Insurance claim for car damage - can I claim for my wasted time?

TheBoyConor

Hello,

I was driving along a row of parked cars in a car park. A guy decides to reverse out of his space. I see him coming, stop dead, blow my horn hard but it had no effect and he backed into my passenger door, buckling it an busting the trim on my mirror.

The man is extremely elderly, is unsteady and quite slow moving, probably not the best reactions anymore. Sure god love him the innocent cratur.

I took pictures, we exchanged details. I said I'll get quotes to fix and he can either pay the repair himself of go through insurance.

I got three quotes.. All around €1400. I'll present it to him. If he as any quibbles I'll not get into a negotiation with him (or his sons or daughters) as I've no appetite for that kind of wrangle tangling. I'm just going to say "yeah that's grand so, I'll get your insurer to sort it out. bye".

I'm thinking, between all this fooling about and then having to drop and collect the car for repair, I've spend a lot of my time arsing around when I could've not had to if he'd been a bit more careful.

Would I be entitled to claim for some amount for my inconvenience and wasted time with the whole affair. I feel like i've done €300s worth of running around tbh and i've still to arrange the repair.

What are my options here as even if I get the car fully repaired I'll still be losing out on my wasted time.

ELM327

No
/thread

TheBoyConor

So a person can claim for a spurious soft tissue injury and claim tens if not hundreds of thousands and potentially still be given a "just in case" settlement even when a judge determines that there was no injury. But yet I am not entitled to claim a measly few hundred quid because some batty aul geriatric geezer can't be arsed to look where he is going? What a country we live in.

Anyway that is my rant over.

When I get back to him with the prices would I be entitled and within my rights to ask for a modest compensation from him for my time and inconvenience?
Even if he refuses, I can claim just the repair cost from the insurer but it'll cost him a lot more in the long run to chose that route.

2Mad2BeMad

Why did you stop right behind him and blow ur horn? Sounds as if you would of had time to continue accelerating. Obviously your not at fault but stopping behind him then blowing the horn I would of picked up speed to avoid it altogether if i could

TheBoyConor

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

Why did you stop right behind him and blow ur horn? Sounds as if you would of had time to continue accelerating. Obviously your not at fault but stopping behind him then blowing the horn I would of picked up speed to avoid it altogether if i could

Because when he started to reverse my first reaction was to stop but my front window was ashtray begins him when he started. When I stopped my site was behind him.
I blew thinking he would stop.

I wasn't going to floor it and try accelerate away in a busy carpark with pedestrians in the pissing rain. We probably would have still made contact resulting in a lot more damage as I would have been moving.
Anyway, it all happened in a matter or 3 or 4 seconds.

Pkiernan

Compo much?

TheBoyConor

No. If i wanted compo i'd be claiming personal injury!! I just want to get my car door and mirror repaired. And if I can have my lost time and inconvenicnce paid for that is a bonus.

mordeith

TheBoyConor wrote: »

No. If i wanted compo i'd be claiming personal injury!! I just want to get my car door and mirror repaired. And if I can have my lost time and inconvenicnce paid for that is a bonus.

Jesus, you can claim for lost time now. Must look that up on my policy

TheBoyConor

You can't apparently as said above. But I'm going to present the quotes to the guy and add on an amount for lost time and inconvenience. If he chooses not to pay himself but rather through insurance, then that's fine I'll make do with just the repair costs. But it will be much more expensive for him to go through insurance in the long run as he'll be hit with higher premia. He'd be as well off just to agree an amount with me and pay it.

ratracer

So you're effectively going to blackmail him..... that'll be interesting if he reports it to either the Guards r his insurance company.

NUTLEY BOY

TheBoyConor wrote: »

No. If i wanted compo i'd be claiming personal injury!! I just want to get my car door and mirror repaired. And if I can have my lost time and inconvenicnce paid for that is a bonus.

You are entitled to recover all reasonable losses incurred as a direct result of the other motorist's negligence.

So, in addition to repairs you may be entitled to depreciation if the car was fairly new as well as car hire/alternative transport costs whilst your car is being repaired.

Your obligation is to present your claim and to minimise your losses. That might involve some measure of inconvenience otherwise known as a pain in the whatever....

I might suggest doing what I did a few years ago. My car was hit by a negligent motorist. €1,500 euros of damage. Did not need to hire a car but had several long distance telephone calls to other insurers as well as the inconvenience of chasing up the estimate and the usual stuff. When settlement time arose I asked the other side to "round up the settlement" to reflect the phone calls and general inconvenience. They agreed to a rounded up figure. They knew that I had them on liability and would sooner pay me a small additional sum rather that incur two sets of District Court costs.

Be firm but reasonable about what you demand. The principal of indemnity seeks to restore you to your true position as it was before the accident and to make you "whole" again but without making a profit.

I do remember a number of years ago some judges of the District Court and the Circuit Court in Dublin regularly handing out awards of a few hundred pounds (sic) for inconvenience alone . I do not suggest looking for such a figure in your case but just mention it for context.

NUTLEY BOY

mordeith wrote: »

Jesus, you can claim for lost time now. Must look that up on my policy

You probably won't find it there

TheBoyConor

ratracer wrote: »

So you're effectively going to blackmail him..... that'll be interesting if he reports it to either the Guards r his insurance company.

No. He can do whatever he want's. I'll ask him for €repair + €time & inconvenience. He can choose to settle either himself or through insurance. I'm not going to force his hand or coerce him into anything. It's not like i'm trying to gouge him for 5 grand. A couple of hundred for my time spent driving around looking for quotes for damage he caused is not unreasonable at all.

In fact, he should be considering himself somewhat lucky I'm not claiming PI as that is what my sister recommended me to do. No, i said. I'm not going to do that.

JustJoe7240

TheBoyConor wrote: »

You can't apparently as said above. But I'm going to present the quotes to the guy and add on an amount for lost time and inconvenience. If he chooses not to pay himself but rather through insurance, then that's fine I'll make do with just the repair costs. But it will be much more expensive for him to go through insurance in the long run as he'll be hit with higher premia. He'd be as well off just to agree an amount with me and pay it.

This is extortion.

TheBoyConor

What's that got to do with anything in this thread? That was AH.

Anyway, I have my answer. I'm done.

Thanks for the advice to those who clarified my question.

Garibaldi?

I don't think you should be paid for lost time. But many people are only comfortable driving their own car. A temporary replacement car under the insurance is no good to them. A modest sum to cover travel expenses would not be too much to ask. They don't even allow for bus fares to work.

Eggs For Dinner

TheBoyConor wrote: »

In fact, he should be considering himself somewhat lucky I'm not claiming PI as that is what my sister recommended me to do. No, i said. I'm not going to do that.

Ah, you're a a good lad for deciding not to claim for an injury you don't have

tcawley29

As a side note, supposing someone had to take off work to drop off the car and again to collect it, could they claim for loss of earnings there?

Garibaldi?

If your car is being repaired for a weeks this can cost you 50 quid in busfares. I think they should at least cover people for that. Just a thought!

tcawley29

Garibaldi? wrote: »

If your car is being repaired for a weeks this can cost you 50 quid in busfares. I think they should at least cover people for that. Just a thought!

They do cover alternate transport costs

4ensic15

It would be possible to claim for lost earnings if they arise directly from the incident. Taxi drivers will always claim for lost earnings if they are put off the road due to an accident.

Garibaldi?

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

Ah, you're a a good lad for deciding not to claim for an injury you don't have

Glad not going to do that OP, because Karma is a lady with a long memory!;)

Sono

Opening poster is the exact type of person you don’t want to be involved in an accident with, a claim is not supposed to be convenient, it’s the opposite. **** happens and you ain’t getting money for your precious time petal.

Marcusm

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Hello,

I was driving along a row of parked cars in a car park. A guy decides to reverse out of his space. I see him coming, stop dead, blow my horn hard but it had no effect and he backed into my passenger door, buckling it an busting the trim on my mirror.

The man is extremely elderly, is unsteady and quite slow moving, probably not the best reactions anymore. Sure god love him the innocent cratur.

I took pictures, we exchanged details. I said I'll get quotes to fix and he can either pay the repair himself of go through insurance.

I got three quotes.. All around €1400. I'll present it to him. If he as any quibbles I'll not get into a negotiation with him (or his sons or daughters) as I've no appetite for that kind of wrangle tangling. I'm just going to say "yeah that's grand so, I'll get your insurer to sort it out. bye".

I'm thinking, between all this fooling about and then having to drop and collect the car for repair, I've spend a lot of my time arsing around when I could've not had to if he'd been a bit more careful.

Would I be entitled to claim for some amount for my inconvenience and wasted time with the whole affair. I feel like i've done €300s worth of running around tbh and i've still to arrange the repair.

What are my options here as even if I get the car fully repaired I'll still be losing out on my wasted time.

You chose to waste your time; if you had put it in the hands if the insurance company they would have done most if not all of this work. Irrespective you have no claim for your “time” as opposed to outlay.

katiek102010

I can’t understand why you are not going through insurance. That is what it’s there for.

If he is as elderly and infirm as you say he should probably not be driving.

Do you have any witnesses

BArra

keep in mind if this damage is noticeable from somebody with a good eye, when you go to sell the car on what that will do

had an issue years ago with a car I had where it was damaged through no fault of mine, had it fixed up and then when I was selling up it caused me problems as it was detected that the car was in accident (small as it was)

it had a detrimental effect to its value selling it, just my experience, as I got burned through no fault of my own

TheBoyConor

That won't apply to me. It's a bangernomics car and I intend to drive it right into the ground.

kennM

I appreciate the inconvenience and the hassle but looking to claim for time lost... it doesn't make you look good to be honest. These things happen, if there are reasonable expenses incurred then yes I agree but other than that write it down to karma. 100% empathise but just get your car sorted, leave a lit bit of karma on the table and it'll come back to you in the future.

Trust me, I'm coming from a perspective where I've spent a number of weeks in hospital from someone else taking me out of it... with a huge amount of medical appointments, surgical procedures, etc.