footage of the whole thing. The dog ran in front of my vehicle and there was literally no avoiding it.

AdrianC

Was the dog insured? If so, then claim from that. Yes, the dog owner is legally liable.

You will still need to declare the incident to your insurer, though, and to any future insurer for the next five years. You can choose to lie to them, but if you have claimed from the dog owner's insurance, then you should probably assume the insurance industry knows. A small premium hike is preferable to a cancelled policy.

flatulantyounggoat

So I guess even if I go the insurance route, the 3rd party pays up and it's all settled in a non-fault manner I'm still going to be deemed by insurance companies as higher risk. Even though there was nothing I could do and I was well below the speed limit? What a fraud.

Farway

I was in reverse position, my dog ran out & was run over.

The driver had to claim off my Personal Liability insurance because I was not going to pay out for repairs when covered by insurance for just such an eventuality


All correspondence was via them and I heard no more about it

loskie

I had a non fault accident claimed off the other insurer, notified mine and it made no difference to my policy costs

You could sue the dog owner through the small claims court.

Simby

You hit the dog and want compensation....if this was a child you would be facing procesution

Have you considered paying the dogs vet bills due to the accident you caused by not paying attention

NigeWick

flatulantyounggoat wrote: »

Someone lost control of their dog, it ran straight into the front of my vehicle causing about £600 worth of damage to my front bumper.

You need to report the collision to the police (at the time/as soon as is practicable) because damage was caused to your vehicle by the dog.

AdrianC

flatulantyounggoat wrote: »

So I guess even if I go the insurance route, the 3rd party pays up and it's all settled in a non-fault manner I'm still going to be deemed by the insurance companies as higher risk. Even though there was nothing I could do and I was well below the speed limit?

Yep.

What a fraud.

No, not really.

You are, historically, a higher risk than somebody who has not had a collision in the last few years. The detail of the collision is not terribly important, because it's averaged statistics that are used. People who have been in collisions in the past are more likely to be in them in the future.

It's not a conspiracy, either - if one insurer felt they could make a profit by taking the business of you and people like you at a lower premium, they'd clean the market up. But nobody wants to take that business. They'd rather take the business of people without that history. To take your business, they want a higher premium to compensate for the greater likelihood of having to pay out.

As for the circumstances of this collision - if the dog owner hadn't been to hand, your insurer could well be paying out for the damage to your car. If the circumstances were very slightly different, that could be a lot more than a few hundred quid - if you'd lost control and hit a bus queue of nuns with baskets of kittens.

BTW - "well below the speed limit" is not, in itself, a laudable thing. You would fail your driving test for driving more slowly than prevailing conditions allowed.

Simby wrote: »

You hit the dog and want compensation....if this was a child you would be facing procesution

Emotive codswallop. If the child had run out into the road in front of the car, giving no time to avoid it, then the OP would as innocent as if it was a dog. Legally, dogs are under the control of their owners, hence the owner's liability.

couriervanman

Simby wrote: »

You hit the dog and want compensation....if this was a child you would be facing procesution

Have you considered paying the dogs vet bills due to the accident you caused by not paying attention

The dog owner wasn't in control of the dog when it ran out

If it had been a child who ran in front of car the driver would not be prosecuted unless speeding/drunk or disqualified

custardy

Simby wrote: »

You hit the dog and want compensation....if this was a child you would be facing procesution

Have you considered paying the dogs vet bills due to the accident you caused by not paying attention

say what now?

Car_54

NigeWick wrote: »

You need to report the collision to the police (at the time/as soon as is practicable) because damage was caused to your vehicle by the dog.

If the only damage was to the OP's vehicle then there would be no need to report.


If the dog was injured (we only know that it "survived") then the OP should have given its owner his name and address, if asked. Only if he failed to do so would there be any need to report to the police.