Hit And Run

Is_it_worth_it

Hi, any advice where to go on this please.

Whilst parked outside of my house my car got hit, the driver knew that he had hit it because he looked out of the window at it and drove off, I have cctv of the whole incident, his phone number, company phone number and a neighbour as a witness, who was there when it got it. I phoned him and he admitted it and said that he was driving so will call back, but you guessed it he didnt call back, after several days of trying to get through to him i spoke to him and he then denied it and said that i had hit him, told him hes talking rubbish as the car was parked with no one in it. I told him that i have cctv of the incident and that i will contact the police, his response was go ahead and do it.
I told him it was on cctv and i will send him a still image of the vehicle he was in next to my car, again he denied doing it.
I phoned the company landline phone number but it just rings, possibly could be his own company.
I have contacted my insurers and the police and given them both all of the evidence. The police have not even bothered to contact me, as i had to file the report online, some 4 weeks later.
My insurers will not get involved unless i put a claim in, however they have told me that if I put a claim in there is a high risk of them writing my car off, which i do not want, i know i can buy it back but dont want it reg'd as a CAT. I also phoned up the legal protection policy up and they were not interested in taking it on as their fees would cost a lot more than the cost of the damege to my car.
I thought about small claims but you need the persons full name and address or possibile company address which i do not have, the company website do not have a address on it, tried looking at companies house but it must be registered under a different name as its not on there either.
So it looks like he'll get away with it and i'll have to pay it out my own pocket, which is just under 1k of repairs.

Any help or advice where to go on this as im at my wits end.

Aretnap

Is_it_worth_it said:

My insurers will not get involved unless i put a claim in, however they have told me that if I put a claim in there is a high risk of them writing my car off, which i do not want, i know i can buy it back but dont want it reg'd as a CAT.

Why not? What problems do you think it will cause you?

It's only really an issue if you are planning to sell the car, and if the car is likely to be written off for £1000 if repairs then the car s presumably nearer the end of its life than the beginning anyway.

So if you were planning to sell the car reasonably soon anyway you might as well take the write off cheque and replace it now.

OTOH if you were planning to keep it until it fails an MOT and then trade it in for a few hundred pounds you might as well let them write it off, buy it back and get the repairs done in the cheap and keep driving it - the write off marker will make little or no difference to the value of a £500 MOT failure. 

Is_it_worth_it

Aretnap said:

Is_it_worth_it said:

My insurers will not get involved unless i put a claim in, however they have told me that if I put a claim in there is a high risk of them writing my car off, which i do not want, i know i can buy it back but dont want it reg'd as a CAT.

Why not? What problems do you think it will cause you?

It's only really an issue if you are planning to sell the car, and if the car is likely to be written off for £1000 if repairs then the car s presumably nearer the end of its life than the beginning anyway.

So if you were planning to sell the car reasonably soon anyway you might as well take the write off cheque and replace it now.

OTOH if you were planning to keep it until it fails an MOT and then trade it in for a few hundred pounds you might as well let them write it off, buy it back and get the repairs done in the cheap and keep driving it - the write off marker will make little or no difference to the value of a £500 MOT failure. 

I thought that some insurers were a bit fussy when insuring a CAT car which would put the price up.

Obviously the value will go down, not looking to sell it anytime soon.

Looking on ad sites at similar/identical cars and they are going for between 3-4 times the amount it would cost for me to get fixed as i have someone i know in the body repair business which is why i can get it repaired a lot cheaper than if they use their own repair companies, i even said that im prepared to get it fixed myself i just want the costs covered.
I even said to the insurer that it would make more of a financial sense to them for me to get it repaired than it would cost them to write it off as i would'nt accept pittance for it as i would want to replace it with a like for like car, he didnt have a answer for that.

MattMattMattUK

Stop messing around, report them to your insurance, report them to the police.

Is_it_worth_it

MattMattMattUK said:

Stop messing around, report them to your insurance, report them to the police.

If you read the OP i have reported it to both and neither are interested

SpudGunPaul

Claim direct form his insurance. 

Aretnap

Is_it_worth_it said:

Aretnap said:

Is_it_worth_it said:

My insurers will not get involved unless i put a claim in, however they have told me that if I put a claim in there is a high risk of them writing my car off, which i do not want, i know i can buy it back but dont want it reg'd as a CAT.

Why not? What problems do you think it will cause you?

It's only really an issue if you are planning to sell the car, and if the car is likely to be written off for £1000 if repairs then the car s presumably nearer the end of its life than the beginning anyway.

So if you were planning to sell the car reasonably soon anyway you might as well take the write off cheque and replace it now.

OTOH if you were planning to keep it until it fails an MOT and then trade it in for a few hundred pounds you might as well let them write it off, buy it back and get the repairs done in the cheap and keep driving it - the write off marker will make little or no difference to the value of a £500 MOT failure. 

I thought that some insurers were a bit fussy when insuring a CAT car which would put the price up.

Obviously the value will go down, not looking to sell it anytime soon.

Looking on ad sites at similar/identical cars and they are going for between 3-4 times the amount it would cost for me to get fixed as i have someone i know in the body repair business which is why i can get it repaired a lot cheaper than if they use their own repair companies, i even said that im prepared to get it fixed myself i just want the costs covered.
I even said to the insurer that it would make more of a financial sense to them for me to get it repaired than it would cost them to write it off as i would'nt accept pittance for it as i would want to replace it with a like for like car, he didnt have a answer for that.

The insurance thing is mostly an urban myth. Only a very small minority of insurers are fussy about insuring a previously written off car; the large majority don't care and it is unlikely to have any noticeable impact on your premiums.

The reduction in value is real, but only an issue if you actually sell it, which you're not planning to do any time soon.

Some very rough maths: if they write if off for say £3.5K, you buy it back for a few hundred quid and get your mate to fix it for a grand, that leaves you with the better part of two thousand pounds in your back pocket - more than enough to compensate for any theoretical loss of value when you sell it a few years down the line, or a very small increase in insurance premiums. That sounds like the way to go to me - and you can leave your insurers to worry about chasing the other guy.

Car_54

SpudGunPaul said:

Claim direct form his insurance. 

And how can he find the insurer? He doesn’t know the driver’s name, nor (from what he’s said) the registration number.

macman

I assume the car or van carried both a company name and the phone number. So I don't understand why you can't locate that company at CH, assuming it's a limited company and not a sole trader? If you can get the registered address you are home and dry for small claims.
Or could you get someone else to call this company with a spurious business enquiry, which might possibly obtain a name and address?

tifo

Just give his reg to your insurer and let them deal with it.

DullGreyGuy

macman said:

I assume the car or van carried both a company name and the phone number. So I don't understand why you can't locate that company at CH, assuming it's a limited company and not a sole trader? If you can get the registered address you are home and dry for small claims.
Or could you get someone else to call this company with a spurious business enquiry, which might possibly obtain a name and address?

As always, its sensible to ensure the entity you are suing has the means to pay for the damages otherwise you are just throwing good money after bad. The company on the side is not automatically liable for the driver... indeed at one point a neighbour had some random company on the side of their car as he signed up to a scheme where he got paid £X per month for having wrap/magnetic signage of whoever wanted to advertise to the area.

The OP hasnt been clear as to if they have the vehicle registration or not... if they do then they get the insurance details on the date of the accident from the MID for a one off fee and similarly can get the registered keepers details from the DVLA. If they dont have the registration then things are more complicated and you may be finding easy defences being filed that the party being litigated against wasnt part of the accident which means lost fees each time.