Or do I have to just lie down and think of Sonny Bill Williams ?

Long and short of it is – my neighbour claims my motorbike blew into his car and dented it. Quite a lot.

I am sceptical because:

a) the bike was upright exactly where I left it when he knocked on my door, and they didn’t take pics

b) the cover was clean and no mud

c) the dent is high up on the car, he either parked centimetres from the bike, or hit it himself

d) the mechanic who currently has the bike says there is absolutely no damage to the bike (the bars were already bent)

e) it wasn’t THAT windy

f) when I looked him in the eye and said “are you sure you didn’t back into it” he looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. Twice.

Is there ANYTHING I can do ? I have asked the council for any CCTV footage. Will knock on neighbours across the way door tonight and ask them if they saw anything.

What a hassle…

Surely there’s a burden on him to prove it? If he didn’t take pics and there’s no other evidence then he can’t prove it.

Is there ANYTHING I can do ?

tell him to jog on whilst reminding him that there’s absolutely no evidence of your bike having moved an inch and/or sustained any damage? Do not give him your insurance details, feel free to tell your company that you think someone might be about to start a fraudulent claim against you (they’ll just record it, but it’ll give them a quick heads up if anyone tries to get in touch with them)

I don’t know – this is only my second insurance claim and I have owned many vehicles since I was 15 ! The last time a van driver took my mirror with him, but I had a witness for that.

Nobody at my insurance company has asked what happened. They don’t seem interested. Wishing I hadn’t involved them but the guy does live next door, so can’t really say “see you in court”.

P.S to be clear – I called them on sunday when it “happened” kinda regretting that now.

The bike is in for it’s MOT today as it happens so the nice mechanic guy is going to speak to the assessor – he is convinced the neighbours are at it. Sigh. Oh well, my cat does pooh in their garden, I can stop feeling guilty about that !

This isn’t an insurance claim (yet – possibly), you want it recorded just in case.
The first thing anyone at your insurer does when contacted is check policy notes. So if you’ve already been in touch to say something iffy is happening then it can help as they might well tell your neighbour (or more likely their insurer) to chase themselves.

OK – I will call the insurance people again tonight.

If you are absolutely certain it didn’t “fall over” then tell him that you think he’s lying, and that you’ve also told your Insurance Company.

hels – buy a bigger bike – if my GS fell on it, the car would be written off and he’d still be out there trying to pick it up!! 🙂

Rachel

Exchange detail, you must inform your insurance company otherwise if he makes a claim you will lose NCD for a non reported accident – they argue the pros and cons if he puts a claim in, you dont have to and never admit guilt

Working on it Rachel – I don’t have a garage so it goes in the shed over winter, and don’t want to park anything too fancy outside…

(and **** – what kind of grown man drives a Yaris ?)

Thanks pawsy_bear.

yeah, I rent a container for the same reason (but also keep all the junk form the house in it, too)

Pawsy_Bear – Member

Exchange detail, you must inform your insurance company otherwise if he makes a claim you will lose NCD for a non reported accident – they argue the pros and cons if he puts a claim in, you dont have to and never admit guilt

There hasn’t been an accident and it (I assume) was on private ground so the bike doesn’t even need insured. In this situation you tell your insurer that someone is at it (therefore the incident is recorded) but you dont go starting a claim, and if you believe the other party is trying to commit fruad you don’t have to go handing out details.

Even if the bike had definitely fallen over, you can give your details but handle the claim yourself anyway. Keeping your NCD in the process

The bike was parked sideyways on the street.

Parking is an issue in the street so I wonder if this is some kind of passive-aggressive protest.

It will be parked lengthways from now on !

I’d report it to your insurers and explain your concerns regarding it being a fraudulent claim, if you neighbour has a problem with that let him argue the toss with your insurers. Take photos of you bike when you park it, take pictures of his car, no reason but it’ll wind him up 🙂

You should do the Fargo to your neighbour if you work in the butcher shop.

edit: Don’t do it coz you cannot claim insurance for that …

I don’t get how you are thinking he backed into it – surely if that happened there *would* be damage to your bike too? Wouldn’t it be more likely that he damaged the car elsewhere?

I don’t think he backed into it any more – that was my initial thought when I saw the size of the dent (must have been quite a wallop). I think he hit something else and my bike is being picked on. Can’t prove anything and I don’t want to be a dick, but…

I mean, thinking on it, the bungee cords that hold the cover on were still perfectly in place, the cover wasn’t even ruffled.

My understanding of insurance companies is that they split the costs and gleefully raise your premiums. Hopefully his too…

Phone insurers, tell them what’s going on, and that you’re sure it’s fraud.

Because lets be fair if a bike hits a car/itself/the ground/a small animal it always comes off worse, so if the bikes not damaged there’s not a chance it hit his car. Obviously this doesn’t work if you ride something even a courier would be ashamed to be seen on.

OH had a bump on the motorway with another guy going into the back of her. No damage but he was dodgier than a dodgy stick used by other people to poke dodgy things, including the line “I’m retired, I don’t need insurance” followed by a phonecall in Hindi which miraculously turned up details which gave the impression he really wasn’t ageing well. Insurers just took a note of it and said unless she wanted to claim herself (in which case she had a set number of days) then they’d not do anything with it unless the other guy got in touch and they didn’t think that was likely!

Remember to tell your neighbour that insurance fraud is a criminal offence.

I have been through this. He will no doubt use a no-win – no fee claims firm, who will go direct to your insurance company. They will roll over and pay as they are all in cahoots together anyway. He will no doubt have a witness, and that will be the end of it as far the insurance is concerned.

Re witness – his nephew lives below me (it’s a local town, for local people) and I suspect will back whatever he says. I really am screwed here. But I can wait…

Usually a witness has to be independent (ISTR somebody on here trying to prove an “independent witness” knew the other party), so you may not be screwed.

Insurance will tend to want to settle it – cheaper and simpler for them usually particularly if you can’t prove fault though arguably here, he still needs to prove that it happened if you don’t think it did.

I had to fight pretty hard to get a head on (sub 10mph) accident resolved in my favour because my insurance were going for it being 50/50 even though I was stationary when it happened (I stopped in plenty of time on a single lane country road). I insisted that the other driver would have to lie if they wanted to go for 50/50 and disagree that I had stopped. She didn’t so I got the full claim back.

Wait. You’re a girl who rides a motorbike.

Just kick his @ss!

JoeG – Member
Wait. You’re a girl who rides a motorbike.

Just kick his @ss!

I’m still waiting for her online dating details 8)

that they split the costs and gleefully raise your premiums. Hopefully his too…

I was in a (very vaguely) similar situation and the insurance companies agreed to go “knock for knock” when they couldn’t agree on fault – you pay for your client’s damage and we will pay for ours. Dickhead’s company paid four grand (and dickhead lost NCB presumably), our company paid zero for our zero damage and we kept our NCB.

If they claim against you just push your bike over then claim they hit it deliberately whilst screaming die bitch as they did it. Basically fight fire with even greater fire 😈

Do i really need to point out IANAL*

*PS its a joke I am a lawyer 😉 **

* * I am not

Well in a minor update I spoke with the insurance people and told them I don’t intend to claim as no damage to my bike. They haven’t heard from neighbour’s insurers and oddly the car hasn’t moved all week.

So now I just sit and await developments I guess. All very odd… I’m guessing it isn’t up to me to tell my neighbour to get in touch with his insurers that’s pretty obvious ??

Nah, I would leave it well alone unless they do something. The neighbour doesn’t need to go through their own insurer anyway, they could try and get in touch directly with yours.

Worth noting that your insurer might actually let them progress a bit with the (potentially) dodgy claim. I’ve watched a certain insurer be incredibly helpful to customers, right up to the point they decide the customer has dug a big enough hole, at which point they hand everything to their fraud team 🙂

I spoke with the insurance people and told them I don’t intend to claim

Did you tell them you don’t believe it happened and you think he’s lying?

They might struggle to get in touch with mine – I said Direct Line without thinking as that is who the car is with – the bike is with a specialist company and even now I can’t remember their name !

doosuk – I didn’t word it that strongly, I just said this is what they said happened by there is no evidence of that.

Is he claiming it fell over, and he stood it back up again before contacting you? Rather than taking photos like any sensible person? And there’s no damage to your bike after falling over or being stood back up by someone who (presumably) has never picked up a bike before?

If it were me I’d be going “what accident?” to your insurer. You don’t necessarily have to call him a liar, but you need to be stressing in no uncertain terms that as far as you’re concerned the incident never occurred. You don’t want to be arguing fault and liability, you want to be arguing that he’s made it up.

There is no way I’d be rolling over for a 50:50 claim when I wasn’t in attendance and the foundation of the entire claim is “I saw it, honest guv,” not whilst I’ve got a hole in my arse.

Usually a witness has to be independent (ISTR somebody on here trying to prove an “independent witness” knew the other party), so you may not be screwed.

aracer is correct, I was offered as a witness a few years ago when I saw a delivery truck scrape down the side of a friend’s parked car. Insurance co. weren’t interested on the grounds that I knew the claimee

Hopefully one less thing for you to worry about!

hels – draw me a picture

your are on the kerb facing the road
– your bike is parked (nose/tail ? towards)you on centre/sidestand ?
– normal tarmac road ?, how high is kerb and how far from kerb was nearest wheel ?
– your bike has a has a cover on it
– where is the car (l or R)and how far
– what was the wind direction
– did the bike “hit” the car when it was upright, or as it was falling over and neigbour picked the bike up ?

*edit – also bike model
– where was dent in car (and how deep and area and style – wide and shallow – single main hit point etc))

where I’m going is that (and my undertanding may be wrong) is that I’ve rarely seen a bike ‘walk’ on its centre stand – blown over yep, possibly pushed backwards on side stand (but they arc around the stand/front wheel direction), forwards on the sidestand I suspect bike would roll foward off stand, also denting a car requires a certain amount of effort)

I’d be doing a very accurate diagram for my ins company (with measurements) and photos as well(and of car dent) inc main wind direction.

I’d be battering the heck out of his Yaris with a quarter-mell just to wind him up.

He will no doubt use a no-win – no fee claims firm, who will go direct to your insurance company. They will roll over and pay as they are all in cahoots together anyway.

You will have to explain the economics of that to me ?

Insurance Co pays out let’s say £1000 (because they are in cahoots with NWNF Co)

NWNF Co get to keep £330 as their fee.

Split it 50/50 with Insurance Co, (cahoots again) who get £165 back from their £1000 payout, leaving them £835 down on the deal.

Score !!!!

That’s some scam that is.