I was in a shopping centre car park last night, sat in the car, waiting for my girlfriend. The car to the right of me pulls out, swings left too sharply and crunches across my offside wing.

Her brand new Nissan Quashqui (or whatever) has a nasty dent running all down the side, but my front bumper is just a little scraped and the side marker is smashed. It’s an old car, I’m not too fussed about it.

We get out. The young lady is upset, crying a bit because she’s ruined her new car, but also apologises to me. We exchange details.

I know that the damage to my car is very small. Really I just want the side marker replaced which is a £20 job (doing it myself, which I’d happily do). I tell her I’m happy to sort it out myself and send her the bill to save insurance companies trying to take her to the cleaners. She’s happy with this and agrees she’ll pay me for a new side marker.

As a general principle, I detest the whole culture around insurance these days. I know I could go to my insurer and they’d pay through the nose to have the car made look as if it never happened, probably get me a courtesy car in the meantime, but someone, somewhere is paying for that and eventually it’s all of us, so I’d like to avoid it.

Having thought about it though, I’m wondering if she claims on her insurance anyway, which she’ll surely have to do, whether me claiming as well will have any direct affect on her? It’ll be a bigger payout from her insurer, but she’ll lose her NCB anyway and I’m not sure it’ll affect her future premium.

But then if I claim, even though it’s not my fault, will I lose my NCB /get stung for a higher premium in future? On this basis I’d rather avoid the hassle, fix it myself (cheaper than my excess) and move on.

I’d avoid insurance even if it means a lower payout. You do risk your premiums going up. Less hassle in the long run.

The benefit to you for just doing it yourself is that you will not have to admit that your car was damaged in a car park. Even if the damage was light and not your fault the insurance companies will take that as a guide that you take your car to ‘dangerous’ places and your premium might go up. That is provided the girl does not share your details with her insurance company what she claims.

You will get burnt no matter what if if goes through insurers, your premiums will increase. Hopefully she can afford to get her car fixed without going through the insurance company

Hopefully being young and doing everything to get her insurance down, she might get hers fixed without a claim. You should have nothing to lose by fixing yours yourself and billing her for parts.

Down side will be when her story to her insurers is that she was parked and you drove into her.

Your insurers start asking why weren’t we informed etc etc.

Yes, that does worry me trail_rat. She seemed like an OK sort, but you never know what people will do once they’ve had time to think about it. She could claim this whether I inform my insurers or not, but agreed, it looks worse if I don’t.

Agreed, it’s better all round if she doesn’t tell her insurers either. I’ve got her number, I wonder if it’s worth just discussing what we’re both going to do with her?

I’m confused. Does the new forum software filter out “is she fit” ?

Down side will be when her story to her insurers is that she was parked and you drove into her.

Your insurers start asking why weren’t we informed etc etc. This is a good point. I’ve recently had someone start a personal injury claim against me for an incident that wasn’t notified to the insurers. My case differs a little as I was the one moving, but there was zero damage to either car. It only takes your girl one persuasive call from an ambulance chaser to change her mind. 👿

Yes, have a chat with her and discuss it. You’ll get a better feel for whether she will pull a fast one, and/or she has sought prices from a body shop and that forces her hand.

Agreed, it’s better all round if she doesn’t tell her insurers either.

A nasty dent all down one side of a brand new car – she would be a fool to not get it mended properly for resale value if nothing else but it will cost 4 figures plus to repair. She is going to use her insurance. Question is can she do this without giving your details. I don’t know. Your car could become a bollard in her report if you ask nicely and explain the implication to you.

It’s hard to tell how much the damage to her car would cost to repair. These things often look bad but a decent body shop might be able to sort it more easily than you’d expect. On balance, probably an insurance job though.

I expect she would give her insurer’s my details if she’s told them. She seemed pretty naive (evidence: pulls out of parking space without checking if there’s a car in the way).

The really annoying thing about this is that a few years ago, I was in a not too different situation but the other way around. I bumped the car in front, my fault. Very little damage to either car – bit of trim broken on mine, tiny dent on the back of his (barely visible). I tried to persuade the guy to do it privately and I’d reimburse him fully. Would have cost £50 max. He sort of agreed but said he’d think about it. Didn’t hear anything til 6 months later when my insurer’s wrote to say there’d been a claim. The guy could have saved me hundreds of pounds for probably no more hassle, but some people have to play by the rules and it seems the insurance companies make them.

I’m trying to avoid being that guy in this situation (though if she claims anyway I guess it’s not going to make much difference to her).

Your car could become a bollard in her report if you ask nicely and explain the implication to you.

I wouldn’t lie on an insurance claim form, especially just to benefit someone else. You’re only putting yourself at risk.

From her perspective, there is nothing stopping you from going away and making a claim against her (even though you said you wouldn’t). What would that look like, if you made a claim that no other cars were involved and then they get a claim through from another party? They may refuse to pay out or worse.

No, and I wouldn’t really expect her to. If there were some benefit to her, maybe. She might feel a bit bad about hitting me, but probably not as much as she does about her own car.

By the same token, there’s nothing to stop her agreeing not to mention my involvement, then telling them it was my fault.

I hope you have an independant witness? Presumably you got lots of pictures of it showing your car still parked with hers up against it. If not don’t be surprised if you get a made up claim saying it was your fault and she has a witness to prove it.

Her story may change once she gets an estimate for repairing 3-4 panels. Check with the supermarket whether they have CCTV coverage of that area. Going through your insurance may be the only way to persuade them to release a copy.

Looking at a likely insurance claim from the other driver I’d reluctantly report the crash to my insurance co. Too risky not to. Once it’s on the shared database and you don’t declare it when renewing or applying for insurance you are giving them a get out.

For an old car with £20 damage I still fix myself obviously.

I agree it’s a no no asking the other driver to lie.

Most people are not blatant enough liars to try and shift blame after hitting a parked car so I wouldn’t worry on that score just now.

If you tell your insurer, your premium will be loaded (10% for 3 years isn’t unusual). That loading is part of your losses incurred in the incident and you can claim it from the third party…

If you don’t tell your insurer, you are in breach of your contract and it may come back to bite you. You don’t have to claim through them, but you do have to inform.

I’d have thought the locations of the damage should help establish who hit who and the supermarket will have CCTV.

Irc I talk from bitter experience.

Car was parked behind a bus with indicator on and passengers door open.

Wife pulls out and drives past .

Car door shuts and woman belts off to beat the bus. Straight into my cars rear quarter pushing it into the bus.

By the time it got to the insurance co I was told she was waiting to over take the bus and her door wasnt open -and her mate the witness didn’t run to get on the bus……….

Cow.

Car was parked behind a bus with indicator on and passengers door open.

Wife pulls out and drives past .

Car door shuts and woman belts off to beat the bus. Straight into my cars rear quarter pushing it into the bus.

By the time it got to the insurance co I was told she was waiting to over take the bus and her door wasnt open -and her mate the witness didn’t run to get on the bus……….

Every time I hear a story like this, I think I should be investing in a dash camera. I’m really surprised they’re not becoming a requirement from insurance companies.

We have them now. Hardwired in

That shall not be happening again .

I park my car on the road outside my flat and some rude driver took a swipe at my car making a large dent at the front side of the headlight. I was at work at that time so did not see it until the evening. No note left etc … just “dent and drive on”.

Luckily the headlight is not damage but there is also massive scratch to the plastic bumper and the front side of my car.

I am not bother about the bumper scratch but the dent at the side of the light put me off so got a quote from my local body shop … £300.

Not going to claim insurance so I am £300 out of pocket and one week without car.

I just spoke to the girl. I asked her if she was going to claim on her insurance and she said no, she’d been round some garages this morning and got quotes to repair it and it’s not worth going through the insurer. So far, so good.

Then she mentioned to me that she’d been back to the location of the accident today (not sure whether purely for this reason) and there’s no CCTV. Having been back myself (to do more Christmas shopping), I also noticed a surprising lack of CCTV. She said it would be my word against hers (not in a nasty way). Not sure why she’d want to find evidence, as it would only incriminate her. Unless of course she wanted to find a lack of evidence… I took a couple of photos at the time but there rubbish and don’t prove anything (yes, that was stupid)_and I should have told her just now that I have photos anyway, since she doesn’t know that (also stupid). I’m pretty sure she was probably just covering her back to reassure herself that I wouldn’t have much of a claim if I did try it.

I’d like to trust that she’ll see sense and get the car fixed privately as she says but it does make me nervous.

How I get hit by someone through no fault of my own and then end up being the one worrying about it beats me.