Someone bumped my car in car park. How to proceed? 8 January at 8:07AM in Motoring 21 replies 1.1K views

Mark_84

Yesterday I come back to my car in a car park to find a note on my car from an independent witness who observed someone bump into the rear of my car. They have left the registration number and make/model of car but not their contact details.

I reckon the damage is a few hundred pounds worth it’s basically just scraped the bumper.

I have reported it to the police using an online form they provided but guess they won’t do anything without a witness.

Do I use social media to try and find the witness or car who did it?

Do I contact my insurance and will they be able to do anything with only the registration number and no witness? I don’t want my premiums to increase?

Or do I just wait to see if the police ever come back and repair it myself?

any advice appreciated

The car park didn’t have CCTV.

Thanks 

YBR

Probably I'd start by going to a couple of garages for a quote to repair the car. 
Then you can consider if it is worth a claim on insurance.

m0bov

Insurance, that's what it's there for.

daveyjp

Options are:

1. Forget about responsibility and pay for it to be fixed.

2. Get a quote for it to be fixed.  Report it to your insurance company with info of the other reg.  Get them to investigate and see if the other party agrees they are at fault.

If they do get your bodyshop to repair and bill the third party.  If they don't back to 1.

3.  Do your own research on the third party insurance status,  https://www.askmid.com/askmidenquiry.aspx

4. Claim on your own insurance and suffer a potential premium increase.

If the damage is only cosmetic and you can still use the car 2 or 3 for me.

I've just been through an incident and went down option 2, the difference is the third party was still on site.  The incident has not increased a renewal premium.

Mark_84

I didn’t know if my insurance would be able to pursue the other car as there is no proof who was driving and I don’t have the witness details yet.

I have put a post on social media for the witness to come forward.

Otherwise will just have to pay myself.

sheslookinhot

Your premium will increase if you contact your insurer.

Forwandert

You don't really have a witness, you have a piece of paper that someone wrote something on.

Could have been written by the person that bumped it and wrote it out so it looked like they where leaving their details and left someone else's for all you know. 

EssexExile

sheslookinhot said:

Your premium will increase if you contact your insurer.

It may increase.

Devongardener

This exact scenario happened to my neighbour,  note left by an anonymous witness.  He passed the reg no to his insurer and they traced the offender.  His car was repaired and he didn’t lose his no claims bonus, or have his premiums increased.

macman

Mark_84 said:

I didn’t know if my insurance would be able to pursue the other car as there is no proof who was driving and I don’t have the witness details yet.

I have put a post on social media for the witness to come forward.

Otherwise will just have to pay myself.

Your insurers would contact the registered keeper, or their own insurers. The police will not be interested, as no injury has been caused.

Mark_84

Devongardener said:

This exact scenario happened to my neighbour,  note left by an anonymous witness.  He passed the reg no to his insurer and they traced the offender.  His car was repaired and he didn’t lose his no claims bonus, or have his premiums increased.

That’s good to know. Thanks