Fender Bender what now?

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acmilan

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So after my fender bender last week ( I rear ended someone) I decided to not go through my insurance as my excess was R5000 and my repairs ran up to R1800.

Now last week I received the other parties quote for repairs they came up to R4200 but his excess is 5000 and hasn't gone through insurance yet.

I've sent the quote off to my insurance with pictures of the incident but haven't heard anything back yet.

What can I expect to now happen?

Will my insurance help me out or will they say I have to pay up as he isn't going through his insurance.

I also feel R4200 for his repairs is steep and I had shown two panel beaters the damages and they said from the picture they could quote R1800.

What steps should I take to protect myself from an excessive claim?
 
You rear ended someone so it would be your fault (direction of motion). The other party's insurer will now be stepping into the other party's shoes (subrogation) and coming after you for the claim that they had to pay out. You should have gotten your insurer involved from the start.
 
msquared said:
You rear ended someone so it would be your fault (direction of motion). The other party's insurer will now be stepping into the other party's shoes (subrogation) and coming after you for the claim that they had to pay out. You should have gotten your insurer involved from the start.
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Sorry, didn't read properly. The other party hasn't submitted a claim to their insurer yet. Convince him/her to use your panelbeater. Once insurers get involved, it will be a headache.
 
Howzit Pinball I did tell my insurer of the accident and went for an assessment but chose not to go through them as it was cheaper to get the repairs done privately than pay my excess they proceeded to tell me when the other party involved in the accident contacts me to notify them which I did
 
Always let your insurance know there is going to be a claim from a third party. You don't have to claim but you do need to let them know. I still never see why people insist on not going through their own insurance and will go through it themselves. If he went through his insurance and it was fixed and your insurance paid, he'd get the excess back. But now your insurance is going to end up messing him around and taking their time.
I've had that happen to me when I thought I'd be clever and not use my insurance, and it happened when a third party claimed from my insurance as well who thought they wouldn't claim from theirs.
 
acmilan said:
Howzit Pinball I did tell my insurer of the accident and went for an assessment but chose not to go through them as it was cheaper to get the repairs done privately than pay my excess they proceeded to tell me when the other party involved in the accident contacts me to notify them which I did
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Then let your insurance handle it. I'm not understanding your question now.
 
msquared said:
Once insurers get involved, it will be a headache.
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No. Get your insurance involved from the start. The next thing you know, you have a more serious accident at a later date, and now you want to claim and they refuse to pay based on non disclosure. You pay for insurance, keep them in the loop. I understand the OP may not want to claim in this instance for his car, but the insurance needs to be involved.
 
@OP, as an example, I recently rolled back into someone at a stop street. Zero damage to my car. I notified insurance immediately, exchanged details with the other party, when she emailed me to claim, I completed the third party claim form from my insurance, mailed to them and nothing further. No risk/exposure or liability to me going forward, and my cover is intact for any further claims going forward.
 
As the accident happened I did contact my insurance and told them what happened, they informed me of what to do, which I did I went to the panel beater they told me to go to,they quoted me like 6000 and my excess was 5000 I told them I would do my repairs privately and they said alright and sent me a message saying I didn't decide to claim.

I waited for the other party involved in the accident to contact me and when he did, I sent my insurance the quote as I was told to do.

I would love for the guy to come to my panel beater but unfortunately the other party involved lives 2 hours away.

I'm just trying to find the best possible solution so I don't pay an exorbitant quote.

Because his qoute is R100 spares and the remainder in labour which is excessive to me as my damages were worse and my labour was R1000
 
@ Pinball did you have to repay your insurance for the repairs they did to her car?
 
The other party can claim from your insurance (third party) and has nothing to do with you really. If he chooses not to use his insurance to claim then that's really his problem and he needs to claim against your insurance who represents you and not your person directly.

If he tries to claim against you directly, then you simply refer it to your insurance as that's what they are there for.

You can still choose to not to claim your own damage from your insurance and just pay out of your pocket.

Basically let your insurance deal with the other party. You pay them for this very reason after all. Pointless having insurance at all if you aren't going to make use of them.

Also you need to take a serious look at your cover if your excess is R5000...that's just ridiculous.

I honestly don't know why people have insurance and then do everything possible not to make use of it, kind of defeats the purpose. But then I would never enter into an insurance agreement with a R5000 excess.
 
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Sauron I'm 23 and it's my first car so my excess was always going to be high.
 
pinball wizard said:
@OP, as an example, I recently rolled back into someone at a stop street. Zero damage to my car. I notified insurance immediately, exchanged details with the other party, when she emailed me to claim, I completed the third party claim form from my insurance, mailed to them and nothing further. No risk/exposure or liability to me going forward, and my cover is intact for any further claims going forward.
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Yeah this was my experience two years ago, I was trying to get out of a tight spot in a parking lot and reversed into another car. I left my details, informed my insurance that my car was fine but there will possibly be a claim and we took it from there.
 
Will the op need to pay the policy excess even for 3rd party claims from this accident where he isn't claiming himself?

Whatever the case may be its just maths, the op must choose the cheapest option for himself, to convince the other guy to not make a 3rd party claim from his insurance is pointless if it means it becomes more expensive than just claiming the whole lot and paying the excess.

Intersting scenario, for most insurance policies is an excess payable whether its the insured or 3rd party making the claim, like this accident for instance?

Also thing to keep in mind is future liability, you aren't a lawyer so settling directly with the other party may open you up to being sued at a later date for some other arbitrary reason, claiming the accident caused whiplash or did some underlying damage that cases subsequent loss etc, especially of you convince them to use your panelbeater and he does something wrong.

That's why people say always do it via your insurance, they take on all the liability and have a high powered legal dept to squash future claims.
 
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Insurance excesses can be huge.

My granddaughter just wrote off my little Ford KA and very luckily just had a couple of bumps and a scratch.

Excess was R9000. First excess R3000, under 25 R2000, less than 2 years licence R2000, after 9pm and no other vehicle involved R2000.

I was insured for retail value which insurance stated as R38700. Quick check on Autotrader showed lots of KAs at over R45K but basically they then quote some "guide" which they probably generate anyway which keeps the payout down.

At the end of the day I would be happy to get only R1 as my granddaughter, according to the assessor who looked at the KA, said she could easily have been killed.

But I dealt through my broker the whole time and she was fantastic because of some complications that needed to be ironed out. So my personal advice to anybody is just get a good broker, maybe costs you a little more a month than going direct to insurance company, but is well worth it and try and get a smaller one than one of the big companies, they take a more personal interest in you.
 
acmilan said:
Howzit Pinball I did tell my insurer of the accident and went for an assessment but chose not to go through them as it was cheaper to get the repairs done privately than pay my excess they proceeded to tell me when the other party involved in the accident contacts me to notify them which I did
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Do you realise whether you plan to claim or not, the accident still remains on your "record" at your insurance company when they calculate your future premiums based on "accident-free years" ?
 
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