Bumper bashing

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Handle9

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#1285870 16-Apr-2015 21:23

lapimate:
rb99: ... writing back seems polite ...
Maybe, but unfortunately your insurance company may be less than impressed if you take this upon yourself. Check the policy - it may say they want full control of the matter or else any insurance claim might not be supported.

Completely agree. What do you have to gain by engaging with them? Let the insurers do their job, they will be suitably terse in dealing with the problem and it will go away.

tardtasticx

3075 posts

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#1285912 16-Apr-2015 22:40

Like everyone above has said, just don't deal with it. Give the details and the letter to your insurance provider, and any other info that may help. Leave it to them to do all the dirty work. They'd have dealt with the exact same scenario 100s of times over and know exactly what to do.

When a girl hit my car, I got her details after and gave her mine. She contacted me a few times begging for me to get my car repaired at her friends shop (I politely declined), we never spoke to her again. The next time I heard of the women was at the disputes tribunal when the insurance company was trying to recover costs. We got our excess back and everything, couldn't have been easier. We didn't even have to fill out the disputes tribunal forms either.

insane

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#1285932 16-Apr-2015 23:30

Journeyman: ....

In my 17-odd years of driving I've never been in an incident where I was at fault. But I have had numpties drive into me. I call the insurance people, they get my car fixed at no cost to myself and my premiums have never been increased as a result. It does not count against you to tell the insurance company that some dozy sod smacked your car. Always tell your insurance company unless you think you have something to hide.

Clearly your insurer isn't State... I let them know when someone parked against my car and bent my number plate and slightly flexed my bumper some years ago. I chose not to claim as after inspection was there no damage, and yet years later they used that incident to say I had been involved in three claims within 2 years (only 1 being my fault) and therefore was considered a 'high risk', resulting in a $500 premium increase when my wife bought another car.

Took some stern words to get them to expunge that incident from their records, however after speaking with many team leaders and managers of team leaders they still refused to remove the added $500 'high risk' premium if I was to be listed as a driver, so I'm not listed as a frequent driver for my wife's car.

Perhaps my issue is State and not all insurance companies...

rb99

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#1286422 17-Apr-2015 16:26

So went with the majority view, and phoned up the car insurance (which I think is IAG).

Spoke to very pleasant chap, explained about other party contacting us and other party saying daughter agreed to pay and daughter saying no she didn't and people failing to stop short etc, etc. He phone other party up while I was on hold and then let me know that unfortunately other party don't have insurance and they don't really agree with the situation regarding failing to stop short and being liable and other bits I'm not really sure of now.

Anyway he said he'd set up a protection claim, I think it was called, and he'll let us know if anything develops and also contact us if we hear anything more. Apparently a protection claim can either become a full claim if we actually claim anything if car turns out to be more bent than it appears, or it can be withdrawn altogether if we don't hear any more from other party and/or we don't make an actual claim, so we'd go back to the original no claims bonus we had before all this.

Hopefully car is as unbent as it appears (we'll get it checked out soon) and we don't hear any more about it.

(think I need to make those sentences a bit shorter, but never mind).

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

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