Damaged new neighbours car while moving house

TigerTanaka

Last year I helped my sister-in-law move house and used a sack-truck type trolley for some larger items.  While moving her tall fridge outside her new house, the trolley jumped on a bit of uneven pavement and the fridge tipped over, clipping her new neighbours car door (dent & scratch).  At the time I spoke to the neighbour and we agreed that she would obtain a quote for the repairs to the car as it was going in for a service the following week.

After 12 months (during which I had heard nothing from her whatsoever), I got a text message from the neighbour saying that she had put in a car insurance claim and the repair costs would be "a few hundred pounds" but "all we (ie her and the insurance company) are asking you to pay is £100".  This was literally the day before the car was being collected to do the repairs.  I felt the £100 was reasonable and said I would either pay her or the insurance company, whatever was easier.

Jump forward a month or so and I get a letter from her insurance company demanding over £800 (which feels ridiculous given the damage) for the completed repairs and copies of the garage invoice.  I spoke to them and said that I had an offer in writing (the text message) that said all I needed to pay was £100 but they are insisting on full payment.  I do not believe that my house insurance (or any other policy) will cover this situation.

A number of issues here:

• Neighbour has gone against an agreement to get a quote for the repairs
  
• Neighbour waited 11 months before putting in an insurance claim
• Neighbour did not inform me that the claim was underway until the day before the repairs started and misled me in terms of how much I was being asked to pay
• Amount of the claim is totally excessive in my view and I have had no opportunity to independently verify the cost.
• The neighbour cannot seemingly substantiate her original claims that the repairs would be "a few hundred pounds" (I do still have the text message)
• The insurance company tries to answer all my questions relating to the conduct of their client with answers such as "we cannot comment on such matters".

I am in ongoing dialogue with the insurance company but seemingly getting nowhere.

Any ideas?

tacpot12

I would offer the neighbour £400 in "full and final settlement". It seems unlikely that a dent and a scratch could be fixed for £100, and while the neighbour can and should have handled this better, you did damage their car and should pay a reasonable amount to have it fixed.

I doubt that any fridge you could move on a sack truck could have caused more than £400 of damage. A paintless dent removal company would be able to remove one smallish dent for that sort of price. Let her sue you if she wants more than £400. 

user1977

Presumably the insurers have paid the bill and they are seeking reimbursement from the OP, rather than negotiating on behalf of the insured. So it's the insurer to whom any offers to settle should be made.

billy2shots

£800  sounds reasonable if the panel needed to be resprayed as well. 

FlameCloud

tacpot12 said:

I would offer the neighbour £400 in "full and final settlement". It seems unlikely that a dent and a scratch could be fixed for £100, and while the neighbour can and should have handled this better, you did damage their car and should pay a reasonable amount to have it fixed.

I doubt that any fridge you could move on a sack truck could have caused more than £400 of damage. A paintless dent removal company would be able to remove one smallish dent for that sort of price. Let her sue you if she wants more than £400. 

Without knowing anything about the age, make or type of car, let alone an accurate damage description, how can you possibly say this with any accuracy 

Sandtree

tacpot12 said:

I would offer the neighbour £400 in "full and final settlement". It seems unlikely that a dent and a scratch could be fixed for £100, and while the neighbour can and should have handled this better, you did damage their car and should pay a reasonable amount to have it fixed.

I doubt that any fridge you could move on a sack truck could have caused more than £400 of damage. A paintless dent removal company would be able to remove one smallish dent for that sort of price. Let her sue you if she wants more than £400. 

Its the insurers claiming from the OP not the neighbour.

The neighbour has clearly asked the OP to refund them their excess not knowing/thinking that their insurer would then go on to recover their outlay. 

TigerTanaka said:

A number of issues here:

1. Neighbour has gone against an agreement to get a quote for the repairs
   
2. Neighbour waited 11 months before putting in an insurance claim
3. Neighbour did not inform me that the claim was underway until the day before the repairs started and misled me in terms of how much I was being asked to pay
4. Amount of the claim is totally excessive in my view and I have had no opportunity to independently verify the cost.
5. The neighbour cannot seemingly substantiate her original claims that the repairs would be "a few hundred pounds" (I do still have the text message)
6. The insurance company tries to answer all my questions relating to the conduct of their client with answers such as "we cannot comment on such matters".

1 - there is no obligation for them to engage with you, they are perfectly entitled to hand matters to their insurers to deal with... its what they pay their premiums for after all

2 - the insurer will have considered if the delay in report the claim has prejudiced the claim at all... on the basis they have accepted the claim they clearly dont believe it has plus with all the issues in the last 11 months its not that surprising people may hold off doing non-essential things

3 - again, they are under no obligation to engage you at all... I suspect the amount issue is just a missunderstanding about excess -v- outlay as mentioned above

4 - this is how claims work... if you arent happy you can try and negotiate but dont expect to get anywhere and the insurers are likely to be happy to let the courts decide if its excessive or not

5 - unless you can prove the neighbour is a motor engineer then this will be dismissed as the fact that 99% of people underestimate repair values - when doing total loss calculations the amount deducted for pre-existing damage is always notably below repair cost for this same reason

6 - as noted above, unfortunately most of your points are of no relevance, the neighbour has subrogated their rights to their insurers. Their attitude on the phone is probably mainly due to the fact insurers deal with many armchair lawyers who waste time and effort.

Assuming the neighbour did pay £100 excess then £900 for a mainstream dealer to do repairs and provide a courtesy car etc is not a lot. Insurers give multi-year warranties on their repairs and can be taken to the Ombudsman for poor repairs so dont scrimp using mobile dent pullers as others have suggested but you admit there was paintwork damage so not even possible for that option. 

Make an offer if you want, pay up or allow them to attempt to gain a CCJ... I dont know how much your sister also values their relationship with the neighbour etc.

csgohan4

I would not have engaged for an informal way to pay for this, where does it stop, they can keep claiming more money  potentially.

Always go through your insurer and settle this officially and take Photos at the accident. Trying to settle this outside to save some money will not help you in the end as it hasn't here. 

Did you declare this to your previous insurers? Your supposed to and such time has passed, they may or may not cover due to failure to declare

GrumpyDil

csgohan4 said:

I would not have engaged for an informal way to pay for this, where does it stop, they can keep claiming more money  potentially.

Always go through your insurer and settle this officially and take Photos at the accident. Trying to settle this outside to save some money will not help you in the end as it hasn't here. 

Did you declare this to your previous insurers? Your supposed to and such time has passed, they may or may not cover due to failure to declare

Which insurer would that be then as this was damage with a sack-barrow not the OP's car.

OP advice above seems to cover it. I suspect the neighbour did not realise that claiming via her insurance company would result in the insurance company asking you to pay. 

tacpot12

billy2shots said:

£800  sounds reasonable if the panel needed to be resprayed as well. 

£800 is a reasonable price to pay if the panel needed to be resprayed, but when you consider the  weight of a empty fridge freezer falling onto a steel car door panel, it is difficult for me to conceive that it could do so much damage as to need an entire panel respraying. The paintless dent removal processes are very sophisticated and avoid the need to have entire panels resprayed.

The age make and type of car make no difference. A Rolls Royce is no more difficult to repair using paintless techniques than a Nissan Micra. A Rolls Royce would be  a lot more expensive if you had to repaint a panel, because the panels are bigger and there are more layers of paint, but with a paintless repair all of that consideration goes away. The only thing that matters is the size of the dent and the degree to which the metal has been stretched. An empty fridge freezer is actually pretty light. It's not like it was dropped onto the car from a great height, it slid off the sack truck. However, if it fell off the sack truck and caught the car as it hit the  ground, the  tip of a corner could have been travelling fast enough to cut a hole in the steel of a cheaply produced car, and the damage would have been muck more costly to repair, but the OP didn't mention that the damage was this extensive. He said a scratch and a dent.  

I agree that all the points raised by the OP apart from excessive cost are irrelevant.

Sandtree

GrumpyDil said:
Which insurer would that be then as this was damage with a sack-barrow not the OP's car.

There is potential that their Home Contents insurance's Public Liability section could respond

billy2shots

tacpot12 said:

billy2shots said:

£800  sounds reasonable if the panel needed to be resprayed as well. 

£800 is a reasonable price to pay if the panel needed to be resprayed, but when you consider the  weight of a empty fridge freezer falling onto a steel car door panel, it is difficult for me to conceive that it could do so much damage as to need an entire panel respraying. The paintless dent removal processes are very sophisticated and avoid the need to have entire panels resprayed.

The age make and type of car make no difference. A Rolls Royce is no more difficult to repair using paintless techniques than a Nissan Micra. A Rolls Royce would be  a lot more expensive if you had to repaint a panel, because the panels are bigger and there are more layers of paint, but with a paintless repair all of that consideration goes away. The only thing that matters is the size of the dent and the degree to which the metal has been stretched. An empty fridge freezer is actually pretty light. It's not like it was dropped onto the car from a great height, it slid off the sack truck. However, if it fell off the sack truck and caught the car as it hit the  ground, the  tip of a corner could have been travelling fast enough to cut a hole in the steel of a cheaply produced car, and the damage would have been muck more costly to repair, but the OP didn't mention that the damage was this extensive. He said a scratch and a dent.  

I agree that all the points raised by the OP apart from excessive cost are irrelevant.

With all due respect, the weight of something has nothing to do with anything. 

Anything colliding with a painted surface at the wrong angle can lead to damage to the paintwork.

Paintless dent removal is great and relatively cheap. It is also irrelevant if the repair also requires painting with more than just a matched touch up sample. 

I would also have to disagree with you on the type of car (and paintwork of said car) having no influence on the repair cost. 
The process to repair might be the same or very similar but trust me (speaking from a place of experience), the cost of certain brands paint can vary massively.