Car Insurance - do we have to claim?

I would have thought so if it's not your sons fault, other chap admitted liability and his insurance paying for the damage anyway, and there is no cost to your sons insurance company.


When someone drove straight into my parked up car on a carpark at speed and caused over £800 of damage, the lad gave me his details and said he'd pay for damage himself . When I rang his number next morning the lads irate father was saying it was me who hit his sons car and he had already put a claim in against me with his insurance. I rang my insurance straight away and, as I was fully comp ,they got my car booked straight into the garage. Even though my insurance arranged for my car to be fixed and gave me a free courtesy car , they claimed it all back off his insurance company after threatening to take him to court. My no claims wasn't affected .
As your insurance isn't actually paying for your sons damage I would think it's pretty reasonable to close your claim.

I've had two cars written off whilst parked in the space of a year, neither was my fault as I wasn't in either the car at the time and legally parked. The most annoying part was trying to replace the car you might have to battle with the insurance over the value. I can't vouch for the cost it will incur to you next year but it didn't effect my insurance too much - but I felt it did effect it a little bit. I would imagine that will you will need to put in claim - especially as the other party will probably already have done so I would advise against not claiming, as their insurance will most likely be in contact with yours by now. Check the small print I'm sure you might be legally obliged to report it.

I must add though - the other night I nearly drove into the back of a small car over filled with young men as the driver broke hard on a green light, i was forced into an emergency stop & the car behind me was too when I sounded my horn for the driver to move he started f'n & jeffing at me in a really aggressive manner - if that sounds like your son I'm not surprised someone ended up in the back of his vehicle.

Alesto said:

Excuse me? You have a darned cheek assuming that my son was in an overloaded car, driving erratically and f'n and jeffing at other drivers. Just because you drive too close to the car in front and don't leave enough room in case the car in front stops suddenly, then that's your problem. My son is a sensible driver hence the big drop from last year's to this year's cost of his insurance. and if you really want to know there was just two of them in the car and his passenger was a middle aged colleague who he was taking home after an evening class. The lights were changing to amber and he slow down and came to a stop. Then the car hit him from behind. Now the other driver was a middle aged man and was totally apologetic over the whole situation. He accepted full liability and even phoned us later to apologise again. So, please don't assume all young drivers are the same.
Also, I would advise that you find better places to park your car, you seem a bit unlucky................

Click to expand...

The only reason I didn't go into the back of the car infront was because I wasn't tailgating and was watching the road ahead. No not all young drivers are the same just seemed a bit of a coincidence - maybe I was a bit asumptive and for that I apologise.

I still think he should claim though, it is probably part of the insurance agreement.

Someone went into the back of me just before christmas and caused £4,800 + VAT damage to my car. The car was only three weeks old and had covered less than 500 miles, so of course it was repaired.

Liability was admitted and their insurance sorted it all out. I have no idea if they contacted my insurer about this, I sure as hell haven't mentioned it. When renewal time comes I am going to do a few quotes with duff details to see if it makes any difference - if it does then frankly I shall not be disclosing it as it would be grossly unfair to pay more due to someone else's incompetence.

If your son's car is repaired or written off you (or your son) will not be responsible for any payment or excess, the other party's insurance should be paying for everything, including his courtesy car.

It sounds like it's too late now, but I'd have not spoken to his insurers at all at this stage.

Good luck getting it sorted, and I trust your son wasn't injured in the incident?

P.S. Be prepared for a wave of calls from ambulance chasers, even though I wasn't injured I had many calls asking if I would like to make a claim.

I can remember an "insurance industry spokesman" once saying that, although a claim might not be your fault in any way, it was reasonable to load you as a result, because it was evidence that you may be a greater risk than people who don't even have no-fault accidents. This was some years ago...