No fault accident - Claim on my insurance or theirs?

[bass2rez]

Whilst in a traffic queue that came to a halt, a car behind me failed to stop and hit the back of my car quite hard, shunting me into the car in front. All details were exchanged at the roadside and once at home, I called my insurance and reported the incident. Having described what happened, my insurers said they would proceed with pursuing the claim against the other driver.

The driver of the car that hit me has admitted liability, and their insurers have now been in touch, stating they will arrange repairs and a replacement car. However, I have already started the proceedings with my own insurer.

It is now not clear to me whether I have done the right thing in allowing my insurance to deal with the accident. What is the best course of action in a situation like this?

Regards,
Steve

[Joeguard1990]

You did the right thing in telling your insurance, as the car that you hit in front no doubt would have told their insurance company your number plate anyway.

If it were just between you and the car behind, then yes in theory you could have just handled it directly through the 3rd parties insurance, but as you have also hit a car in front then your insurance company would have been informed anyway and you may have ended up in trouble for not reporting it.

[Retroman]

I personally prefer to deal with the third party insurance company directly whilst progressing the claim but advising my own insurance company of the accident for information purposes...non fault only obviously.

Most people probably go through their own insurance company without any hassle though, I just find it a bit faster if i'm the one doing the chasing about

[Olgit]

Just going through a claim on our family car. Wife was in the car, stationary and parked at the time when someone reversed into her. Fortunately she had a witness and third party admitted liability. I have gone directly to the third party insurers and insisted on using my preferred bodyshop, for which i had to be fairly firm to get agreement on but all in all fairly straightforward and hopefully no chance of getting screwed over at renewal time.

[randlemarcus]

Olgit said:

Just going through a claim on our family car. Wife was in the car, stationary and parked at the time when someone reversed into her. Fortunately she had a witness and third party admitted liability. I have gone directly to the third party insurers and insisted on using my preferred bodyshop, for which i had to be fairly firm to get agreement on but all in all fairly straightforward and hopefully no chance of getting screwed over at renewal time.

A little different unless your parked car crunched another one.
And it's lucky that there's no central database of insurance incidents that could use your name and address or your numberplate.

[Retroman]

Olgit said:

Just going through a claim on our family car. Wife was in the car, stationary and parked at the time when someone reversed into her. Fortunately she had a witness and third party admitted liability. I have gone directly to the third party insurers and insisted on using my preferred bodyshop, for which i had to be fairly firm to get agreement on but all in all fairly straightforward and hopefully no chance of getting screwed over at renewal time.

Assuming you declared the non fault accident to your own insurance company, the risk of being "screwed over" will be the same.

[bass2rez]

Thank you for the replies. From what has been said, it would seem I did the right thing.