Some fella drove into the back of our car this morning whilst the wife and youngest son were on the way back from the school run. She was stationary waiting for a delivery van to turn right in front of her and he went into the back
Both are absolutely fine which of course was my main concern. The damage to the back of our zafira is pretty minimal but I reckon it'll need a new rear bumper at the very least.
The chap who did the damage was fine and concerned for their wefare,apologised and gave his details,(he owns a local restaurant) and even gave the wife a call when she got home to make sure both were ok. Now he said to my wife that if possible he'd like to avoid using his insurance. As long as the job is done to standard( I have a good friend in the car repair trade) and he pays then I'm fine with that.
My question is to you good people is how should I go from here. Do I tell my insurance company first/at all? Ring the fella and tell him I want my mate to do the work,get a quote and let him settle up? Forget the repair and tell him I want free takeaways for life?
Been so long since I've had a prang ( trust the wife!) Ive forgotten how to go about things?
Cheers
Comments
It's a no claims bonus I get that, but the insurance companies have the 'you were involved in an accident' line when you renew whatever the nature of the accident.
Also it's a no claims bonus, not a no blames bonus.
I'd go down the route of him paying you the amount your pal in the car repair trade quoted, plus £250 for your trouble.
Oh, hold on....
I had a n employee at work got hit - the guy wanted to use his own garage which was a pikey yard. My employee was not keen on it so refused that and used his own. The bloke who hit him refused to pay and it caused a fair amount of grief. Got there in the end but i'd be wary if it were a complete stranger.
Similarly I got hit by a guy who proceeded to give me false details - that took a while to sort. It was only by chance that his insurer was also my employer otherwise I'd have been screwed
if you go insurance route you will suddenly get hounded by ambulance chasing legal firms informing you that you are due compensation for back / head neck injury and they keep on pestering you for years
Free takeaways every Friday night for a year sounds a reasonable compensation as well
There is no guarantee that the chap will pay. If you don't report it and he refused to pay it might be too late to report it. His insurance company might allow him to pay it himself, but your insurance company is likely to refuse to help you if you don't report it in a reasonable time.
Also lying on a future insurance proposal about an accident is just as likely to get you into trouble if you didn't make an official claim, and I assume the garage you get it repaired at will have a record of the accident - or at least the repair.
Spoke to my mate and I'm going down tomorrow to get it priced. I'll be dropping the quote round in the afternoon and if he gets funny then I'm going full pelt with my insurance company. Whiplash the lot.
you need to do something on this today IMO, either notify insurers or he needs to pay up
I've now informed my insurance company for good measure. We'll see what happens.
Thanks again everyone