Car's been hit, third party not answering their phone. Am I out of luck?

boxosox

The missus was driving the car and someone reversed into it.  She took the man's name and number, but no address, insurance details etc. because he was "in a hurry".

The phone number isn't being answered so we have no way of getting the insurance details.  My wife took a photo of their number plate, but that's not really of any use, is it?

AskMID says the car is insured.

The damage to my car is probably around £1,000 at a guess, so it's significant.  This all happened yesterday.

Brie

Pass the details you have to your insurance company for them to sort it out. 

Make sure that they are aware that he was in too much of a hurry to give all the details he should have provided.  I suspect he either has no insurance or he assumed he might get away with it as it was just some dizzy dame he'd hit.  Hopefully they do catch up with him but even if they can't track him down you are obliged by the T&Cs to tell them anyways.

force_ten1

just contact your insurance company explain the situation and give them the number plate and any details that you have. they can find out who they are insured with and deal with the claim 

DullGreyGuy

boxosox said:

The phone number isn't being answered so we have no way of getting the insurance details.  My wife took a photo of their number plate, but that's not really of any use, is it?

AskMID says the car is insured.

The damage to my car is probably around £1,000 at a guess, so it's significant.  This all happened yesterday.

AskMID has two services, you have breached the terms of the Own Vehicle lookup as you don't own the car you looked up but the second service is for accidents and it will tell you who the insurer was and the policy number on the date of the accident. This service comes with a small fee.

Similarly you can contact the DVLA who'll provide you the details of the registered keeper. 

Alternatively you can hand it over to your insurers who'll do the above for you and counter claim off their insurance once they've settled your claim. 

boxosox

force_ten1 said:

just contact your insurance company explain the situation and give them the number plate and any details that you have. they can find out who they are insured with and deal with the claim 

And what's stopping him saying he didn't hit our car?

sevenhills

DullGreyGuy said:

Similarly you can contact the DVLA who'll provide you the details of the registered keeper. 

If details have not been provided, in keeping with the law, you could report it to the police.

DullGreyGuy

boxosox said:

force_ten1 said:

just contact your insurance company explain the situation and give them the number plate and any details that you have. they can find out who they are insured with and deal with the claim 

And what's stopping him saying he didn't hit our car?

Nothing, but he stopped so that's a good sign. Insurers can try and inspect his vehicle, if there is £1k of damage to yours then chances are there is damage to his

turnitround

Is there no chance of someone having camera footage where it happened or perhaps ring doorbell footage you could get?  If the damage to his car is at the rear of his vehicle he could say she ran into him.

boxosox

turnitround said:

Is there no chance of someone having camera footage where it happened or perhaps ring doorbell footage you could get?  If the damage to his car is at the rear of his vehicle he could say she ran into him.

Exactly my concern.  There's no real damage to their car.

Bigphil1474

Maybe give the phone number a few more tries. If it's a landline, maybe they are out, if it's a mobile, maybe they don't answer unrecognised numbers? Send a text maybe. If they were hoping to fix the damage without involving insurance, then it's worth trying. 

alidai

boxosox said:

turnitround said:

Is there no chance of someone having camera footage where it happened or perhaps ring doorbell footage you could get?  If the damage to his car is at the rear of his vehicle he could say she ran into him.

Exactly my concern.  There's no real damage to their car.

Why does that matter at all? Just claim from your insurance, why are you trying to contact them personally, that’s what insurers and car insurance is for.