Car accident advice

looking4advice

I was involved in a minor car accident and I'm not sure what to do with regard to claiming off my Insurance or not.

The accident happened as follows : I rear - ended a car which then hit the car in front of them.

The 1st car suffered no obvious damage apart from the hitch which had some paint on it from the car I rear ended).

The 2nd car was damaged on the front bumper near the fog light. The hitch hit it there. The driver was given an estimate (cash) to repair of €450.

My car has a small bit of damage done to the bumper and I was given €100 estimate to repair. The air bags went off although it was low impact on the steering wheel and front passenger. I got a price of €350 to get 2nd hand airbags. The labour is about €100.

The total bill is looking at about €1,000. I have comprehensive insurance and I have 2 years no claims built up. The car is worth about €4,500 (Ford Focus 04) and Insurance is currently costing me €350 per annum.

Should I claim on Insurance or pay the other driver to save my no claims?

looking4advice

I should of also said that the price going through the Insurance would be higher as VAT included so maybe it will be €2,000 that way.

cml387

A car of that age (04) would seem to me an insurance write off if the airbags went off.

Anan1

Claim on your insurance. With two other cars involved and an impact hard enough to trigger airbags there's a good chance of a personal injury claim or two arriving shortly.

looking4advice

cml387 wrote: »

A car of that age (04) would seem to me an insurance write off if the airbags went off.

I think the air bags going off was unusual (the garage said as much having seen the damage - they saw the other car as well) so I don't think it needs to be written off.

The 1st car seemed fine so I don't think there will be a personal injury claim. The 2nd car driver was fine as well.

cml387

looking4advice wrote: »

I think the air bags going off was unusual (the garage said as much having seen the damage - they saw the other car as well) so I don't think it needs to be written off.

The 1st car seemed fine so I don't think there will be a personal injury claim. The 2nd car driver was fine as well.

It's not so much the other damage as the cost of repairing the front dashboard,replacement airbags etc.

There have been examples in this forum of what I'm talking about:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=66171294

looking4advice

Sorry if I'm a bit clueless but would that mean that I wouldnt get the Insurance to pay out?

cml387

looking4advice wrote: »

Sorry if I'm a bit clueless but would that mean that I wouldnt get the Insurance to pay out?

Yes,they would.They'd pay the open market value of your car.

I assume you've informed the insurance company?

johnayo

cml387 wrote: »

Yes,they would.They'd pay the open market value of your car.

I assume you've informed the insurance company?

+1 on informing the insurance company. You cant be sure the third partys wont claim for personal injury. Best to cover your back.

dharn

ya be very careful inform your insurance company people have a very nasty habit of suddenly getting sore necks a few days after an accident like yours hope it dosent happen but i will cost you nothing to inform your insurance company also ask them what you renewal price would be with loss of ncb

ari101

dharn wrote: »

ya be very careful inform your insurance company people have a very nasty habit of suddenly getting sore necks a few days after an accident like yours hope it dosent happen but i will cost you nothing to inform your insurance company also ask them what you renewal price would be with loss of ncb

Had a friend who had did a slow motion no damage rear end to someone who broke suddenly on a roundabout - they got out and looked; it was fine so the other driver said no harm done and drove off...
No report no claim etc

1 year on the same women used the reg of my friends car to track her and claimed she'd written off the car and caused severe personal injury. My friend never took the reg - is had been her fault, but no damage etc...

The woman claims this accident happened to a different car (which had to be written off as a result) than the one my friend remembers and has all these medical bills, so she obviously did have an accident in another car shortly after or got her fake on and decided to try peg my friend.
And guess what, the insurance company are refusing to fight it on a no witness her vs. your word basis etc and are going to pay out and jack up her premium...

Lesson: If any other person is involved always notify the insurance company

dharn

thats horrific, also a bit odd that the insurance are paying out not having been informed, they could put the frighteners on your friend and say you are on your own as you did not inform us

ari101

dharn wrote: »

thats horrific, also a bit odd that the insurance are paying out not having been informed, they could put the frighteners on your friend and say you are on your own as you did not inform us

I was cutting a long story short and to be honest I'm hazy on the exact details other than above - as far as I know she didn't inform at the time of the incident but admitted immediately to the fact they touched bumpers on the roundabout when contacted 1 year on. They were the ones that then said, oh you've admitted liability and were the car behind, we're paying out, and they didn't want to hear any more despite the fact she wanted to dispute the claim as far as I know - it is strange isnt it!

garhjw

do you have bonus protection on your policy? if so, you should be able to claim withoutyour NCB being affected

dharn

ari101 wrote: »

I was cutting a long story short and to be honest I'm hazy on the exact details other than above - as far as I know she didn't inform at the time of the incident but admitted immediately to the fact they touched bumpers on the roundabout when contacted 1 year on. They were the ones that then said, oh you've admitted liability and were the car behind, we're paying out, and they didn't want to hear any more despite the fact she wanted to dispute the claim as far as I know - it is strange isnt it!

its a pity she admitted liability she could have a loss of memory episode like most people would 1 year later

Bruthal

ari101 wrote: »

Had a friend who had did a slow motion no damage rear end to someone who broke suddenly on a roundabout - they got out and looked; it was fine so the other driver said no harm done and drove off...
No report no claim etc

1 year on the same women used the reg of my friends car to track her and claimed she'd written off the car and caused severe personal injury. My friend never took the reg - is had been her fault, but no damage etc...

The woman claims this accident happened to a different car (which had to be written off as a result) than the one my friend remembers and has all these medical bills, so she obviously did have an accident in another car shortly after or got her fake on and decided to try peg my friend.
And guess what, the insurance company are refusing to fight it on a no witness her vs. your word basis etc and are going to pay out and jack up her premium...

Lesson: If any other person is involved always notify the insurance company

Id second that, seen very similar to that before. That one your talking about there deserves a proper crash.

slimjimmc

dharn wrote: »

thats horrific, also a bit odd that the insurance are paying out not having been informed, they could put the frighteners on your friend and say you are on your own as you did not inform us

Not really, if there's a 3rd party claim they must get involved. There are only a handful of get-outs an insurer can legally use and failure to notify them of a collision is not one of them.

ari101

dharn wrote: »

its a pity she admitted liability she could have a loss of memory episode like most people would 1 year later

I know, honestly and attempts to do the right think don't get you anywhere :-/

Anan1

looking4advice wrote: »

The 1st car seemed fine so I don't think there will be a personal injury claim. The 2nd car driver was fine as well.

Injuries can be inversely related to the damage to the car. If the car you hit had its brakes on then the damage to the car would be greater but the shock to the occupants lesser than if the car you hit was in neutral and unbraked. Airbags don't deploy at random, a certain deceleration threshold has to be exceeded, and it's not that low. Either way, you really don't want to start paying for an open-ended claim out of your own pocket.

looking4advice

UPDATE:

The Insurance sent it to their approved garage and the repair bill came in at €3,500, mostly due to the airbags costing €2,500.

The Insurance have written it off and and have told me the following:

The pre-accident car value was €4,100 which looks about right.
The post-accident car value is €700.

I have to pay an excess of €350 so I will get a payout of €3,050 (€4,100 minus €700 minus €350).

I've been told that if I got it repaired I would need an engineer to sign off on it prior to getting it insured and I was told that putting in 2nd hand air bags may not be accepted by the Insurance company (not sure what an independent engineer would say). I was quoted about €450 for 2nd hand airbags which would greatly reduce the repair bill. I was told by the Insurance company that the car compute may need to be replace as well due to the airbags going off.

I'm not sure whether to take the money or get it repaired? What would you suggest?

ART6

Why are they deducting the cars current value after the accident from the payout? Have you offered to buy it back from them? Normally when an insurer pays out the car becomes their property, and they sell of off for scrap. You cab buy it from them for the scrap value, but then you run into the issue described in this link:

http://www.cartell.ie/how-it-works/help/write-off-help/

looking4advice

This is the email I got:

Our assessor has inspected our insured s vehicle and advises the insured s vehicle is a write off with a pre accident valuation of €4100 and a salvage value of €700.

The salvage offer is from our approved repairers who c an be contacted on xxxxxxxxxx (ask for xxxxx) or

A policy excess of €350 applies under the policy

The net settlement figure therefore is in the sum of €3050

ART6

looking4advice wrote: »

This is the email I got:

Our assessor has inspected our insured s vehicle and advises the insured s vehicle is a write off with a pre accident valuation of €4100 and a salvage value of €700.

The salvage offer is from our approved repairers who c an be contacted on xxxxxxxxxx (ask for xxxxx) or

A policy excess of €350 applies under the policy

The net settlement figure therefore is in the sum of €3050

That sounds like the insurer expects you to recover the €700 from the salvage company. I have not come across that way of doing it before -- in my experience the insurers pay you the pre-accident value and recover what they can from salvage.