Our First Insurance Claim!

danza

danza

danza

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On our way home from church this fine early afternoon, just as we pulled into our road we found ourselves driving on the wrong side due to parked cars, with some guy in a silver Zafira in front.

Our peaceful, serene drive home goes awry from this point on:

The guy in the Zafira decided he'd like to all of a sudden stop, without signalling and reverse park at the side of the road. We were behind him, CLEARLY in view as plain as day, and all of a sudden *CRUNCH*. He reversed into us (we were stationary). Great, I thought. There goes our no claims, as I thought there were no witnesses. The guy didn't have his details, but I had my digital SLR in the boot, so took shots of the damage for proof if necessary.

We got home, and all of a sudden our next-door-but-one neighbour appears on our drive and says she saw it all :D and will stand as a witness. Hopefully all will be ok, and everything will be sorted in our favour soon.

The down side is that our car is worth less than a grand (R plate Astra LS on 83K), and it's almost defo going to need a new front bumper and indicator lens. So hopefully the Insurance company won't write it off :( :confused:

/edit

Like us the guy seemed to think nobody saw the accident, but little does he know....

He tried very hard to make it out as if it was our fault, but I just said sorry, and that the insurance companies will sort this out from here on.
 
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Hope it works out good for you. :). Just hope they don't push it that mcuh as the witness is you nextdoor neighbour.

I know a black person who had a car smash into him whist riding a motor bike. Several months in hospital. But the stupid bird is making a fuss cos the witness (who he doesn't know) is also black and she's trying to say there racist. Its been going on about 6months now, with no end in sight. Although its obviousley her fault.
 
i hope that the pictures you took show the positions of the vehicles in relation to the parking space he was trying to get into.

he will say that he stopped to park and you didnt stop in time and hit the back of his vehicle. i hope that the accident damage to his car is mainly to one side, showing that he was reversing into the space, as opposed to straight backwards, in Court that makes a difference.

in regard to:
"The guy in the Zafira decided he'd like to all of a sudden stop, without signalling and reverse park at the side of the road"

that is not a good thing to be saying. "all of a sudden" makes it sound as if youre making excuses. ultimately, if the guy stopped then you should have been as a safe distance etc etc. i (if i were you) would emphasise that you noticed him coming to a stop. you stopped accordingly, he began to reverse backwards and appears to have simply not noticed your presence and hit you.

in regard to the neighbour witness, the third party and the third party's insurer are unlikely to take this too seriously. they will say that it is too much of a coincidence and that the neighbour knows you anyway. in Court, if she attends and has a signed statement, you will be in a much better position.

plus... get the fact that you were on the way back from church into it. the Courts can be very biased, coppers and church goers are seen favourably and the Court assume that they would never lie or do bad.

if i were defending you, i would be pretty confident with the file.

i alas no longer work in that line of work (as of last friday), so wish you the best of luck. keep us posted!!
 
Hmmmm,

Thanks for the replies. I know what you mean about the witness being my neighbour. Oddly though, today was the first time we've spoken since moving here in May!

I'll let you know what happens, our insurance company seem confident, but I suppose they would anyway!
i hope that the pictures you took show the positions of the vehicles in relation to the parking space he was trying to get into.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. The guy moved almost as soon as he'd reversed into us.
 
typical. i bet hes has many incidents before. the positions immediately after an incident say a lot, hence he moved.

in regard to the insurance company being confident, i wouldnt put a lot of faith in that, there are so many handlers in these companies that havent the fogiest, hence ive seen some really embarrasing ones go to Court.

i look forward to hearing how it goes
 
Well, we just had a call from the guy who hit us (he spoke to my wife).

He wants to settle without any further intervention from either insurance company. He said that it'll probably go 50/50, but then he may not realise that we have a witness. He said as far as he could tell the only damage was the indicator lens, but that's not so (is he blind?!?!). The indicator housing is rattling about and loose, the bumper is scratched through the paint, and the paint is scratched around the indicator with a small dent to boot. My car does have numerous car park dings on it, but that isn't the point.

Here's a piccy:

Dent01.jpg


Ignore the scratches to the extreme right, they were already there.
 
Doubt that'll warrant a new bumper - a smear of red dog and a respray and you'll be sorted.
Click to expand...

You're probably correct....

I think it's going to all go through the insurance companies anyway. I doubt Admiral would be very happy if we told them we're sorting it out with the guy that hit us. For a start while the work is being done we won't get a courtesy car, which my wife needs to get to work and I doubt they guy will want to pay for the panel/bumper being resprayed etc from his own pocket.

I'll let the body shop decide what they want to do in regards to repair/respray/replace.
 
If insurance companies have been informed then you might as well go through insurance companies.

But check what it does to your next years insurance renewal.



The paint job will cost aprox £100 - £150 A friend had a car repaired recently the bumper + wing resprayed for £150 froma local guy , he did a very good job. The big body shops wanted over £400.

The car was repaired in one day so not exactly a huge inconvenience.
 
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TBH Maybe it's because it's very zoomed in and we cannot see the full extent of the damage but all it looks like to me is a very superficially damaged bumper which is scratched and has paint missing, the bumper itself looks in fine condition.
 
If you look closely, you can see there is a dent on the panel (you can see a ring) to the right of the indicator. The indicator is also loose. Whether that's due to the panel being deformed or not I don't know.

The bumper is probably largely superficial. If both cars were as old as mine, I doubt the insurance would be worth the bother. His car was an 04 plate and consequently newer and shinier than ours. The guys attitude didn't help him, and was to the effect of "you're in the wrong, and I'm going to prove it". He agreed then and there that this should go through our insurance companies, now he's changing his mind. Grrr!
 
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