Wanting to pay for repairs rather than go through the insurance

grima2017

Yesterday my husband accidently scraped our car on a post whilst letting someone out of a car park on a small industrial estate. The damage to our car was minimal but the post he hit, was knocked out. He went into the shop and they took all his details. Today they phoned asking for his insurance details. We would like to just pay for the work, but they say their landlord wants it to go through the system, they need to send a surveyor out and won't consider getting a quote until this has all been done. It needs two screws to be bedded back in! They have our name, address, phone number, email etc - can we insist on them getting a quote and asking to pay for it ourselves?

oldernonethewiser

You can ask them nicely if they would mind getting a quote and allowing you to pay that directly, you can't insist on anything. 

If they are determined or obliged to go through their insurance then that's what will happen. 

GrumpyDil

They can insist on using their insurer but can't insist on your husband using his insurance. That said I'd suggest your husband contacts his insurance company and notifies them even if he says he intends to settle it himself as that will be a requirement of his car insurance policy. 

Also, if the building owner is insisting on getting a surveyor out I'd be thinking this is not going to be cheap as that will incur surveyors costs on top of the repair costs so going through insurance might be the better option anyway. 

BarelySentientAI

As above.  You probably need to tell your insurer about it anyway, and almost certainly need to include it as an incident on the renewal.

They can't insist you provide your insurer's details to them though.  It isn't your insurer that caused the damage.

The landlord can (either themselves or the insurer on their behalf) do all the repairs and then send you the bill, which you can pay or dispute, and if it all goes wrong then they could sue you directly.  All your insurer does is act as 'you' in those things if you want them to.

Also, your insurer might get quite grumpy if you try and do it yourself and then later, if things get expensive and/or complicated, suddenly ask them to deal with it.

maman

If that's your reasoning, I don't think you're going to avoid increasing your insurance premium by paying yourself.

We had a minor bump in a car park (not our fault but no independent witness ) where we paid to replace cracked light fitting ourselves because it cost less than our excess.

We had to report it and our premium went up despite no cost to the insurer. 

I can't prove that the increased premium was caused by the bump and the increase was way over inflation/average rise in insurance premiums but this bump was the only variable I can think of. 

BarelySentientAI

maman said:

I can't prove that the increased premium was caused by the bump and the increase was way over inflation/average rise in insurance premiums but this bump was the only variable I can think of. 

It probably was a part.  Statistics show that you are more of a risk after an incident of any sort, regardless of cost of that incident to the insurer.

maman

BarelySentientAI said:

maman said:

I can't prove that the increased premium was caused by the bump and the increase was way over inflation/average rise in insurance premiums but this bump was the only variable I can think of. 

It probably was a part.  Statistics show that you are more of a risk after an incident of any sort, regardless of cost of that incident to the insurer.

@grima2017 is unlikely to avoid a hiked insurance premium regardless of whether he pays personally or through his insurance for the damage. 

Annemos

As this car park is used by the public, I suppose the Car Park landlord also has to be very careful. He/she has to have official proof that the repair has been done correctly. (In case there was ever another accident.) 

I feel the Landlord would perhaps not have that acceptable proof, if he/she hadn't gone though their own Insurer. 

DullGreyGuy

GrumpyDil said:

They can insist on using their insurer but can't insist on your husband using his insurance. That said I'd suggest your husband contacts his insurance company and notifies them even if he says he intends to settle it himself as that will be a requirement of his car insurance policy. 

Also, if the building owner is insisting on getting a surveyor out I'd be thinking this is not going to be cheap as that will incur surveyors costs on top of the repair costs so going through insurance might be the better option anyway. 

Ultimately they can insist on claiming off the OP's insurance but only if they have a court order against the OP which hasn't been satisfied. EL and Motor are the two classes where a TP can claim directly and are unsurprisingly the two classes where who the insurer is is public record. 

Certainly agree with the second paragraph, its going to be in the hundreds just for the surveyor and thats before any work even commences

XRS200

Annemos said:

As this car park is used by the public, I suppose the Car Park landlord also has to be very careful. He/she has to have official proof that the repair has been done correctly. (In case there was ever another accident.) 

I feel the Landlord would perhaps not have that acceptable proof, if he/she hadn't gone though their own Insurer. 

Not sure what you think official proof would look like.

It could be the same contractor regardless who pays for it.

Annemos

Insurance Company would perhaps be using a Surveyor and issuing a full report before and after the repair work. 

What would one get from a Contractor working just for the customer?

When I had to go to the Financial Ombudsman re the quality of repairs, it was the Surveyor Report that held the most weight.