Bugger car prang

[Kram]

they paid him £5k and said that it was better value to just get the claim settled rather than judged on its merits.

Consider that each insurer has a large book of accidents to be settled between other insurers. They dont care for details, they trade them in bulk. "I'll settle this hundred claims if you sort that lot". Fault may be decided on accounting convienience rather than who was to blame.

Sadly this is true and I made a similar judgement when somone hit me years ago, 100% their fault, no damage to them but a small dent and scrape to me, purely cosmetic. I didnt want to spend hours on the phone to insurance, it would cost me too much time and stress. Offered that recieving £200 would pay for the repair and be far cheaper than the £1000+ of extra premiums we would both suffer for 5+ years.
I possibly should have said £500, but I'm not greedy and its better than nothing, it did take the guy 24 hours of silence before he replied and it appeared in my account.

 

[sg66]

It's going to affect your insurance, regardless of what's noted or written, have you been involved in or had an accident IE yes so in the eyes of the insurance your likely to be involved in another (statistically) according to them, so make as much our of it as you can.

 

[Kram]

Her first car, I know a few new drivers who are paying £2000+ for insurance. Wouldnt suprise me if its £4000+ now, it really could price people out of owning a car.

so make as much our of it as you can.

Great advice

 

[sg66]

Her first car, I know a few new drivers who are paying £2000+ for insurance. Wouldnt suprise me if its £4000+ now, it really could price people out of owning a car.


Great advice

It's to compensate for having to put down you've had an accident for the next five years, I didn't say do anything fraudulent but don't go out of your way to help insurance cause it is most certainly going to affect it.

 

[skotl]

Consider that each insurer has a large book of accidents to be settled between other insurers. They dont care for details, they trade them in bulk. "I'll settle this hundred claims if you sort that lot". Fault may be decided on accounting convenience rather than who was to blame.
...

Exactly that. There's an underlying assumption that insurers employ people to assess every claim and then negotiate with the other three parties (3rd party insurer, 3rd party and insured) on a settlement, which isn't the case for the vast majority of claims.
These will be categorised, matched-up and paid at "book value" - all in automated systems. Only the exceptional claims (where exceptional might mean high value or some other edge case) will be passed to actual underwriters to assess.

 

[DAPPH]

Maybe 3k is chump change to them, and the operative delegated to the claim can’t be bothered arguing, but to hand it over so easily over such a tiny dent, and to a repair company/garage that’s not actually registered seems rather slack. Mind you, we all know where the money comes from in the end.

One of those dent removal company could probably have sorted the damage for a couple hundred notes at the very most.

A £ 6 puller dent removing set from China and their pack of 15 or so differing 3D printed pulling feet plus their glue sticks and my hot melt glue gun has taken out several dents on the last three motability cars I've had . I made my own 3 pound slide hammer to get a better sharp pull instead of a T handle supplied with the kit .

It was a pretty good investment .. as I've also pulled a dent out for my pal who dropped me £30 for doing such a good job .

 

[GRW]

The woman in the next-door unit to where I now work just had her new Audi backed into in a hospital car park.
(Luckily the driver was honest & left their details & admitted fault, as she wasn't there).

This same question was discussed the other day about her bump. The problem now is all incidents/claims are on a common database - so your insurer will know you've had an incident - so not informing them will be a violation of your terms of insurance.... so you may as well inform them of your non-fault, no-claim (off them) incident - because they'll find out anyway.

The other thing is that Insurers don't really seem to treat any incident any more as entirely "non-fault". Instead they use the logic that while you may not be the primary cause of a collision - you had your vehicle placed in a position where it was possible for a 3rd party to damage it.... therefore a measure if culpability & responsibility is yours*.

So - as has been said already - you might as well extract the most from it, as you'll get a premium loading regardless.
It may well be fine to let the other drivers insurer handle it - but given you really do need to inform yours for your own protection....

(*I can see some sense in the Insurers view - given there are so many bad drivers who do not drive defensively and with enough attention blithely steaming into situations where they are technically "in the right" but where a collision could have been avoided had they been paying better attention.... but it's hard to take when you've done everything right, but been clobbered by a bad driver. It is though "how it is").

 

[rtcosic]

I have logged two no fault no claim 'for information only' incidents with my insurer in the last 2 years:

Warwickshire police firearms training officer's car rolled into the back of mine whilst I was stationary at a roundabout - about 200 metres from the College of Policing! Trivial dent in the plastic bumper only to be seen on your hands and knees.

Little old lady driving one of those sit up and beg old M-B A Class on a narrow local lane just wide enough for two Tesla Model 3's. I've got my nearside wheels off the tarmac, hers are damn near a metre away - Clang! I lost just the mirror glass. Hers self disassembled but I found the unbroken glass. Under £100 for a second hand replacement glass.

We'll see how much my renewal is next year!

My last claim was 1991 for the full value of the Rover 827 plus the Golf I stuffed into. Long pathetic excuse follows if you are daft enough to ask what happened.

 

[Robotstar5]

The other thing is that Insurers don't really seem to treat any incident any more as entirely "non-fault". Instead they use the logic that while you may not be the primary cause of a collision - you had your vehicle placed in a position where it was possible for a 3rd party to damage it.... therefore a measure if culpability & responsibility is yours*.

As Mrs Robo found out when an uninsured driver hit her car while it was parked on the drive, as the insurance company couldn't trace the driver it was classed as her fault

 

[Morrisman]

I followed what I can only imagine was a ‘crash for cash’ driver a few days ago. At first I thought it was a drunk, but sudden lane changes, then sudden application of brakes in front of cars, indicating to turn left, into a side street a car was waiting to pull out from, but going straight on right at the last second. Luckily everyone was on their toes and he never struck jackpot.

I was on my bike so followed from a safe distance to observe if he did ‘catch’ anybody out.

 

[bert]

I've not long had my 2001 LC repaired after it was hit whilst parked. Allowed the other insurers to deal with the repair and they collected, left a hire car and repaired the car.

DLG repair center didn't do a great job and I had to let them have a second go which I was still not happy with but it didn't effect my insurance at renewal time.

 

[Morrisman]

We actually expected my daughter’s insurance to go through the roof, as she was a first time driver, 22, despite passing her test at 17.

But, it went from £950 the first year, to £750 when she renewed it at the end of the year. She stayed with the same company. No mention of a claim or anything of that sort.

 

[zzr1200]

Did you pay for guaranteed no claims bonus on/with your insurance?

If you did it shouldn't affect your insurance renewal, let your current insurance company deal with it.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Did you pay for guaranteed no claims bonus on/with your insurance?

If you did it shouldn't affect your insurance renewal, let your current insurance company deal with it.

They still find some small print which allows them to increase the premium.

 

[voipio]

We actually expected my daughter’s insurance to go through the roof, as she was a first time driver, 22, despite passing her test at 17.

But, it went from £950 the first year, to £750 when she renewed it at the end of the year. She stayed with the same company. No mention of a claim or anything of that sort.

Perhaps the view by the insurance company is that if a young driver has had an accident, the experience may make them much more careful drivers in the future.

 

[GRW]

As Mrs Robo found out when an uninsured driver hit her car while it was parked on the drive, as the insurance company couldn't trace the driver it was classed as her fault

That is criminally ridiculous! I think I'd have been contacting the insurance ombudsman with something like that.

 

[Morrisman]

A £ 6 puller dent removing set from China and their pack of 15 or so differing 3D printed pulling feet plus their glue sticks and my hot melt glue gun has taken out several dents on the last three motability cars I've had . I made my own 3 pound slide hammer to get a better sharp pull instead of a T handle supplied with the kit .

It was a pretty good investment .. as I've also pulled a dent out for my pal who dropped me £30 for doing such a good job .

My sisters boss ran into her car in the company car park. A small dent and scrap on a door, just cosmetic. She wasn’t going to claim or anything like that, but he offered to get the dent removed. A van turned up at her house and totally removed any evidence that there was ever a mark or dink in that door.
I would have said it’s impossible, they must have used filler and a paint touch up, but it was done in less than half and hour.

Did you pay for guaranteed no claims bonus on/with your insurance?

If you did it shouldn't affect your insurance renewal, let your current insurance company deal with it.

Its in the small print, the cost of your insurance can go up, after a claim, but you still keep your no claims bonus.

I read about it yesterday while researching next years car and house cover.
It’s something they don’t really mention too much, for obvious reasons.

 

[GRW]

I followed what I can only imagine was a ‘crash for cash’ driver a few days ago. At first I thought it was a drunk, but sudden lane changes, then sudden application of brakes in front of cars, indicating to turn left, into a side street a car was waiting to pull out from, but going straight on right at the last second. Luckily everyone was on their toes and he never struck jackpot.

I was on my bike so followed from a safe distance to observe if he did ‘catch’ anybody out.

The shame of it is that even if you had dashcam footage & took it to the Police - the liklihood they'd find "the resources" to do anything about it is remote indeed.

(Any amount in resources found though for targeting the basically honest & law-abiding taxpayer for 2-3mph over an artificially low posted speed limit. The sorry truth is that its far easier to clobber honest people than to tackle crime.... and lucrative too ).

 

[ajlelectronics]

The shame of it is that even if you had dashcam footage & took it to the Police - the liklihood they'd find "the resources" to do anything about it is remote indeed.

With a VRN, you can ask the DVLA to supply the details of the registered keeper, after a hit and run.

 

[GRW]

With a VRN, you can ask the DVLA to supply the details of the registered keeper, after a hit and run.

That's different to a "Crash for Cash" scenario though, where the driver isn't looking to run - he's looking for an illegitimate payday.
To extract (legal) restitution you'd need the police to investigate & prosecute.... and the chances of that......

Many years ago I worked with a really nice ex-special forces army lifer well into his 60's. He told us that where he used to live on the corner of an estate road... the local yobs used his garden as a shortcut, and wrecked his missus' garden just for devilment.
Each time he acted properly and dalled the cops, and each time they "didnt have anyone available".
So the last time when he got that he said over the phone "no problem, I've got a gun - I'll sort it myself!". Within 2-minutes the place was lit up with flashing blue lights and 5 police vans, armed response, the lot. All they were interested in, was demanding he handed over his gun. He told them "I don't have a gun" (he didn't), to which the police retorted "you sad you had a gun!".
He calmly replied "well you said you were too busy to come!".

Bottom line? Police have little interest in public order, burglaries, break-ins, criminal damage etc. or in apprehending the perpetrators.... but will jump to it if there's any indication that a civilian might take his own measures when they refuse to do the job they are PAID by us - to do.
They certainly have no interest in aiding insured drivers with fraudulent claims.