No fault accident, insurance claim or not?

jazza77

My neighbour reversed his car into my parked car, exchanged details etc., fairly minor damage to door panel. Notified my insurance company the next day. I have quote from bodyshop recommended to me and that I'd like to use. Neighbour says that he will pay for repair, although he had tried to get me to use a body shop that he says would do it a lot cheaper. 
He has a somewhat chequered history of damaging other neighbour's cars amongst ither things, and I don't know how reliable he will be paying up.

My question I suppose is, how would things go if I book my car in for repair and he doesn't  then pay? Should I just go ahead and put in a third party claim to his insurers just now to protect my position? How long would I have to do that from date of the incident (last week)?

lisyloo

Understand your position of wanting to use a shop you trust, also understand his of enquiring as to whether a cheaper option would be acceptable (just raising the question doesn’t ring any alarm bells).
you have several years to claim although records get lost and memories get fuzzy so it’s best to get these things sorted asap not to mention it can be factored into renewal premiums,
I would go direct to his insurer as it doesn’t sound like you can trust him.

If he didn’t pay then in theory you should get reimbursed but there could be questions about which body shop you used and what they did if it’s not authorised in advance and of course you could have to wait.
normally 3rd party insurers are very helpful as they wish to control costs and don’t want you going elsewhere like an expensive credi hire firm so normally they are falling over themselves to get it sorted.

DullGreyGuy

jazza77 said:

My question I suppose is, how would things go if I book my car in for repair and he doesn't  then pay? Should I just go ahead and put in a third party claim to his insurers just now to protect my position? How long would I have to do that from date of the incident (last week)?

You have 6 years from the date of loss to make the claim. How it will go will depend on if he has informed his insurers or not. If he hasn't, and if he's doing this frequently then its probably more likely he hasn't, then they can either register the claim from you and then approach him for confirmation or tell you to go away, legally you can only force them to deal with you after you have a court order against him in relation to this vehicle. In practice very few insurers go to that extreme. 

If he wants to deal with it privately, firstly make sure you have a full estimate (some only quote labour and say parts are list price), make it clear to him it is an estimate and get him to give you the estimate cash before the car goes in. If you are unlucky and the costs are higher than the estimate then at least you've got the vast majority paid before the hassle of getting the rest back

jazza77

Thanks both, appreciate your thoughts. The body shop I'd prefer to use is full for a while, so I can probably afford to allow him at least a week or two to make good on his promise to pay. Not sure if he has the cash tbh, so I may just need to claim on his insurance in the end.

Stateofart

I've done it both ways, through insurance and paid for the person's car to be repaired.  Just go through insurance and thank me later.

Girl backed into my car.  Got a quote, which took a while faffing around.  Quote was £350.  All booked in for three months time and then my airbag light came on, which is an MOT failure.  Cue scrabbling around for a bodyshop that could do it earlier so I wasn't off the road.  Next shop quoted £1500 and possibly more depending on the crash sensor damage behind.  Turns out it was damaged, plus the fog light which I haven't seen.  Needed new bumper, crash sensor and crash bar, new fog light, paint for the whole thing plus a courtesy car.  Reckon the bill was in the thousands and I was without my car for two months.  All this would have been my problem if I had chosen to do this out of insurance.