Car park bump, was I wrong to insist on proper repair

ButterCheese

I would never entertain accepting the promise of money from a stranger.  Insurance companies can be very slow but they are in the best position to sort everything out.  No matter what the sob story is from the person at fault, next time just make a claim and make sure you get photos of the cars in situ.  People often have a change of heart when they get home and their friends and family convinve them that you were in the wrong.  Then you would have to go to your insurers, with no evidence, and claim that he reversed into you, and you are only reporting it now because initially you tried to skirt around the system and not report it at the time.  This is potentially grounds for them rejecting your claim and cancelling your insurance

MyRealNameToo

rob7475 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

rob7475 said:

Just after a bit of advice about an incident in a car park.

I was leaving the car park and driving along when a car reversed out of a space into the passenger door and front wing of my car.

The driver eventually admitted he was at fault after initially denying making contact with my car. He tried to get me to let him "come round to my house and T'cut the scratches out".

I had a good look at the damage and there was a small dent around the edge of my passenger door where he made contact, probably about the size of a finger nail. I told him a dent wouldn't polish out so he'd be better off letting insurers deal with the claim. He denied being able to see a dent so I told him, I'd let insurers assess it and decide how best to repair. All the while, his partner was getting irate claiming they never reversed into my car (which he'd already admitted he had).

He asked if i'd let him pay for the repair to avoid losing his no claims so we decided he would follow me to the local bodyshop and get a quote off them for the repair. They quoted £750 as the paint will need blending on 2 panels which he wasn't happy about so I again offered to let his insurance deal with it so he only had excess to pay. In the end he decided to pay for the repair and has now bank transferred the money to me so I can pay the bodyshop.

My car is 6 year old but in immaculate condition. Is it fair for me to expect the third party to get the car back into the condition it was in before he drove in to me. The damage is very minor but there was no damage before so I don't think I was out of order to expect a proper repair. If my car had been old and already had knocks and scrapes, I'd have proably told him to cover a bottle of cutting compound and improved the appearance myself.

Assuming there was no damage to their vehicle then there would have been no excess for them to pay; you only pay an excess for own vehicle damage being claimed. 

You're entitled to the devaluation of your vehicle that they caused, thats most commonly proxied by the cost of repair. The cost needs to be reasonable, so you can't take your 10 year old Mini to the Rolls Royce garage to get it fixed but you dont have to accept a botched job or some random bloke trying to fix with t-cut. 

You can also just take the cash and live with the damage if you arent bothered by it. 

They would have excess to pay as they claim would have been against their insurance as it was their faul. There was more damage to their bumper than my car. 

Doesnt matter, you only pay the excess if you claim for your own vehicle damage. If you are at fault for the accident and your vehicle has no damage you dont pay any excess.