How to proceed after someone crashed through my wall?

$nake_eye$

How to proceed after someone crashed through my wall?

Not house wall, a wall around my garden. The accident happened yesterday morning and the car has now been recovered but knocked down a Drystone wall. I have her name and number and photos of the car in the wall. Do I inform the police/my house insurance or do I only contact her insurance company? My my house insurance company contact her car insurance company? Should i ask her if she want to settle with directly once I have a quote from a dry stone waller? Not clear on how to proceed. Thanks!

Nasqueron

Edited - to tidy up formatting and make it clearer

You inform your house insurer as per the terms and conditions

You claim off her car insurance.

It's highly unlikely she'd pay due to the cost - I know a lot of people try this approach and don't tell insurer and for a £50 scrape, it may well be economical to keep it under the table to avoid the excess but not a major bill like a wall rebuild. These sort of cases go on forever when they realise the actual cost, they keep saying they'll get quotes or their mate is a builder can do it perfectly fine (even though he has no actual experience of dry stone walling) and it drags on and on until the person ghosts you and it's too late to claim.

It is far easier to lodge the claim with her insurance as she will be required to tell her insurer anyway - not least as she's likely going to have to claim for car damage as well. Then get 2-3 quotes yourself so you're ready to negotiate with the insurance company if they try and low ball.

DullGreyGuy

$nake_eye$ said:

 I have her name and number and photos of the car in the wall. Do I inform the police/my house insurance or do I only contact her insurance company? My my house insurance company contact her car insurance company? Should i ask her if she want to settle with directly once I have a quote from a dry stone waller? Not clear on how to proceed. Thanks!

Police won't be interested given details were exchanged and no one materially injured. 

Its really up to you, you can claim directly from her insurance which avoids needing to pay your excess etc however the only word of caution is that if things go wrong with the claim you do not have the right to go to the Ombudsman. 

Alternatively you can claim from your insurance, in theory they should then counterclaim their outlay from the her insurance but in practice because there are so few occasions that home insurers can do this they don't tend to be that great at doing it. You get Ombudsman protection but likely have to pay your excess and then recover it from her insurance.

$nake_eye$

Nasqueron said:

Edited - to tidy up formatting and make it clearer

You inform your house insurer as per the terms and conditions

You claim off her car insurance.

It's highly unlikely she'd pay due to the cost - I know a lot of people try this approach and don't tell insurer and for a £50 scrape, it may well be economical to keep it under the table to avoid the excess but not a major bill like a wall rebuild. These sort of cases go on forever when they realise the actual cost, they keep saying they'll get quotes or their mate is a builder can do it perfectly fine (even though he has no actual experience of dry stone walling) and it drags on and on until the person ghosts you and it's too late to claim.

It is far easier to lodge the claim with her insurance as she will be required to tell her insurer anyway - not least as she's likely going to have to claim for car damage as well. Then get 2-3 quotes yourself so you're ready to negotiate with the insurance company if they try and low ball.

Thank you for the detailed write up! I have now informed my house insurance who will send a surveyor. I will pass them the driver details and let them sort with the drivers insurance.