Going direct - non fault accident (rear ended stopped)

[rallycross]

My wife was sitting in a queue of traffic earlier this week when the car behind bumped into her.
Other driver admitted fault and said can we go outside of insurance and get them a quote.
Can we do direct to their insurer?

Today I went to the local body shop expecting him to say £300 to £500 to fix and he pointed it was not just the bumper that's split but also the tailgate its twisted so it will be a decent amount to fix properly more than £1k.

He suggested using an accident management firm to go direct to the insurer of the 'at fault' driver.

I am not a fan of this as we don't need another car while its being fixed and we don't want to bump up the repair costs. Can we just go direct to her insurer and ask them to fix it?

Assuming the other driver tells her insurer it was her fault would the insurer arrange this directly? (I don't know who she is insured with yet).

[Jonno02]

If you have their registration plate, go direct to your own insurer and let them sort it.

[rxe]

Go back to the other driver with your quote. They may just hand over £1000 in readies and you go and get your car fixed - or you can spend it in coke and hookers and let the missus drive round in a dented car.

Alternatively they might be unable to hand over £1000, in which case you ask for their insurance details, you'll need them when you fill out the form for your insurers.

[Shappers24]

Either way you'll need to declare the accident next year at renewals whether it's gone through insurance or not.

[fastbikes76]

Did they give you their Ins details ? We had the same when bumped stationary, they offered to fix cash until the quote came back at £1700 for a bumper skin, parking sensor and paint ! We rang their insurers direct and they couldn't be more helpful. They offered us a curtesy car immediately and covered the repair without question. It was quick, easy and painless. We didn't take the replacement car as one wasn't needed and we declared incident to our insurers which put our premium up around £20 or so from memory .

[Toyoda]

Shappers24 said:

Either way you'll need to declare the accident next year at renewals whether it's gone through insurance or not.

In your goody 2 shoes world maybe.

[Magic919]

You can contact her Insurer to get it fixed. Once they have confirmed what happened with their client it should be simple.

[cbmotorsport]

Shappers24 said:

Either way you'll need to declare the accident next year at renewals whether it's gone through insurance or not.

Lol.

[Integroo]

cbmotorsport said:

Shappers24 said:

Either way you'll need to declare the accident next year at renewals whether it's gone through insurance or not.

Lol.

You run the risk of a void insurance policy.

[rallycross]

fastbikes76 said:

Did they give you their Ins details ? We had the same when bumped stationary, they offered to fix cash until the quote came back at £1700 for a bumper skin, parking sensor and paint ! We rang their insurers direct and they couldn't be more helpful. They offered us a curtesy car immediately and covered the repair without question. It was quick, easy and painless. We didn't take the replacement car as one wasn't needed and we declared incident to our insurers which put our premium up around £20 or so from memory .

Thanks for that, its the sort of info I was looking for.

[e30m3Mark]

Integroo said:

cbmotorsport said:

Shappers24 said:

Either way you'll need to declare the accident next year at renewals whether it's gone through insurance or not.

Lol.

You run the risk of a void insurance policy.

If the other party pay for the repair, how is it realistically going to become known by the insurer?

What if you reversed into a bollard and chose to pay the repair cost? Would you really notify the insurer come renewal time?

[anonymous-user]

Yeah, definitely easier to go direct to their insurer, assuming they don't try to dispute liability. It's in their interest to not have to muck around with all the admin and back and forth of having your insurers involved too.

Up to you if you want to give them the option to pay in cash outside insurance or not but I bet they balk at the cost.

[cbmotorsport]

e30m3Mark said:

If the other party pay for the repair, how is it realistically going to become known by the insurer?

What if you reversed into a bollard and chose to pay the repair cost? Would you really notify the insurer come renewal time?

Exactly. If you don't involve either insurance company, then how will they ever know...and how would they ever prove that they'd ever been an accident.

[cbmotorsport]

charltjr said:

Yeah, definitely easier to go direct to their insurer, assuming they don't try to dispute liability. It's in their interest to not have to muck around with all the admin and back and forth of having your insurers involved too.

Up to you if you want to give them the option to pay in cash outside insurance or not but I bet they balk at the cost.

True. People are often out of touch with the cost of bodywork when they offer to pay. What they view as a dent on a bumper actually necessitates a new bumper, respray, blend in etc. £xxxx later.

[Shappers24]

cbmotorsport said:

e30m3Mark said:

If the other party pay for the repair, how is it realistically going to become known by the insurer?

What if you reversed into a bollard and chose to pay the repair cost? Would you really notify the insurer come renewal time?

Exactly. If you don't involve either insurance company, then how will they ever know...and how would they ever prove that they'd ever been an accident.

So when at renewal they ask if you've been involved in any accidents or incidents in the last twelve months (incidents is the wording now used by admiral) you would quite happily lie to save money and commit insurance fraud?

Insurance companies are incredibly hot on fraud at the moment, the CUE database is huge and always being updated, logging incidents and accidents. As a hypothetical in this situation, if the OP gets a pay out from the third party in cash and is happy, then job done. But what happens if third party's needs a bigger fix so they decide to take their own car to the insurers. She'll provide OP's details and it will be logged on CUE. Unknown to OP when he renews (or needs to make a future claim) insurance company could quite easily void policy, then you have the fun and games of having to declare that in the future. Perhaps not likely but you never know.