Insurance requires you to report an accident

[simonrockman]

My son scraped a parked car. He was late for work, so didn't tell the owner at the time and in the evening went back to the house it was parked outside and admitted guilt. the owner has now, as is proper, claimed on her insurance.

My son has had an email in it the insurance company says

We attempted to contact you via telephone today but have not been successful in reaching you. It’s important that you contact us as soon as
possible, so we can ensure the claim being made against you is valid and that we can correctly establish who is responsible for the incident.

It is a condition of your policy (within the General Conditions) that all claims are reported to us within 48 hours of discovery. The relevant wording has
been outlined below for your reference:

If you fail to report any accident or loss within 48 hours of discovering it, whether you were at fault and whether or not you plan to claim, the
insurer may refuse to provide cover.

Does this seem realistic?

[Drawweight]

Not a problem that I can see. It seems perfectly reasonable.

When I got sideswiped on my motorbike the first thing I did when got home was phone the guys insurance and report the incident.

He hadn’t told them but they phoned him and he admitted responsibility. They phoned me back, and arranged where to take the bike, whether I wanted a courtesy bike etc.

All in all it was remarkably pain free.

Your son just needs to give them a call.

[Smurfsarepeopletoo]

Yes, its usually a term of most insurance policies, helps to mitigate costs, you report to your insurers and admit fault, then they can contact the other driver to offer services, therefore reducing repair and hire costs to them.

Its unlikely to cause your son an issue though, dont think I have ever come across an insurer that have refused to deal just because it wasnt reported straight away.

[vikingaero]

You would be surprised how many people put their heads in the sand and don't report it, hoping it will go away.

My Mum had a scooter rider drive into her wing. They exchanged details and Mum went via her Insurer and there were long delays as the third party had not reported it to his Insurer. Eventually my Dad got fed up and got his solicitor to issue a LBA & then a County Court Summons. A few days after the Dad of the third party turned up, apologised and had made his son report it to his Insurers.

[paintman]

There have been threads in which someone's car has been hit & damaged by a third party but it's hit a stumbling block as far as speedy resolution is concerned when the third party hasn't contacted/refused to answer their own insurers.

[Aretnap]

Yes, it's a standard term. I'm not sure that they could refuse cover outright just because he delayed reporting it, but if they incurred extra costs because of his delay they could in theory pursue him for the extra costs that resulted from his breach of his policy terms.

For example if the other driver went and got himself a hire car on expensive credit hire, because his insurer hadn't had chance to contact the driver and offer to arrange a hire car themselves at lower cost, there's an argument that he could end up liable for the difference in cost. Don't know how likely that would be to happen in practice, but I would not want to find out the hard way. Tell him to call his insurers right away.

[simonrockman]

He's a little irked that he'd offered to pay for the repair and they went through their insurers. But he accepts that it's his fault and is contrite about that.

On his car, a new door mirror cost him £400. Does that become part of the claim?

[Stoofa]

simonrockman said:

He's a little irked that he'd offered to pay for the repair and they went through their insurers. But he accepts that it's his fault and is contrite about that.

On his car, a new door mirror cost him £400. Does that become part of the claim?

Just so many horror stories about "not going through insurance" around that would make me reluctant to accept the same deal - despite me knowing it would effect my own insurance, even if I was 100% not to blame.
As the person being hit you've got to go off and get the quote, if the person who did the hitting then changes their mind, you've got to explain to your own insurance why you haven't reported it for x number of days.

Don't get me wrong - I have done things myself completely outside of insurance - I remember an oldish gentleman reversing into my car, admitted full guilt and said outright "Insurance will absolutely stiff me if this goes through them". So I went to the body repair of my choice, got the quote and once he'd coughed at the price, he called them up, negotiated a discount and that was my involvement finished - took car in, he called them up and paid over the phone. But.....could have gone badly.

[jondude]

simonrockman said:

He's a little irked that he'd offered to pay for the repair and they went through their insurers. But he accepts that it's his fault and is contrite about that.

On his car, a new door mirror cost him £400. Does that become part of the claim?

As he did the right thing and went back (many would not I fear) then he should be commended for that. It is then annoying the other driver has not considered this and tried to come an agreement but that's too late now. As a poster has said above, if the other driver wanted immediately to go to her insurer that's best in that it stops her coming after you for more cash once she sees 'more damage that we thought'.

Both of you get an insurance record now, your son loses his NCD to boot. He can claim for the door mirror but check he is not with an insurer who punish you for not using their approved repairers. They may well make a fuss that he got the car done before they could inspect it. £400 sounds a lot but he probably has an excess to pay anyhow and that could be close to this figure.

Will be somewhat costly but he acted nobly.

[simonrockman]

They are the Ford power mirrors. They are horribly complicated. This is the second one he's had to replace, but given that he's only been driving a couple of years the damage he's done has been mercifully light.

His brother on the other hand wrote off a car on L plates.