Exorbitant Amount

[Sinbad]

Insurance is there to fix up the car via dealer back to its previous condition. You cant call some cheap paint shop to get a guy that just know how to spraypaint a scratch and charge you 10k for it. The scratches and dents should be repaired and then the paint colourmatched and layered up. Its quite a process.

I have seen a cheap repair job which was R5000 cheaper and the car looked visibly repaired and the paint bubbled. A proper job you would not notice the difference.

Should the owner accept crap workmanship because you causes the fault? Nope. You should pay. Youre lucky it wasnt an Italian car or Mercedes or BMW.

Guy drove into the back of my AMG. there was a scratch on the bumper, a broken clip and a small dent on the exhaust tip.
Mercedes approved repairer, bill was over 30k.

 

[Corelli]

You could be blacklisted. Good luck with finding a job after that. You are just lucky we dont have the social credit system like China. You would be toast.

 

[Corelli]

Face it guy. Because of people like you we have to pay way more for fuel for the road accident fund. Its basically to cover people that doesnt have insurance incase they die.

 

[Lupus]

Guy drove into the back of my AMG. there was a scratch on the bumper, a broken clip and a small dent on the exhaust tip.
Mercedes approved repairer, bill was over 30k.

I reversed into the back of an AMG in 2015, cost 8k just for the clips that were broken. Luckily insurance took care of it.

 

[Matt91]

I hope you sleep better at night.

Pay what you can and take responsibility then maybe you will too.

 

[Corelli]

Guy drove into the back of my AMG. there was a scratch on the bumper, a broken clip and a small dent on the exhaust tip.
Mercedes approved repairer, bill was over 30k.

I hope you discovered your indicators. But I see the new full screen dash models have that now automatically with the change lane assistance.

 

[quovadis]

Guy drove into the back of my AMG. there was a scratch on the bumper, a broken clip and a small dent on the exhaust tip.
Mercedes approved repairer, bill was over 30k.

Similar to me. One month old Porsche rear-ended by some hard-up guy who borrowed a friend' s tow truck for the morning. If memory serves it was over 100k and it was damage the size of a tennis ball. He got a judgment and I got the joy of paying an excess amount I never got back. Third party insurance should be mandatory in ZA and paid as part of your license disk imho.

 

[Sinbad]

Similar to me. One month old Porsche rear-ended by some hard-up guy who borrowed a friend' s tow truck for the morning. If memory serves it was over 100k and it was damage the size of a tennis ball. He got a judgment and I got the joy of paying an excess amount I never got back. Third party insurance should be mandatory in ZA and paid as part of your license disk imho.

100% agreed on the third party. Not paid as part of your license disk though - too much corruption there. You must provide proof of a year's worth of paid up 3rd party in order to get a disk though.

My damage:

 

[RedViking]

You have to pay up, same happen with woman crashed into me.

She had pay up, not sure where she got money from, but she paid the 20k to insurance company.

Yeah. A person like OP, old car and no insurance, drove into my mom. Insurance quoted the damage at 10K. I got a personal quote for R2500. A week later after waiting for the quotes told the lady she can pay R2500 right now or she will need to deal with the insurance.

She sent me an email how she and her husband was sitting that week and stressing everyday waiting for my call and so grateful for the R2 500 quote. Paid immediately and car was sorted out the next day.

I told her my broker will phone her and give her a quote for 3rd party insurance.

 

[Sinbad]

I hope you discovered your indicators. But I see the new full screen dash models have that now automatically with the change lane assistance.

AMG != BMW, ****

 

[Messugga]

My suggestion is get quotes to fix what damage would have been to the other car and present the "fraud" in court if unreasonable.

What quote would be considered valid without the car having been inspected? OP has no idea of actual damage to the vehicle, short of it being simply a scratch. That wouldn't be anywhere close to even R10k though.

 

[RedViking]

OP should have started the thread tomorrow.

 

[acidrain]

Tell the insurance company you want a second quote from your trustworthy panel beater.

Its worth a shot but sometimes this may not always even work as surely it's up to your insurance anyways who repairs the car that they've insured.

My recent case as example. Car got broken into. Smashed window, bent door and some scratches. Took to 2 places for quotes. One was R26k and the other was over R40k.

Insurance chose the more expensive one.... not sure why but maybe they know something I don't.

@OP, sometimes even fender benders can be pricey. I had my wing mirror swiped off - R17k just for that.

Follow the advice of everyone here. Get 3rd party at the very least or get off the road.

 

[Craig_]

If you cannot afford insurance then you cannot afford to drive.



Now get off the road until you have at least 3rd party insurance.

I've always said the same as well, no way you can afford to not have it, this oke learned that lesson the hard way now. Althoguh it sounds as if he is still driving around uninsured.

And yet have you ever heard of an insurance company coming back to their client saying "oh look, we managed to recover your excess"

Yes, mine did.

Yes contacted santam they transferred the excess back to me. Had no problems at all getting that back.

Yes - Outsurance did with my dad. In fact, we only ever received excellent service from them.

You can add me to that list as well, also got my excess back a few years ago.

 

[Craig_]

And OP, that amount is still quite low for a bumper bashing, you don't know what damage there could've been under that bump. Someone read ended my car 2 years back, R40k in damage, few scratches and the rear wheel slightly bent, oh and some rim scratches they had to repair. You got lucky that's it was that low, if you ran into someone with a really expensive car you could've been in for a R100K+.

 

[quovadis]

What quote would be considered valid without the car having been inspected? OP has no idea of actual damage to the vehicle, short of it being simply a scratch. That wouldn't be anywhere close to even R10k though.

The OP was present and thus has an idea of the damage however the insurance company acts in the interest of their client thus they are not going to wait for the OP to approve a quotation when the OP is liable and frankly non-cooperative. The question is whether the 31k is reasonable and anyone who has had any kind of similar event will probably have experienced similar pricing for replacement panel(s), sundries, paint & labour. There is no onus on the insurer or the insured to accept a back yard putty-filled dent repair job using generic paint on a damaged bumper to save R10k.

 

[Big Rat]

Big heavy car like a camry, vs a lightweight tin shitbox.
Pretty certain there are damage underneath that bumper that is not visible.
You will need to get the assessor's repair list, and go to a few places to check your figures.
You might get a surprise at the cost if it ain't Pietfix place around the corner.

 

[Dups!]

Outsurance sucks big time. Dealing with a case right now. Our second and last. Only one option for body shop and their reputation is B-A-D. We got quotes elsewhere and outsurance paid us the equivalent of the original quote in cash provided we don't have comebacks.

We're ditching them as soon as the car is back.

Previous accident we had to take the car back three times and gave up. Their preferred body shop had been in business less than a year and a few years later doesn't exist anymore. They couldn't get the excess back from the person who caused the accident. Probably another outsurance client.

Almost changed to them last year, guess I dodged a bullet. I have to say, though, that insurance companies are like banks, some people are happy with bank A while others with bank B.

Had a quote that was cheaper than my insurance (MiWay) and conditionally accepted it. MiWay beat that offer so I stayed with MiWay. The worst part is that Outsurance didn't pay up when they failed to match MiWay. I didn't even bother chasing after them.

 

[quovadis]

I got a personal quote for R2500. A week later after waiting for the quotes told the lady she can pay R2500 right now or she will need to deal with the insurance.

I'm responding in general and non-specifically. There's pros and cons of doing this. The most obvious is that the insurer is then no longer responsible of the insured event so if you discover other damage later or while being repaired they would not technically be responsible for remedy. Also, if the repair work is not done to spec (ie. wheel repair vs new wheel, filler instead of panel replacement) there is the possibility of additional betterment charges in subsequent claims. Also, if there is failure of a component which was not replaced which caused a future insured event then there may be issues with the claim. My 2c - every situation is different.

 

[RedViking]

I'm responding in general and non-specifically. There's pros and cons of doing this. The most obvious is that the insurer is then no longer responsible of the insured event so if you discover other damage later or while being repaired they would not technically be responsible for remedy. Also, if the repair work is not done to spec (ie. wheel repair vs new wheel, filler instead of panel replacement) there is the possibility of additional betterment charges in subsequent claims. Also, if there is failure of a component which was not replaced which caused a future insured event then there may be issues with the claim. My 2c - every situation is different.

You are absolutely right. Every situation needs to be accessed and dealt with individually. Also dealing with the other party directly is also not the best idea.