Minor Collision

[Forrest]

Annoyingly, someone drove into the back of me tonight. Seemingly, not very much damage to my car although more to hers. In fact, I think mine just needs paint. She wants to go through insurance, I think because of the damage to her car. Any advice on how to handle this? My inclination is just to get my car repaired myself. Especially since I know someone who could probably do it for me quite cheaply. I want to avoid an insurance company deciding to write my car off for very minor damage, essentially some scratches on the bumper.

Anything I should check for more serious hidden damage?

I am not in the business of trying to profit from this. I don’t believe in that nonsense and they seemed a genuine, pleasant young couple.

[Steve 940]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Annoyingly, someone drove into the back of me tonight. Seemingly, not very much damage to my car although more to hers. In fact, I think mine just needs paint. She wants to go through insurance, I think because of the damage to her car. Any advice on how to handle this? My inclination is just to get my car repaired myself. Especially since I know someone who could probably do it for me quite cheaply. I want to avoid an insurance company deciding to write my car off for very minor damage, essentially some scratches on the bumper.

Anything I should check for more serious hidden damage?

I am not in the business of trying to profit from this. I don’t believe in that nonsense and they seemed a genuine, pleasant young couple.

Hi Forrest,

Sorry to hear you’ve had a couple of numpties drive into the back of your car.

Mmmm, not sure as I’m with you to just repair your car yourself, but if they have your registration number and do a claim through theirs, then I’d be worried if my insurance would be valid.

Every time I’ve enquired about insurance there is a question, have you had any accidents, if the culprit has claimed it will be on the central register so an arguable risk of not being covered. Yes you were not the cause of accident, but unfortunately you have been in one.

I do so hope you have ncb protection 🤞🤞

Cheers
Steve

[loki_the_glt]

Report it to your insurer ASAP; otherwise their insurer might try to claim against you even though you were, at least technically, not at fault. Stress that you are reporting it to protect yourself and, by association, your insurer fro malicious claims. (I had a minor bump several years ago that ripped off my front bumper and the other party claimed for whiplash - in a 5mph collision no less!)

The damage to your car might be minor but the three-letter acronym CYA springs to mind.

[Laird Scooby]

I'm with the others on reporting this to your insurer, something smells wrong on this one. Most people, even if they had damaged their own car, if they had rear-ended someone would prefer to keep it quiet from their insurers as they will know their premiums will jump like Zebedee on steroids.

Also although your damage looks minimal, it might be the camera angle but your bumper looks distorted to me. Despite what the insurers may tell you, you do have the right to have your car repaired and NOT written off - that's what you pay your premium for!
I know of at least one person who insisted on exercising that right and his insurers went after the other party and won their costs back - also you could argue the fact that you can't easily find another car with known history like yours and whatever they may offer you as a settlement figure won't be enough to get another car and sort it to the standard this one is currently at.

As such, repairing yours to the standard it was at before (or slightly better by way of compensation for the inconvenience rather than embetterment - not sure if that's a USA only word but there) is most definitely an option, writing it off is not.

[baggy798]

There's no damage there, so forget about it and drive on.

[J liddy]

Hi I'm thinking report the incident as you see it ,rear end collision,
If the other driver is going through there insurance you will be getting correspondence from your insurers
Go through the claims and get your car back to how it was before hopefully .you just can't trust strangers to be honest sadly. Hopefully you will have no further
Inconvenience

[lynns hubby]

"There's no damage there, so forget about it and drive on."

Unfortunately we don't live in this sort of world anymore.
As stated previously by someone on here, as soon as the other party reports it, you are obliged to tell your own insurance. They will always see you as a risk as you were involved in an accident even though it was not your fault.
As also stated earlier, when you go to renew your insurance, you have to tell them that you have been involved in an accident in the last five years because they will know from the Database.
The days are gone where you could pretend that it does not matter.
This was obviously not the members fault but disclosing this to his insurance company because the damage to his car is minimal will not satisfy them on renewal day.
Don't forget, any excuse to put premiums up by insurance companies and they are on it.
Looking at the photo it does seem very minor and it seems a shame it all has to come to this.

[griston64]

Personally I would just leave it. If they drove into the back of you it's their fault so the can't claim whiplash against you. If she want's to go through insurance she will be claiming on her own

If you want to repair at a later date just do that

You could make something out of nothing

[360beast]

As someone who has dealt with a crash outside of insurance (someone reversed in to my wife) and the lady driving seemed very pleasant, I can assure you it is a massive hassle and I would never do it again. Her family got involved and tried fobbing us off and all sorts of antics, it is only because she lived in her van and was terrified if we reported it to the insurers she wouldn't be able to afford insurance again and would become homeless that I managed to get the money for a new bumper! It took several months and only when I said send the money by the end of the week or I'm reporting it to the insurance that she paid up. Also if they are going through insurance then they will contact your insurance company anyway so you would be best reporting it as they're going to find out anyway.

Stick your head under the car and have a good look at the shock absorbers and the bumper reinforcement bar and the boot floor under the carpets where the shock absorbers bolt to in case the floor has taken some damage.

[4x4]

If you or the third party report an incident to the insurance then for the next 5 years it had to be mentioned when applying for a renewal quote irrespective of who was at fault.

Someone went into the back of my wife's car in September, they wanted to pay and not involve insurance. The quote was £350 to remove bumper, repair and repaint and put back together. Third party decided that was too much and went to insurance and now we have a non fault accident hanging over us for the next 5 years...