Minor bump

marc69

marc69

marc69

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2007
Posts
1,296
Location
Birmingham
Hi guys,

It's a bit of a stupid one really... I accidentally reversed into a vehicle when parallel parking. My car has a towbar and this has broken a plastic grill on the other vehicle. It was no more than 2mph. Nobody was in the car at the time but I found the owner and confessed to what I had done (he would never of known but my guilt would have killed me). He was very calm and was just happy that i had left my details with him. He has agreed to let me buy a new grill for him and have it fitted. I have ordered the new part and we are just in the process of arranging a time and place for fitting it.

I know in theory I should tell the insurance as information only but I know I will get destroyed next premium.

What are your opinions on this? I'm just worried in case later down the line he calls my insurance and says 'this guy smashed my vehicle, I have whiplash: etc and then it all goes drastically down hill for me because I didn't report it. I'm basically just fishing for some advice / reassurance.

Thanks
 
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Don't report it and if he's a nice bloke he won't either. I doubt he'll claim for whiplash considering the car was empty at the time.

Good on you for finding him though :)
 
If he's happy going about it without insurance atm doubt he'll ring them up later down the line but if your a little worried write something up stating what happened and what's been done to repair it etc and both of you sign it.
 
Cheers mjt, it was a geniune mistake and I hope he is as legitimate as he sounds currently.

Thanks for the reply Glanza. I wouldn't know if he had already reported it or if he will do in the future. I could draft a letter but then that wouldn't stand up with my insurance because I haven't declared it with them (at least I don't think it would).

I phoned my insurance (didn't declare any details or anything) and they said that technically accident's should be reported, they would then contact the other driver to see if they were happy with settling outside and if he was then it wouldnt effect my NCBs. I don't want to cause friction with the other driver though as we said we would sort it as adults and have already startes to sort it.
 
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Don't tell your insurance! If he seemed a decent genuine fella then buy him a new grill and move on. Your insurance will hike your prices up if u have to declare it.
 
Don't tell your insurance. You've done the morally right thing telling him and he's been a-ok about it it seems.
 
OP, Kudos mate :) Good on you for locating the owner

I wouldn't have mentinoed anything to the insurance co tbh, they are correct, it wont affect your NCB but I bet they keep a note of the incident and it has an impact on your insurance :(
 
Yeah, you'd technically have to report all incidents when it comes to renew, they've now got a note to call you up on later down the line.
 
Well I never gave them any information that would tie that call into me / my vehicle. I just gave them the details of what happened. I phoned using 141 as well to hide this number.

She just said that she couldn't advise me to settle outside but if I did then maybe get something written down. She was lovely and genuinely wanted to help but was obviously restricted to what she could say.

Think this will change anything? I mean they have no policy number, names, registrations at best they might have a number that they could tie to a policy.
 
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It's in the other guys interest to sort outside of insurance too as a fair few underwriters will also hike his premium for you hitting him.
 
your insurance will only be affected if you/they claim, reporting it costs you nothing, and you are in breach of your insurance policy if you do not tell them and they have the right o cancel your insurance
 
Haze said:
your insurance will only be affected if you/they claim, reporting it costs you nothing, and you are in breach of your insurance policy if you do not tell them and they have the right o cancel your insurance
Click to expand...

Pretty sure plenty of people have had their premium increase for declaring without claiming, as they'll still use that as "well you've had an accident, so you're clearly a higher risk now" - and then had issues when they haven't declared to a new insurer as they hadn't claimed only for the insurer to go "well it says on the database you had a crash..."

It's in breach of policy yes, but I wouldn't be surprised if telling them would end up costing you.
 
Haze said:
your insurance will only be affected if you/they claim, reporting it costs you nothing, and you are in breach of your insurance policy if you do not tell them and they have the right o cancel your insurance
Click to expand...

First part is wrong, second part is right. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23903966

Not telling them is slightly immoral, but that's the OP's call. It's only a minor thing.
 
I'm in no doubt that telling them would increase the policy, that's my issue. I don't see any reason for him trying to claim anything though, he wouldn't really benefit from it. So if there is never a claim then who would ever know?
 
It's just a matter of if you'll be able to sleep at night knowing you swindled an insurance company out for money by taking responsibility of your own actions and rectifying them.
 
Something similar happened to a friend. They just agreed to settle it and get it repaired between themselves. It's much cheaper in the long run if it's only minor damage.

Insurance companies only know what information you volunteer to give them. Being the corporations that they are and since they only exist to make profit from you, you should volunteer as little as possible :)
 
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Janesy B said:
It's just a matter of if you'll be able to sleep at night knowing you swindled an insurance company out for money by taking responsibility of your own actions and rectifying them.
Click to expand...

I don't think I'm really swindling them out of money if anything I'm saving them money? Im paying for damage so they don't have to. If they broke down the claiming area into something like 'minor bump: 'major bump' instead of just having to declare an 'accident' then I'd be more inclined to do so. Declaring an 'accident' wil crucify me.
 
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