You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Need your advice STW. My daughter went into the back of another car last week. As the damage was only minor both parties agreed to deal with the repairs personally as opposed to claiming through insurance. My daughter agreed to cover the costs of the other party but the quote came back at £2500!! At that point it was clear insurance would need to be involved. My daughter gave her details and asked for theirs in return. It’s been a week now and with no response. The question is do we/they get a certain amount of time before insurance won’t get involved from the bump? Personally I hope we never hear from the other party because I can fix my daughters car for about £150 which is infinitely cheaper than her excess and her losing her no claims bonus (she’s a new driver too with one year). What do I do? Crack on with the repair or spend a fortune on excess and through the roof premiums which would include them writing off my daughters car because it would be uneconomical to repair. Help 🙂
My daughter agreed to cover the costs of the other party
She's admitted liability, her insurers may take a dim view of that.
re: damage to her car - you don't have to claim for that if you want to keep overall cost of claim down but she'll pay the excess for the 3rd party damage in any case.
My daughter agreed to cover the costs of the other party but the quote came back at £2500!!
Proper quote(s) or do you think there is an element of "I'll stick my next holiday in there too since someone else is paying"?
May explain the sudden reluctance, I take it the other driver was insured?
Wait and see if anyone contacts you. Tell your daughter to start saving and not drive so close.
I'd fix your daughters car and wait for the other party to claim off their insurance. They probably know you're not going to stump up £ 2.5k to avoid claiming, £ 500 maybe. If they do decide to claim there's nothing you can do to stop that and your daughters no claims will go, not sure you'll have to pay and excess though if she's not claiming for repairs to her car.
Report accident to your insurance company and let them deal with it all.
funnily enough they when my daughter said she could not afford that quote they offered to pay for it and she could pay her back. Who does that? The issue currently is she didn’t get her details including reg so I can’t check if she’s insured. Can’t understand why she didn’t take photos, she takes photos of her bloody food 🙂
And we asked for a copy of the quote and this was never seen
you can check if they are insured with askmid.com I think , more quotes needed , what type of car did she bump into ? It may be that they have been in touch with their insurers and given your daughters details, but not bothered to provide theirs to her, if they try and claim from her insurers and they themselves are not insured they will have problems . Her insurers will write to her for details of the incident.
Who does that?
Someone with a very big reason not to want it to go through insurance.
She’s admitted liability, her insurers may take a dim view of that.
They may do, but at the end of the day it doesn't impact their liability to pay out if she was at fault (and in 99% of rear end shunts the driver at the back was at fault). They might be less inclined to sell you insurance again but as a young driver with an accident you'd be shopping around anyway.
Too late now but I would have also reported it to 101.
you can check if they are insured with askmid.com I think
Yes, but you need the registration number, which she doesn't have.
Sounds like the other party was driving without insurance....
The only thing I can say is even when this is sorted you maybe surprised at renewal time, my son did similar in his first year on the road and they wrote his car off, renewed for £200 less than original insurance on same make and model of car.
The question is do we/they get a certain amount of time before insurance won’t get involved from the bump?
I think there is, but it's ages, (years). We got a a shady personal injury claim about 2 years after a car park bump that caused no damage and was initially shrugged off. The insurers a the time of the incident were brilliant in making it go away, even though we'd moved on to a different company.
I'd be doing all I can to find out their insurance status. Ring them and ask direct for their reg. number, tell them it's for your insurance. Play hard ball if they don't have cover, you always have the insurance route to fall back on.
Do you know the address? Go round and find the car, check the damage and note the reg then check their tax, mot and insurance online.
It doesn’t matter if they were insured or not. They don’t need to be insured to make a claim against you if you’re at fault any more than a pedestrian or a cyclist does.
Report the accident to your insurance company and refer any contact from the other driver to them.
The only thing I can say is even when this is sorted you maybe surprised at renewal time, my son did similar in his first year on the road and they wrote his car off, renewed for £200 less than original insurance on same make and model of car.
There's probably something in this - the reason premiums for young drivers are so high is because they basically expect you to crash, because statistics says many do. If you don't then you should see a huge drop in premium, but having met their expectations the financial penalty may not be as high as you expect!
There’s a life lesson there. Take pics with the phone of the damage and the number plate. Especially if it’s minor damage. Someone attempted a full panel respray claim for a minor rub with the work van. Our damage polished out by hand! After a long wait we had a phone call asking our insurance details.
It went away when I said I would forward the pics of their car to our insurer.
If you don't use your insurance to repair your daughter's car then there will be no excess to pay, even if the third party claims for repairs to their car.
They don’t need to be insured to make a claim against you if you’re at fault any more than a pedestrian or a cyclist does.
this MAY be true... but... it's not a crime to walk or cycle iwthout insurance, whereby it IS a crime to drive without insurance.
Ergo, i imagine that if they aren't insured, but your daughter states "I will only deal with your insurance company", then a lengthy stale mate will ensue...
As in, they (shunted party) are admitting a WORSE liability by driving without insurance.
DrP
Collision (no such thing as an RTA now) where damage was caused? Doesn't that need to be reported to police?
Yep road traffic act 1988:
"If you’re driving a motorised vehicle and are involved in an accident which causes damage or injury to another person, vehicle, property or animal, (including dogs, horses, cattle and sheep), you must stop and give your vehicle registration along with your name and address to “anyone with reasonable grounds to be asking for those details”."
""If you don’t exchange details at the scene, you must report the incident to the police within 24 hours," says motoring lawyer Alison Ashworth from Ashworth Motoring Law."
Many moons ago I shunted into someone at a roundabout and foolishly said sorry, and admitted fault, zero damage to my car, and zero visible damage to the other but I gave details and off we both went...
six months later, I've heard nothing and in the interim bought a new, more expensive car and insured it with what I believed to be my intact couple of years no-claims... And then she puts in the insurance claim for a bit over a grand.
The Insurance co' retrospectively wiped out my no claims and essentially charged me directly for the claim, plus they trippled my premium.
To this day I think she just backed into a carpark bollard and then her boyfriend or someone said "you know that minor bump you had back in October...."
Anyway be aware, there's every chance they're going direct through insurance now and won't be contacting you (under advice). The next you'll hear about it will be a letter from her insurance, maybe a phone call to confirm the incident took place and she accepted liability...
Too late now but I would have also reported it to 101.
And this, a police record of the incident plays better with insurers than relying on the involved parties recollections.
Please don't forget your daughter also has an obligation to notify her insurer that she has had a bump! This is regardless of any actual claim.
Failure to do this could result in all sorts of "all insurance companies are bastards" stories later.
On the other hand, notifying the insurer will probably put your premium up resulting in a "all insurance companies are bastards" story soon.
resulting in a “all insurance companies are bastards” story soon.
Well...
I just found out it's best to drive off rather than report a minor bump or admit liability!
Reversed into a car - for some reason the reversing beepers didn't alert me, so I bumped the other car's bumper and cracked it. Was in a shop car park, so went in and found the owner... blah blah.
Months later my insurance is due, so I call to find out how much they claimed - it's still on-going and is currently at £5800. So my quotes have gone up by over £100 per year.
I call the insurance company to say a replacement bumper for an old Suzuki doesn't cost £5800, even if you hire an Aston Martin while the repairs are being done and they don't give a shit.
I just found out it’s best to drive off rather than report a minor bump or admit liability!
I do to, but I don't like the direction this whole thing is going. Especially with the age of the Op's daighter.
Report it to the insurance company and under no circumstances let your daughter engage with the 3rd party.
I just found out it’s best to drive off rather than report a minor bump or admit liability!
Pffft. Rule #1.
Someone has clearly broken that rule in this case, and it wasn’t me.
Clearly.