Insurance claim dilemma
Discussion
Hi
Looking for opinion on this.
Someone reversed out of a space into my wife's mini in supermarket car park as she was driving along the exit lane. Verbally apologised and wanted to pay for damage. No witnesses or cctv etc.
Quotes in at £500.
Communicated by text. Mother of driver has said on text do not accept liability.
Our excess is £700.
Do we claim out of principle or let it ride to not risk damaging our future premiums?
Cheers
Looking for opinion on this.
Someone reversed out of a space into my wife's mini in supermarket car park as she was driving along the exit lane. Verbally apologised and wanted to pay for damage. No witnesses or cctv etc.
Quotes in at £500.
Communicated by text. Mother of driver has said on text do not accept liability.
Our excess is £700.
Do we claim out of principle or let it ride to not risk damaging our future premiums?
Cheers
For me it all depends on how much you value your time. You’re going to have to make lots of phone calls and fill in lots of forms, plus the stress of chasing people. Personally I’d suck it up and pay for it myself. These things happen. It’s possible your premium next year wouldn’t be affected at all but I’d not want it on the record anyway.
Chubbyross said:
For me it all depends on how much you value your time. You’re going to have to make lots of phone calls and fill in lots of forms, plus the stress of chasing people. Personally I’d suck it up and pay for it myself. These things happen. It’s possible your premium next year wouldn’t be affected at all but I’d not want it on the record anyway.
Really, I’ve just made a no-fault claim and didn’t experience any of that. The actual claim was totally pain free. The biggest headache was the hire car as the accident happened 2 weeks before we were due to drive to France mountain biking, so I had some very specific requirements.
I think I'd only want to pursue that against the other driver/their insurer as your insurer won't pay you anything for a £500 repair with a £700 excess. Although I'd want to be sure your repair cost really was £500!
Someone went into the back of my old E90 BMW 3 Series in April when I was waiting for the lights to change on a Motorway slip-road and he anticipated movement a bit too much!
A couple of scuffs on the rear bumper and he suggested doing a cash deal. I took it to a local bodyshop and they noticed some tiny cracks in the plastic bumper cover I hadn't noticed and gave a rough estimate into 4 figures.
I went home and it seems a new bumper cover was £620ish in primer, so would need paint and fitting. When I told the guy who hit me he didn't suggest any sort of cash deal but would report it to his insurer.
They eventually contacted me admitting liability and I went to a repairer they suggested. Weeks later they told me my car was a Cat N as their repairer had come up with an estimate of over £2K!
Their initial valuation was insulting and their next wasn't much better, but I gave in in the end and kept the car for 22% of their valuation. But what really p*ssed me off was that they had made it a Cat N before they even bothered to tell me, and wouldn't contemplate an offer that didn't involve the Cat status.
So I only need to disclose a non-fault claim to my insurer next renewal, got some money in the bank and kept a perfectly good car, but now it has a Cat marker on it. If the guy who hit me had offered a few hundred quid I would probably have taken it!
Cat N damage here.
No wonder insurance is expensive these days.
Someone went into the back of my old E90 BMW 3 Series in April when I was waiting for the lights to change on a Motorway slip-road and he anticipated movement a bit too much!
A couple of scuffs on the rear bumper and he suggested doing a cash deal. I took it to a local bodyshop and they noticed some tiny cracks in the plastic bumper cover I hadn't noticed and gave a rough estimate into 4 figures.
I went home and it seems a new bumper cover was £620ish in primer, so would need paint and fitting. When I told the guy who hit me he didn't suggest any sort of cash deal but would report it to his insurer.
They eventually contacted me admitting liability and I went to a repairer they suggested. Weeks later they told me my car was a Cat N as their repairer had come up with an estimate of over £2K!
Their initial valuation was insulting and their next wasn't much better, but I gave in in the end and kept the car for 22% of their valuation. But what really p*ssed me off was that they had made it a Cat N before they even bothered to tell me, and wouldn't contemplate an offer that didn't involve the Cat status.
So I only need to disclose a non-fault claim to my insurer next renewal, got some money in the bank and kept a perfectly good car, but now it has a Cat marker on it. If the guy who hit me had offered a few hundred quid I would probably have taken it!
Cat N damage here.
No wonder insurance is expensive these days.
in my experience without substantial evidence (ideally CCTV) the insurance companies will go knock for knock leaving you with a claim on record and paying for the complete repair (we have 3 - 4 claims a year on our car park from delivery drivers backing into cars (i run the CCTV)
get a quote from a dent master / chips away type place as they can often work wonders for a lot less than a traditional body shop
Merc wanted the best part of 3k to replace the rear bumper on my AMG when the missus put a bollard shaped dent in the corner, chips away fixed it for £340 and i couldnt tell it had been fixed
get a quote from a dent master / chips away type place as they can often work wonders for a lot less than a traditional body shop
Merc wanted the best part of 3k to replace the rear bumper on my AMG when the missus put a bollard shaped dent in the corner, chips away fixed it for £340 and i couldnt tell it had been fixed
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Knock for knock hasn't been used in insurance claims settlements for around 40 years.
40 years is an exaggeration, it was still being used when I left Economic Insurance in 1995! It may well have died out soon after, but I never dealt with Motor claims after that thankfully.
I couldn't be bothered pursuing my claim any further. I got 50% of what I paid for my car 4 years ago and still have it in rude health, so I can live with that. WBAC have offered me various amounts up to £890 for it as a Cat N! So I reckon even as a Cat N I could get a bit more than that for it.
Which seems like a reasonable outcome - although I did think about going to my surgery with neck/back pain.
Mr Tidy said:
I think I'd only want to pursue that against the other driver/their insurer as your insurer won't pay you anything for a £500 repair with a £700 excess. Although I'd want to be sure your repair cost really was £500!
Someone went into the back of my old E90 BMW 3 Series in April when I was waiting for the lights to change on a Motorway slip-road and he anticipated movement a bit too much!
A couple of scuffs on the rear bumper and he suggested doing a cash deal. I took it to a local bodyshop and they noticed some tiny cracks in the plastic bumper cover I hadn't noticed and gave a rough estimate into 4 figures.
I went home and it seems a new bumper cover was £620ish in primer, so would need paint and fitting. When I told the guy who hit me he didn't suggest any sort of cash deal but would report it to his insurer.
They eventually contacted me admitting liability and I went to a repairer they suggested. Weeks later they told me my car was a Cat N as their repairer had come up with an estimate of over £2K!
Their initial valuation was insulting and their next wasn't much better, but I gave in in the end and kept the car for 22% of their valuation. But what really p*ssed me off was that they had made it a Cat N before they even bothered to tell me, and wouldn't contemplate an offer that didn't involve the Cat status.
So I only need to disclose a non-fault claim to my insurer next renewal, got some money in the bank and kept a perfectly good car, but now it has a Cat marker on it. If the guy who hit me had offered a few hundred quid I would probably have taken it!
Cat N damage here.
No wonder insurance is expensive these days.
That’s crazy. Someone went into the back of my old E90 BMW 3 Series in April when I was waiting for the lights to change on a Motorway slip-road and he anticipated movement a bit too much!
A couple of scuffs on the rear bumper and he suggested doing a cash deal. I took it to a local bodyshop and they noticed some tiny cracks in the plastic bumper cover I hadn't noticed and gave a rough estimate into 4 figures.
I went home and it seems a new bumper cover was £620ish in primer, so would need paint and fitting. When I told the guy who hit me he didn't suggest any sort of cash deal but would report it to his insurer.
They eventually contacted me admitting liability and I went to a repairer they suggested. Weeks later they told me my car was a Cat N as their repairer had come up with an estimate of over £2K!
Their initial valuation was insulting and their next wasn't much better, but I gave in in the end and kept the car for 22% of their valuation. But what really p*ssed me off was that they had made it a Cat N before they even bothered to tell me, and wouldn't contemplate an offer that didn't involve the Cat status.
So I only need to disclose a non-fault claim to my insurer next renewal, got some money in the bank and kept a perfectly good car, but now it has a Cat marker on it. If the guy who hit me had offered a few hundred quid I would probably have taken it!
Cat N damage here.
No wonder insurance is expensive these days.
Mr Tidy said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Knock for knock hasn't been used in insurance claims settlements for around 40 years.
40 years is an exaggeration, it was still being used when I left Economic Insurance in 1995! It may well have died out soon after, but I never dealt with Motor claims after that thankfully.
donkmeister said:
I've heard it used (presumably colloquially) to refer to both drivers having some liability, it's probably safe to say that's what people mean when they say it now.
Perhaps, but it's wrong. What they mean is 50/50 or 60/40 or whatever. That's completely different to knock for knock. Mr Tidy said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Knock for knock hasn't been used in insurance claims settlements for around 40 years.
40 years is an exaggeration, it was still being used when I left Economic Insurance in 1995! craig1912 said:
In my experience with something similar I informed my insurance company. They dealt with everything including taking other party to court. I had to pay my £650 excess but then got it back with interest when they won the court case.
There was no CCTV evidence.
In my case, the other driver was uninsured. My insurer reimbursed me my excess, restored my NCD and repaid the NDC difference for the following year's insurance premium.There was no CCTV evidence.
It took 2 years to close it all out, and I wasn't even a customer of the original insurer by the time they refunded me.
craig1912 said:
In my experience with something similar I informed my insurance company. They dealt with everything including taking other party to court. I had to pay my £650 excess but then got it back with interest when they won the court case.
There was no CCTV evidence.
In this case, the damage is well below the excess, so he can inform his insurers, but they won't get involved in the claim or be dealing with the other party. There was no CCTV evidence.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff