Lime bike damaged our car

Gavin83

Sandtree said:

Mackers12 said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is this bad advice (I'm not challenging you, I just am not sure why it is?).

We haven't disclosed and don't currently intend to disclose to the insurance company or claim through insurance. 

Many people commit insurance fraud so you are not alone but it doesnt change the fact you have a contractual obligation to inform your insurers of any incidents and when getting a quote for motor insurance you will be asked to declare all incidents irrespective of if you claimed for them.

I think it's a massive stretch to call this insurance fraud. Fraud requires you to intentionally deprive a person of business of it's money by dishonest means and given how regardless of what you do you won't receive money from the insurance company (or owe them any) I don't see how that applies here. I do agree that you're breaking the terms of your contract though.

Saying that I think someone would be crazy to inform their insurers of such an incident but each to their own.

OP, I think it might be worth a LBA but probably not worth taking to court. There's a lot of question marks around this case to confidently say you'd win any such legal action but a LBA is free and given the small amounts involved they may just pay out. However given their responses so far it appears they may take a hard line approach on this. Also £200 seems fairly steep to me for this light replacement and even if Lime were liable they'd likely not be required to pay out for the cost of a new light but just a used one.

Aylesbury_Duck

Gavin83 said:

Sandtree said:

Mackers12 said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is this bad advice (I'm not challenging you, I just am not sure why it is?).

We haven't disclosed and don't currently intend to disclose to the insurance company or claim through insurance. 

Many people commit insurance fraud so you are not alone but it doesnt change the fact you have a contractual obligation to inform your insurers of any incidents and when getting a quote for motor insurance you will be asked to declare all incidents irrespective of if you claimed for them.

I think it's a massive stretch to call this insurance fraud. Fraud requires you to intentionally deprive a person of business of it's money by dishonest means and given how regardless of what you do you won't receive money from the insurance company (or owe them any) I don't see how that applies here. I do agree that you're breaking the terms of your contract though.

Saying that I think someone would be crazy to inform their insurers of such an incident but each to their own.

OP, I think it might be worth a LBA but probably not worth taking to court. There's a lot of question marks around this case to confidently say you'd win any such legal action but a LBA is free and given the small amounts involved they may just pay out. However given their responses so far it appears they may take a hard line approach on this. Also £200 seems fairly steep to me for this light replacement and even if Lime were liable they'd likely not be required to pay out for the cost of a new light but just a used one.

The problem may be that in this case, OP has already been in contact with Lime and would need to be confident that Lime haven't notified their insurers of a potential claim relating to OP's vehicle.  Not notifying your insurer becomes risky if you can't guarantee that the other party hasn't or won't notify theirs.

Manxman_in_exile

Sandtree said:

There are various elements on parking safely on the Lime website (https://www.li.me/how-to-lime).

Ah!  I was going to mention in my previous post that it would be more difficult for the OP to blame Lime if they could show that they had taken reasonable steps to instruct hirers how to park - but I forgot!

However, that website is pretty carp!  (Is that what hirers here are directed to, or is there a UK equivalent?)  I would say that the rather scant and useless parking "advice" on that website would tend to establish carelessness on Lime's part.  (1) nowhere does it say not to park in the vicinity of cars or other private property that could be damaged if a bike/scooter fell on it, and (2) they encourage hirers to park on the "curbside" [sic] where they are more likely to damage parked cars etc.

Sandtree said:

 We have various Lime and Jump bikes around our area and its not uncommon to see one moved just a foot or two so either its got a regular user who always leaves it in the same place or more likely its others moving the bike without hiring it.... when it goes from being stood up next to the local coop side wall you’d guess thats the hirer or a good samaritan and when tis laying on the floor in the middle the pavement thats probably the local kids. More than once Iive seen it on the floor going into the shop and its been stood up and moved to the wall when I’ve come back out. 

This sort of highlights one of the issues I have with these schemes.  If you are going to provide these schemes then I think the providers need to come up with a system of secure stable parking for the bikes/scooters to minimise the liklihood of damage or obstruction being caused by the hirer or third party leaving them just lying around in stupid places*.  If that can't be done then the provider (or whichever public authority authorises the scheme) should be liable for the damage/obstruction.  If they aren't happy with that then scrap the scheme.

*Isn't that one of the reasons those yellow bikes disappeared a couple of years ago?

Flight3287462

Contacting your insurer for minor incidents is madness.

I'm not even sure the people on here would follow their own advice when push came to shove.

Ectophile

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

Contacting your insurer for minor incidents is madness.

I'm not even sure the people on here would follow their own advice when push came to shove.

The issue here is that the OP is thinking of suing somebody else for the damage to their car.  So telling the insurance company that there have been no accidents in the last year would be a flat lie.

I'm sure most people don't bother telling their insurer about every silly little bump or scrape that doesn't involve anybody claiming money off anybody else.

unholyangel

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

Contacting your insurer for minor incidents is madness.

I'm not even sure the people on here would follow their own advice when push came to shove.

Would I want to contact them? Not particularly. But would I? Definitely, because funnily enough, I do aboslutely draw the line at committing criminal offenses, no matter how beneficial they may seem. 

Even before it would have cost me my profession, I can confidently say I would've reported.....because I have been in that situation and did report it, with the full awareness it could increase my premium (although luckily it didn't). 

Aylesbury_Duck

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

Contacting your insurer for minor incidents is madness.

I'm not even sure the people on here would follow their own advice when push came to shove.

You're at liberty to do as you please with your own legal contracts. Advising people to ignore their contractual commitments is the mad bit.

Flight3287462

Ectophile said:

Hunyani_Flight_825 said:

Contacting your insurer for minor incidents is madness.

I'm not even sure the people on here would follow their own advice when push came to shove.

The issue here is that the OP is thinking of suing somebody else for the damage to their car.  So telling the insurance company that there have been no accidents in the last year would be a flat lie.

I'm sure most people don't bother telling their insurer about every silly little bump or scrape that doesn't involve anybody claiming money off anybody else.

In this case I would agree with you if the OP plans to pursue the matter. 

Flight3287462

unholyangel said:
 I do aboslutely draw the line at committing criminal offenses, no matter how beneficial they may seem. 

There is no criminal offence.  Taking the OP predicament he could pick the bike up, and just pay to get it sorted.  That is not a criminal offence.

If the horse decides to sharpen its teeth on my bonnet, there is no criminal offence if not reported (happened to our Jeep)
If I reverse into our wall there is no criminal offence if not reported.
If I drive into a ditch and damage the bumper there is no criminal offence if not reported.
If I damage someone else's property and don't report it there could be a criminal offence and should be reported

If you guys want to report it to your insurer minor dings then that is up to you.

unholyangel

Put it this way, even if you can justify not telling your current insurer....when it comes to renewal and they ask if there have been any incidents, whether they resulted in a claim or not....answering falsely to that question is no different to giving a different name, date of birth, stating social only when you're using it to commute etc. 

But it won't affect your policy with the current insurer anyway (not unless you told them you park in a garage or something). It will only potentially affect cost at renewal, where we're back to committing fraud on your application. Plus, lime may already have notified their insurers, who have already logged the details on the insurance database. 

I'd also point out there is a possibility here that it was neither lime or the riders fault. If they had left it in a suitable place but someone else then moved it