Bumped the Back of a lease Car

Jennywren3

I pleaded liability of a thumbnail mark on the back of a car and as it was so small said I would pay for it Now received and estate from them of £200  which seems extortionate
 Can I ask them to try and get someone cheaper and can I ask to see the bill

Help never had to deal with anything like this before my husband dealt with it Thanks 

Veteransaver

I suppose it's up to you whether you want to let your insurance deal with it and see an increase premium and loss of no claims (I imagine that would cost you more than £200 over the next few years)
As it's a lease car the other party needs to ensure it's fixed properly or they'll get charged for it.
However there is a possibility that the other party will just pocket the £200 and risk the damage claim from the lease company.which may well be less than £200 or even nothing if the damage is really small.
The other party may not want to put it through insurance either though, so it's a tricky one.
So you'll need to suck up and pay the £200, put through insurance or try and negotiate.
You could try and bluff them and say you can't afford £200 so will need to put it through insurance! They may agree to a lower figure, but if it's a company car they might not care.

UniDebtStudent

In addition to the above if you have photos of the damage and know make and model, you can get some quotes yourself and put it to them and see if they'll accept. You can ask them to shop around but I doubt that they will do it for you. If it's very small, see if you can get a main dealer quote which could probably be half that for a small touch up job and they shouldn't really say no to a main dealer quote. 

Grumpy_chap

Jennywren3 said:

I pleaded liability of a thumbnail mark on the back of a car and as it was so small said I would pay for it Now received and estate from them of £200  which seems extortionate
 Can I ask them to try and get someone cheaper and can I ask to see the bill

Help never had to deal with anything like this before my husband dealt with it Thanks 

£200 is less than I'd expect to pay even for a "chips away" type of smart repair.
Much more if being dealt with by a bodyshop.
Less than the insurance excess that many would suffer.

You need to decide either to pass this matter to your insurer, or bite their hand off if they'll accept the £200 as full and final settlement.

paul_c123

Useless for the OP, but useful in a more general sense - there is always the option of having damage fixed before the car is returned to the lease firm.

Jennywren3

Thanks for all that  very helpful
Can I ask  them if I can see the quote and  Can tell them i will pay the company directly 
 Its  a small garage in a back street but I am told they do a good job 
Insurance no good as I think I have a heavy excess 
I really don't know the protocol 

Aretnap

Your excess only applies if you are claiming for damage to your own car. There will be no excess to pay on the third party aspect of the claim. However financially you would still quite likely be better off paying the £200 than paying increases insurance premiums for the next few years.

You can ask for anything you like but you can't really insist on anything - ultimately you either come to an agreement that you are both happy with, or you go through insurance.

Legally speaking the other driver isn't required to get the cheapest possible quote - so long as the repair cost is reasonable it is recoverable, and reasonable doesn't necessarily mean cheapest available. There isn't even a requirement for then to actually get the repairs done - if they don't they can still claim what the repair cost would have been, as compensation for the fact that they now have a slightly less nice, less valuable car. But if it gets to the point of enforcing legal rights in court you'll be doing it via insurance, so if you want to avoid insurance what you can both agree to is more important than what you're legally entitled to.

Grumpy_chap

Jennywren3 said:

Thanks for all that  very helpful
Can I ask  them if I can see the quote and  Can tell them i will pay the company directly 
 Its  a small garage in a back street but I am told they do a good job 
Insurance no good as I think I have a heavy excess 
I really don't know the protocol 

You can ask absolutely anything you want.

To get anything done by a bodyshop / garage / repair centre for £200 is an absolute bargain. 

If the other party is willing to accept £200 and sign that as full and final settlement, you might find securing that agreement as quickly as possible is your best route forwards.
If you make that difficult for the third party, they might just decide you are being awkward / stalling / never going to pay and they might decide to just go through the insurance regardless.

I have to admit I find it difficult to understand how, in 2025, anyone can see a quote of £200 for some repair to a car as extortionate - particularly a car driver with knowledge of motoring costs. 
£200 is less than an annual service
£200 is less than a new tyre
£200 is less than 3 or 4 tanks of petrol
£200 is about a year's VED
£200 is less than a typical monthly car payment

born_again

Jennywren3 said:

Thanks for all that  very helpful
Can I ask  them if I can see the quote and  Can tell them i will pay the company directly 
 Its  a small garage in a back street but I am told they do a good job 
Insurance no good as I think I have a heavy excess 
I really don't know the protocol 

You can ask anything you like.
Upto the other party if they will comply. But @ £200 get them to sign full & final settlement (won't mean anything in reality) Hoping they do not realise this.
As you have not informed your insurance company.

Arunmor

If the lease has a while to run and assuming the paint is intact I would leave it until the end of the lease.  Nothing worse than paying £200 now and getting rear ended next week.