(Fairly heavy) car park bump - insurance not involved yet!

[JohnnyMc]

strain said:

I Would expect my bodyshop guy to repair that for £300-400, I would hit her with a £500 bill, get it fixed and have a few quid in my pocket for pain and suffering!

Haha! Where are you based - maybe I should use your guy.

I was expecting £250-450 myself, but I'm used to small, privately owned bodyshops where I grew up in Belfast. I now live in Guildford in Surrey where everybody pays triple the going rate for EVERYTHING.

[Gavia]

JohnnyMc said:

ElectricPics said:

If your insurance is hit you can claim from her insurer for any rise in premiums caused directly by this incident. Most people don't do this and her insurer will almost certainly wriggle a great deal and try to fob you off but ultimately they'll pay up to avoid becoming liable to satisfy a judgement if you sued her for your future losses. If you have legal protection and/or uninsured loss recovery they can do this for you.

That is really useful - didn't know that! Thanks

The reason you don’t know that is that it’s complete and utter bks

[GTIAlex]

JohnnyMc said:

anothernameitist said:

Ask her what her excess is and then go above that figure and keep the car as is.

i did this with my old car that I bumped into a dwarf wall.

To make it look more presentable get some wet dry paper, can of undercoat, top coat and lacquer

All for less than £50 to " make it look presentable"

Thanks mate - this is what I'm thinking. Need to keep in mind that she now has an E-class coupe with about £1,500 worth of damage too though!

Suspect writing off a new Mini and claiming twice on an E-class in less than six months could make her insurance pretty painful next year...

Are you trying to fk her?

[JohnnyMc]

GTIAlex said:

Are you trying to fk her?

Lol. Not the first person in my life to say "you are being too nice to her". In reality, I'm just trying to make sure my banger which is worth much more to me than it's book value doesn't get written off!

[Gavia]

JohnnyMc said:

anothernameitist said:

Ask her what her excess is and then go above that figure and keep the car as is.

i did this with my old car that I bumped into a dwarf wall.

To make it look more presentable get some wet dry paper, can of undercoat, top coat and lacquer

All for less than £50 to " make it look presentable"

Thanks mate - this is what I'm thinking. Need to keep in mind that she now has an E-class coupe with about £1,500 worth of damage too though!

Suspect writing off a new Mini and claiming twice on an E-class in less than six months could make her insurance pretty painful next year...

She won’t have an excess on damage to other cars. It only applies if she claims for her own repairs.

[Nezquick]

Gavia said:

JohnnyMc said:

ElectricPics said:

If your insurance is hit you can claim from her insurer for any rise in premiums caused directly by this incident. Most people don't do this and her insurer will almost certainly wriggle a great deal and try to fob you off but ultimately they'll pay up to avoid becoming liable to satisfy a judgement if you sued her for your future losses. If you have legal protection and/or uninsured loss recovery they can do this for you.

That is really useful - didn't know that! Thanks

The reason you don’t know that is that it’s complete and utter bks

Gavia is correct - absolute poppycock.

[RizzoTheRat]

JohnnyMc said:

Haha! Where are you based - maybe I should use your guy.

I was expecting £250-450 myself, but I'm used to small, privately owned bodyshops where I grew up in Belfast. I now live in Guildford in Surrey where everybody pays triple the going rate for EVERYTHING.

There's a pretty good little independent bod in North Camp. Think he charged about £250 for a really good repair, although to less damage than yours, after a dopey woman reversed in to mine a couple of years ago. I decided not to go through the insurance due to being married to the aforementioned dopey woman

Dunno his name but it's in "Cobbs Yard" just round the corner from North Camp Station. Google "Faz Auto's" which is in the other end of the building to see where.

[JohnnyMc]

RizzoTheRat said:

There's a pretty good little independent bod in North Camp. Think he charged about £250 for a really good repair, although to less damage than yours, after a dopey woman reversed in to mine a couple of years ago. I decided not to go through the insurance due to being married to the aforementioned dopey woman

Dunno his name but it's in "Cobbs Yard" just round the corner from North Camp Station. Google "Faz Auto's" which is in the other end of the building to see where.

Actually laughed out loud.

Also, that's really helpful - thanks!

[aka_kerrly]

JohnnyMc said:

Thanks mate - this is what I'm thinking. Need to keep in mind that she now has an E-class coupe with about £1,500 worth of damage too though!

Suspect writing off a new Mini and claiming twice on an E-class in less than six months could make her insurance pretty painful next year...

To be frank why do you need to feel concerned that she has already made multiple claims on her insurance.

I'd go down the route of trying to keep things simple an go for cash but equally if you go through insurance you could benefit from having the car written off and buying it back cheap and not getting the repairs done. Or have it repaired and sell it immediately after for a tidy bit of money.

[JohnnyMc]

aka_kerrly said:

To be frank why do you need to feel concerned that she has already made multiple claims on her insurance.

I'd go down the route of trying to keep things simple an go for cash but equally if you go through insurance you could benefit from having the car written off and buying it back cheap and not getting the repairs done. Or have it repaired and sell it immediately after for a tidy bit of money.

You're right, I absolutely don't need to be concerned about that. I'm just a conflict avoider!

[ElectricPics]

Nezquick said:

Gavia is correct - absolute poppycock.

No, it's not. Unusual, yes. Your ignorance of something doesn't make it untrue.

[Gavia]

ElectricPics said:

Nezquick said:

Gavia is correct - absolute poppycock.

No, it's not. Unusual, yes. Your ignorance of something doesn't make it untrue.

You’ll probably get a few others pointing out how wrong you are soon too.

You are wrong though, no matter how much you say you’re not.

[Ahbefive]

OP, your £1000 car is now worth £200. You had a quote of £700. You should be asking for at least £700 to get you back to where you were and that doean't even take into account the hassle of sorting it all out.

It's nothing to do with you that She keeps smashing cars up and has silly insurance. She probably shouldn't be on the road.

Get what you are owed. If you like giving money away then I'm sure there are thousands of more suitable people or charities to give it to.

[Sk00p]

JohnnyMc said:

Zetec-S said:

Why not buy it back from the insurance company?

Also, a quick look online suggests the asking price for a 2003(ish) Civic with less than 50k would be around £1500, so I'd be pushing for more than a £500 settlement fee if you did go down that route.

Thanks for your thoughts - had considered that too. It would then be cat D, and putting a cat D insurance car on my policy is just too painful for me to go through with. Already have three cars on my policy, so I'm much more concerned with avoiding insurance altogether than most, I suspect! Also, as a cat D it'll still be worth much less (probably less than if I just left it as it is!).

As for the value, I too had initially thought £1250 but I checked the book values on Glass etc, and they say c600-700.

It doesn't have to be written off, I got a cash in lieu settlement as mentioned above for a similar situation. Car not recorded, they pay what it costs to repair, up to you if you do it or not.

I dealt direct with the third parties insurer, was really quite easy just never let them take the car away, insist Someone comes out.

[SlowAndDull]

My view is that if your car was parked and she hit it, were you to deal directly with her insurance you have a) not had an accident and b) not had a claim.

This is the logical reasoning I used when my wife's car was written off outside our house, while we were away on holiday. I dealt directly with the other driver's insurance company and got paid out at a total loss - it was her insurance claim and not ours, therefore did not need declaring.

I'd be grateful if anyone can, as a matter of fact, confirm or refute this line of reasoning!

[oldnbold]

SlowAndDull said:

My view is that if your car was parked and she hit it, were you to deal directly with her insurance you have a) not had an accident and b) not had a claim.

This is the logical reasoning I used when my wife's car was written off outside our house, while we were away on holiday. I dealt directly with her insurance company and got paid out at a total loss - it was her insurance claim and not ours, therefore did not need declaring.

I'd be grateful if anyone can, as a matter of fact, confirm or refute this line of reasoning!

I'm afraid you're wrong, my neighbour hit my company car whilst reversing off her drive, my car was parked.
Her insurance paid out and fixed it. The insurance for my car was company insurance not in my name, when I went to renew the insurance on my personal car I was asked if I'd made any claims, I answered no, they then informed me that I had been involved in a claim and it would effect my premium and that I should be declaring it.

[JohnnyMc]

SlowAndDull said:

My view is that if your car was parked and she hit it, were you to deal directly with her insurance you have a) not had an accident and b) not had a claim.

This is the logical reasoning I used when my wife's car was written off outside our house, while we were away on holiday. I dealt directly with the other driver's insurance company and got paid out at a total loss - it was her insurance claim and not ours, therefore did not need declaring.

I'd be grateful if anyone can, as a matter of fact, confirm or refute this line of reasoning!

Yeh that's definitely not right. Would be nice if it was this simple though - thanks for commenting anyhow

[anonymous-user]

Gavia said:

ElectricPics said:

Nezquick said:

Gavia is correct - absolute poppycock.

No, it's not. Unusual, yes. Your ignorance of something doesn't make it untrue.

You’ll probably get a few others pointing out how wrong you are soon too.

You are wrong though, no matter how much you say you’re not.

Gavia works in insurance (or used too) so your bang too rights mate just admit you made it up

[SlowAndDull]

Looking at the questions asked by insurance companies, they've definitely changed since our total loss (2002 from memory). I would have to answer yes to Compare the meerkat's question: Have you had any motor accidents, claims or losses in the past 5 years, no matter who was at fault or if a claim was made?

Which is very different to the 'have you had any accidents, claims or convictions' back in the day.

Re the company car, I think your insurance company misadvised you - assuming the car wasn't owned by the company, was insured in the company's name, and wasn't damaged while you were in control of it, it really is nothing to do with you!

[JohnnyMc]

SlowAndDull said:

Looking at the questions asked by insurance companies, they've definitely changed since our total loss (2002 from memory). I would have to answer yes to Compare the meerkat's question: Have you had any motor accidents, claims or losses in the past 5 years, no matter who was at fault or if a claim was made?

Which is very different to the 'have you had any accidents, claims or convictions' back in the day.

Re the company car, I think your insurance company misadvised you - assuming the car wasn't owned by the company, was insured in the company's name, and wasn't damaged while you were in control of it, it really is nothing to do with you!

I've just checked confused.com and comparethemeerkat and noticed the wording is now subtly different to that in recent years. "Have you been involved ... in the last five years ... even if a claim was not made!"

Totally agree with you re the other poster's company insurance.