Uninsured driver hit my parked car. What to do?

mickdw

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

Please read the MIBI protocol

https://www.mibi.ie/making-a-claim/uninsured-vehicles.1752.html

I think we need clarification as to what is deemed to be an insured vehicle.
I might be wrong but I'd be thinking that once the car is insured, it's insurer will habe to pay out.

lawred2

Sultan of Bling wrote: »

Good question.

I suppose the parents wont want to declare it stolen so their little angel doesn't get a record.

It's not the same as stolen. Taking without consent is an entirely different offence.

listermint

jmreire wrote: »

As I have said in an earlier post, the OP wants his car back,,no matter what. And he is right, if I had a TT with that mileage, I'd want it back too. So he should go to a reputable panel beating business, get a quote, present it to the boy's Father and say " Please pay up", and my guess is that he will pay up...if it goes through insurance, then his insurance ( under the circumstances ) will go through the roof...and he will pay multiples of what the repairs will cost...and that's a fact, To claim off your insurance in this Country, unless it's in multiple of 1'000's, is a no win situation. Better to go to a credit union and get a loan rather than "disturb" your insurance. Insurance in this Country is a legalized profit making business for share holders. So Yes, I believe that the Father will pay without any hassle. And that car is not a write off..it will be back on the road again.

1. The car is no longer that car. It's now accident damaged meaning it will come up in any search should a claim pay for the works.

2. Judging on the pics and the age it's a write off. I'd be extremely surprised of any assessor not writing that off

3. Even if they want it back they will eat the drop in value come sale time.


It's all a terribly unfortunate state of affairs. Always a soft spot for the TT lovely car.

jmreire

Eoinbmw wrote: »

I hope it works out for him and the parents play ball!

This is one of the many cases where a person's car has been damaged, with the other car being 100% at fault, and there should not be any costs incurred...but this is Ireland and the insurance and law convolutions here are incredible !! In the best case, it will generate a serious amount of stress, aside from any financial loss. ( see OPs post's)
My Son-in-Law's car was hit by a French tourist, who drove around a bend in the road wrong side. The SiL, hit the ditch ( with his Daughter in the passengers seat, but both of them were belted up) and luckily, the only damage was to both vehicles..Guards called, and no problem with the French couple...they were very worried about anyone being hurt, but no attempt to avoid blame etc. Owned up 100%.
Then the hassle started...SiL needed a car for work, so I did a temporary job to enable him to drive it. Then got an estimate, and waited for the insurance assessor to check out the damage. When he eventually arrived ( 3 weeks later ) and I met him, he fought nearly everything on the estimate....his job was to reduce costs for the insurance company he represented. He spent at least an hour checking everything on the car..and I mean everything from the seatbelts to hand brake operation..in fact anything that he could use to put part of the blame on the SiL, and reduce the payment....So a worn tyre, worn brake pad's etc, would have given him grounds to claim that the condition of the car contributed to the accident, and so SiL would have to bear some of the responsibility, and there fore some of the repair costs. Bearing in mind that the Sil was stopped in the ditch when the other car struck them, he still faced problems.

punisher5112

Eoinbmw wrote: »

Mental!
But this is Ireland!

I never drove it after, couldn't even give it away with NCT and the fire brigade enjoyed destroying it for training.

punisher5112

jmreire wrote: »

This is one of the many cases where a person's car has been damaged, with the other car being 100% at fault, and there should not be any costs incurred...but this is Ireland and the insurance and law convolutions here are incredible !! In the best case, it will generate a serious amount of stress, aside from any financial loss. ( see OPs post's)
My Son-in-Law's car was hit by a French tourist, who drove around a bend in the road wrong side. The SiL, hit the ditch ( with his Daughter in the passengers seat, but both of them were belted up) and luckily, the only damage was to both vehicles..Guards called, and no problem with the French couple...they were very worried about anyone being hurt, but no attempt to avoid blame etc. Owned up 100%.
Then the hassle started...SiL needed a car for work, so I did a temporary job to enable him to drive it. Then got an estimate, and waited for the insurance assessor to check out the damage. When he eventually arrived ( 3 weeks later ) and I met him, he fought nearly everything on the estimate....his job was to reduce costs for the insurance company he represented. He spent at least an hour checking everything on the car..and I mean everything from the seatbelts to hand brake operation..in fact anything that he could use to put part of the blame on the SiL, and reduce the payment....So a worn tyre, worn brake pad's etc, would have given him grounds to claim that the condition of the car contributed to the accident, and so SiL would have to bear some of the responsibility, and there fore some of the repair costs. Bearing in mind that the Sil was stopped in the ditch when the other car struck them, he still faced problems.

If it doesn't go through insurance the car shows nothing.

The op has the choice....

Let it go if deemed beyond or take money to repair and do elsewhere for much cheaper.

The family may well want to pay and sounds like they ain't short a few quid

jmreire

mickdw wrote: »

I think we need clarification as to what is deemed to be an insured vehicle.
I might be wrong but I'd be thinking that once the car is insured, it's insurer will habe to pay out.

Yes, I think that you are right...first step for the MIBI will be to find out if there is insurance on the car that did the damage.

jmreire

punisher5112 wrote: »

If it doesn't go through insurance the car shows nothing.

The op has the choice....

Let it go if deemed beyond or take money to repair and do elsewhere for much cheaper.

The family may well want to pay and sounds like they ain't short a few quid

Exactly as I have been trying to get across punisher. Get estimate. Give estimate to Father. Father pays up. Car repaired. End of story.

the_syco

jmreire wrote: »

he made a mistake, something we have all done...no one was injured

He made a mistake, and got seriously lucky. If had hit a person and not the car, the person would be probably dead. Heck, he could have taken out an entire small family.

micar wrote: »

Get in touch with Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland

https://www.mibi.ie/making-a-claim/uninsured-vehicles.1752.html

MIBI can take their sweet time, as they're usually underfunded.

Calibos wrote: »

Its dark now obviously but I'll have to have a really good look tomorrow and try and get some photo's underneath the car.

Having crashed my car into another car a few years back, it looks like the car hit the drivers side door, and pushed all the external bits back, and thus said bits are against the wheel.
As the middle of the dent is the door, I don't think the pillar will have been hit.

=-=

As said, goto your usual mechanic, and one or two others that have been recommended to you, and get quotes. Use the quote you feel comfortable with.

If the father thinks it's a good idea to go through insurance (bad for you, possibly cheaper for him), ask him will that cause his son to get penalty points and possible driving ban, as well as a fine, on top of your costs? Also that the insurance company will probably chase him for the costs, as the son wasn't covered at the time.

If the father doesn't play ball, consider getting a solicitor. Another cost that the father will end up paying you for.

LillySV

Once u said powerful Audi then i knew you were talking nonsense 😂

lawred2

jmreire wrote: »

Exactly as I have been trying to get across punisher. Get estimate. Give estimate to Father. Father pays up. Car repaired. End of story.

Problem is, how many other cars did that little idiot hit? Father might simply not be able to afford it.

Feel for him in all this too.

listermint

LillySV wrote: »

Once u said powerful Audi then i knew you were talking nonsense 😂

Never heard of an R8 then no.

listermint

listermint wrote: »

Never heard of an R8 then no.

Even an S4.

All “I don’t believe you, you’re making it up” posts should be met with public flogging. The site is infested with them.

Eggs For Dinner

mickdw wrote: »

I think we need clarification as to what is deemed to be an insured vehicle.
I might be wrong but I'd be thinking that once the car is insured, it's insurer will habe to pay out.

You are correct, of course. Been a long week. Where you are hit by an uninsured vehicle, the MIBI Protocol applies as I described. Where the vehicle is insured, but the driver is not covered, the insurer is deemed to be "insurer concerned" and will handle the claim.

Calibos

lawred2 wrote: »

Problem is, how many other cars did that little idiot hit? Father might simply not be able to afford it.

Feel for him in all this too.

As far as I know, the little sh1t hit no one else though a Taxi Driver Witness to the hit on my car told me the same car had a near miss on the same road as a local secondary school which is why I reckon the kid goes to my old alma mater. The guards mentioned no other incidents reported between the hit on my car and when they caught up with him elsewhere in the town.

So in that respect, its looking good that the damage to my car and the fathers car is the only damage the father will have to pay out on meaning sorting this privately is at least potentially still possible.

punisher5112

Honestly that damage wouldn't bother me in the slightest.... As in very annoying of course but if I were buying it from you fixed up I'd rather know and it's really not that bad.....

I've had much worse happen and fixed it up and nobody would know but I have all the photos and can show the repair done correctly.

Calibos

the_syco wrote: »

Having crashed my car into another car a few years back, it looks like the car hit the drivers side door, and pushed all the external bits back, and thus said bits are against the wheel.
As the middle of the dent is the door, I don't think the pillar will have been hit.

Unfortunately, the hit definitely came from behind. We have a Witness photo with the cars side by side which I'll have access to and post soon. ie. His passenger side front wheel hit my drivers side rear wheel first would be my guess as its the only part of my car that could have taken the force of impact and resisted enough to break a 6in long 3 inch wide section of his Alloy off. In other words, the side skirt would be pushed forwards not back. That said, perspective of the photo's might still be deceiving and making it look like the rear wheel is pushed forwards when it might not be. I'll get better photo's of that later this morning.



I've blurred the Reg Plates but its a 2012 Audi. Not so sure its an A4 now though. Could be an A3 Saloon but the rear light clusters don't seem to exactly match either for 2012 model years. Point is though, that an 8 year old A4/A3 Saloon doesn't necessarily mean that the dad is rolling in cash. Like I already said, I'm not looking to crucify the kid or the dad financially. I just want my 2007 TT in otherwise great condition with only 40,000km on the clock back in good condition. However, if the dad isn't cash rich, he may have to go through insurance which is bad for me because as described earlier, insurance will definitely want to Cat D write my car off as uneconomical to repair and neither his insurance, nor MIBI, nor my insurance will pay me enough to cover the repairs needed to make my car roadworthy again. The insurance companies don't care that its a 40,000km(26,000mile) 2007 TT in terms of valuing it. Neither do they care that carzone has 140,000km 2007 TT's on sale for €5000-€8000. They'll probably value it at €4000-€5000 max and given the repairs are likely to cost close to that, they'll deem it a Cat D write off. To keep and repair my 40000km TT I'd have to buy the written off car back from the insurance company and likely only receive €3000-€4000 max cash from them and be down a grand if the repairs cost €4000-€5000 (which is why Insurance wrote it off in the first place.) So to re-iterate, its absolutely worth it to me to repair my 40,000km 2007 TT that I've owned from new....but going through insurance may end up costing me money.

Like I said, this is all complicated by the fact that my car is a great condition 40000km 2007 TT. I'd wager its the lowest mileage 2007 TT in the whole country. I'll never find anything within 5 years of it with that mileage at any price. The point is, that getting this car roadworthy again is absolutely worth it....but due to the vagaries of Irish Insurance and Write-offs etc it might end up costing me money even after insurance/MIBI paid out on the claim.....and none of this was my fault. It was my parked car that was hit.

ActingDanClark

Sultan of Bling wrote: »

Good question.

I suppose the parents wont want to declare it stolen so their little angel doesn't get a record.

If they don't they'd be done for allowing him drive without insurance

Calibos

punisher5112 wrote: »

Honestly that damage wouldn't bother me in the slightest.... As in very annoying of course but if I were buying it from you fixed up I'd rather know and it's really not that bad.....

I've had much worse happen and fixed it up and nobody would know but I have all the photos and can show the repair done correctly.

I'm actually with you on that. The damage doesn't bother me in the slightest knowing that its virtually guaranteed to be fixable with invisible repairs. The problem I have is that the vagaries of Irish insurance and Economical Write-offs mean that if I/We have to go through insurance, this might actually cost me money to put right despite insurance paying out and it not being my fault. Its looking like I have to hope that the kids father wants to settle this privately with a credit union loan.

[EDIT] I'm also not particularly worried about the affect on re-sale value of the car due to the accident because I intend to keep it for many more years until its uneconomical to repair which could be a very long time given its only got 40,000km(26,000miles) on the clock! LOL. In other words, it'd be worth nothing by the time I decided to sell or scrap it anyway even if there had never been any suspension or bodywork damage.

punisher5112

It's a diesel A6.

The wheel on yours is definitely pushed, doesn't in any way mean the car is ruined.

I had to get the complete front left suspension replaced on my megane as a other car hit and pushed the wheel back like that.

punisher5112

Calibos wrote: »

I'm actually with you on that. The damage doesn't bother me in the slightest knowing that its virtually guaranteed to be fixable with invisible repairs. The problem I have is that the vagaries of Irish insurance and Economical Write-offs mean that if I/We have to go through insurance, this might actually cost me money to put right despite insurance paying out and it not being my fault. Its looking like I have to hope that the kids father wants to settle this privately with a credit union loan.

I've done it before where insurance gives you the estimate price minus Vat... So you can then go to any garage especially one with a reputable name and get it fixed a bit cheaper.

Main dealer in 99% of cases offload all this type of work to other outfits anyway.


Honestly that car will be fine....

Grab All Association

You’re lucky you got the reg. if you or witnesses didn’t you wouldn’t be covered by the MIBI.

There are not many outfits in the country fit to fix the paint work right, so make sure you do plenty of research first.

bladespin

jmreire wrote: »

You do realize that it's the body shop who will do the assessment and the work? All the dealership will do take a slice of the action....and if the kids Dad has to pay up front, that's just an additional cost. Is that what you would want if you were in the Fathers position? They have enough trouble as it is. If the car is restored to its pre-accident condition, that seems to be what the owner wants. Unless I'm missing something in his post's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the kids activity..he made a mistake, something we have all done...no one was injured. Now if that had been a joy rider in a stolen car, it would be a different case .

Yes, very much but a main dealer will look after the whole thing admin etc and you’ll also have a certified repair (regardless of who actually done the work) which would help when the time comes to sell it on.
OP’s call but I MD would be my first stop.

Calibos

TBH, I reckon if the mother and kid came to talk to me about the crash, they'd leave relieved how sanguine I am about it and how it appeared I wasn't out to crucify them or their son for this and just wanted my car repaired. I'm such a softy that if the kid and his mother were visibly upset when they came to talk to me, I'd probably give them a Hug! (While also obviously telling him how stupid and irresponsible he was and he was lucky he didn't injure or kill someone and how I hoped he had learned a very valuable lesson)

The kid being prosecuted or any legal ramifications are nothing to do with me. Thats the Guards choice/responsibility.

I was rear ended in August (incidentally also a TT).

One place where you'll, perhaps unexpectedly, get a hit is being charged higher insurance because you were in an accident within the last 5 years. That's going to stick with you for 5 years.

My insurance jumped up EXACTLY 25.00% from prior year.

One other thing of note. Previously I was crashed into. Both cars were written off. I didn't put a PIAB claim in, but asked to keep the car and the insurance co gave it to me. Different to your case as you weren't in the car. But, for general info.

jmreire

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

There are not many outfits in the country fit to fix the paint work right, so make sure you do plenty of research first.

Believe me Reginald matching that paint work will be the least of the problems,,,, and you can trust me 100% on that.

jmreire

Deleted User wrote: »

I was rear ended in August (incidentally also a TT).

One place where you'll, perhaps unexpectedly, get a hit is being charged higher insurance because you were in an accident within the last 5 years. That's going to stick with you for 5 years.

My insurance jumped up EXACTLY 25.00% from prior year.

One other thing of note. Previously I was crashed into. Both cars were written off. I didn't put a PIAB claim in, but asked to keep the car and the insurance co gave it to me. Different to your case as you weren't in the car. But, for general info.

This is my point too, why its best not to involve the insurance in this case if it's at all possible..with insurance in this Country, there are no winners..everyone loses, one way or another. Even if the Father has to take out a loan, it will still work out cheaper for him in the long run.....because one way or another he will pay for it, but if he pays for it himself, and avoids the insurance, he will be better off. Heard of a case recently ( in England ) where a motorist with 30 years NCB queried why his insurance premium increased, and he was told by way of explanation, that statistically, he was due a claim....

Calibos

punisher5112 wrote: »

It's a diesel A6.

The wheel on yours is definitely pushed, doesn't in any way mean the car is ruined.

I had to get the complete front left suspension replaced on my megane as a other car hit and pushed the wheel back like that.

You are correct about it being an A6 but I wasn't sure at first because on carzone, the first 2012 A6 Saloon photo's I looked at had the white reverse lenses lower down in the light cluster. However I did find another with matching reverse lenses on another car so the difference must be a model refresh during 2012 or different rear light clusters on S-Lines or something like that. But yeah, you are correct. its definitely an A6. Thanks for that.

That said for anyone else reading, the model of the other car was more curiosity at this point. I'm not wanting to crucify the kid or his dad more just because they could afford a more expensive model Audi back in 2012. I'm not wanting to crucify them financially at all. I just want my car repaired at no extra cost to me (but which going through insurance might prevent for all the reasons discussed earlier in the thread.)

jmreire

bladespin wrote: »

Yes, very much but a main dealer will look after the whole thing admin etc and you’ll also have a certified repair (regardless of who actually done the work) which would help when the time comes to sell it on.
OP’s call but I MD would be my first stop.

Reputable Body Shops are more than capable of handling all the paperwork and certification, without involving the main dealer. I know because I've done it in a professional capacity for many years. Involving the Main Dealer will only add to the costs, without laying a hand on the car. If you had the bad luck to have an accident with your own car, ( no one else involved, just say an icy road, and minor damage done, new headlight, bumper and front wing repairs.etc ) And will pay for it your self, would you go direct to the panel shop, or the main dealers, who don't have their own in house repairing, but will send it to the local independent panel shop? Which would you choose?