Help with insurance

Polmop

sorry a bit of a long one
In June last year my father was in a public car park and a car came and parked at an angle to him which made it really difficult for my dad to get out, he managed to get out after about 20 small reverses back and foward.
Just after his last manouver the man got out of the other car and shouted at my dad youve just hit me, my dad is adamant he didnt hit anyone so he called him a scammer and drove off.
anyway fast forward a week and his insurance called and said a claim had been made against him, again my dad said he hadnt hit anyone and his insurance sent out an assessor to look at his car, the assessor said from looking at his car that there was no damage at all, after a lot of back and forth with his insurance asking if he would go to court to say nothing had happened, which he agreed to they called back after about a month to say that they had a picture of his car with a slight mark of blue paint on which is the same colour as my dads and that he must have hit him, but even if he admitted liability his premium would not go up as he had protected no claims, so on the back of this and him not really wanting to go to court he agreed.
Fast forward 6 months and his renewal is now due, the renewal price has gone up by £900, i queried this with them and they advised it is because of the £6856.00 claim made against him.
i am amazed at this claim and called them yesterday they have told me it is for £2300 for a new bumper and £4500 for car hire.
Does this sound reasonable, i have already told them it is ridiculous but dont know how to advise him on his new premium.
Thanks for reading

Arunmor

His first mistake was leaving.  Having said that it sounds like he has been done up like a kipper.  What car did he hit.

I have a friend who was targeted by some Romanians who did the standard emergency stop so you rear end them apparently there was no damage to either car.  They are claiming huge amounts in injury claims for them and their 2 or 3 children.  Apparently there were no children in the car.

Clive_Woody

No claims discount is a % discount on the total premium cost. This % may not have changed but his annual insurance premium (cost of policy) clearly has as a result of this claim so he is still seeing a discount but discounted from a higher starting point.

Insurance costs have gone up this year for most people, best he could do is shop around for a cheaper policy as his insurers have paid out already and presumably they thought the cost were reasonable...or at lest it was not cost effective to challenge these in court.

facade

Polmop said:

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i am amazed at this claim and called them yesterday they have told me it is for £2300 for a new bumper and £4500 for car hire.
Does this sound reasonable, i have already told them it is ridiculous but dont know how to advise him on his new premium.
Thanks for reading

Pretty much usual nowadays. Accident Management/Repair/motor insurance is long overdue for some proper regulation.

In The Olden Days when you had an accident, you patched your car up to make it drivable, drove to the approved bodyshop for a quote, then if it was approved you booked it in for repair, then carried on driving it until the day and used the courtesy car while they were actually fixing it. Minimising your losses as they say.

Now it is impossible to drive a car with the slightest mark on it, and your Ambulance Chaser Accident Management company will put you in a (frankly unnecessary) Credit Hire car at an unbelievably expensive daily rate for as long as possible.

The result is huge claims for minor incidents, that provide massive profits for these companies and are paid for through our premiums.

It has been going on for years. It happened to me 20 years ago. I came off my motorbike and slid along the road, and my crash helmet dented the door of a Corsa.  My insurance paid out over £3000 as I recall because of the Accident management hire car fees, when it was just a dent in a door panel! (I thought the Dents Away man could have pushed it out easily enough, but I wouldn't argue with a new door & paint, but it was hardly undrivable)

Anyway, in your father's case it doesn't matter whether he accepts liability or not, his insurer can accept on his behalf.

They do this to minimise their outlay. If they had fought it in Court they would very likely have lost, as the paint mark would indicate on balance of probabilities that it is more likely your father hit him than he was waiting for someone with the right colour car to come along so that he could engineer a situation where he could make a claim.

I suspect that the insurer told your father that his NCB would not be affected as it is protected, and he heard that as his insurance wouldn't go up.

His policy price goes up to reflect his increased risk profile, having collided with someone whilst parking.

DullGreyGuy

Polmop said:

i am amazed at this claim and called them yesterday they have told me it is for £2300 for a new bumper and £4500 for car hire.
Does this sound reasonable, i have already told them it is ridiculous but dont know how to advise him on his new premium.

Numbers involved in claims rarely sound reasonable but without knowing what car it was it's hard to say. 

Bumpers tend to be replaced than repaired in insurance claims, respraying will involve blending into the other panels which is time consuming. Credit hire fees are always high because they take on the risk of the fact they won't get paid in all cases but range from £31 for a 1L Polo to £952 for a RR Phantom plus VAT if they are on the ABI scheme and potentially higher if they aren't. 

If I were handling the claim I'd certainly be wanting to understand how many days hire it was given the vehicle was clearly roadworthy before and so could have waited until parts etc were available resulting in a 3 day hire tops. In recent years there have been too many cases of parts delays resulting in very high hire costs... there are several cases posted on here that are way above your case but the OPs in those cases were the hirers rather than the defendants.