Got rear ended - do I a) notify my insurance or b) submit a claim?

[GotRearEnded]

A guy slammed into the back of me on the motorway yesterday (I'd slowed down as the traffic was slow / stopping and he didn't realise and went into the back of me).

I just phoned my insurance company who said I can either notify them or submit a claim but they weren't very helpful about which I should do!

I'm taking the car to my own garage guy tomorrow to get the damage assessed by him.

Our car is quite old and we were considering buying a new one, so I wonder whether one option is to have a quote for the damage and ask the guy who drove into me whether he wants to pay me directly rather than have me claim through his insurance (which I assume would further wreck his own premiums, though his car is a write off so maybe it just gets bundled in together).

My questions are:

• Do I need to notify the police (it happened yesterday)?
• Should I notify or claim on my own insurance (don't want to affect my no claims bonus for something not my fault)?
• Would it be sensible or stupid to ask the other guy if he wants to pay me direct for the cost of the damage to my car?

Thanks

Last question - is it ok to wait until after the garage guy sees my car tomorrow to phone the insurance or is that too late?

From experience, presuming it’s his fault & he’ll claim through his insurance then you’ll need to notify the police and your insurance as sadly it will affect your premium regardless & legally they need to know otherwise your insurance will be invalidated.

We had someone reverse into our car whilst it was parked - found them using cctv (bastards drove away!) they claimed, our insurance went up for years...

If his is a write off he’ll be claiming anyway & once he’s paid his excess then the cost of repairs or replacement of your car would be paid by his insurance at no cost to him - he’s unlikely to want to pay for your car out of his pocket when that’s the case (as that is what insurance is for - plus doing so doesn’t benefit him in any way?). Shit system IMO, I really don’t get how something that is someone else’s fault can impact the innocent party financially or how they justify putting the premium up but that’s how it is unfortunately. It didn’t affect our no claims though as we didn’t claim.

Oh god that's so depressing chipsandgin! Grrrrrrr!

I see what you mean re no point him paying out of his own pocket I just wasn't sure whether it'd affect his claim / no claims if there was a whole load of extra person's car claim as well as his own.

But it sounds like that's my car insurance premiums forced up for the next few years. :-(

So did you just notify them and not claim? And your premiums still went up? Why didn't you claim - were you happy to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket so you kept your no claims bonus?

I phoned the insurance company and the woman said it wouldn't affect my no claims / premiums but I don't believe her!

It won’t affect your no claims.

Your premium may go up because statistically if you’re rear ended once it’s more likely to happen again. I know it’s ‘unfair’ on a personal level but insurance works by pooling risk so if the statistics say that people who wear blue to work crash more often their premiums should be higher (disclaimer...not an actuary but do work with them).

Thanks Delurking.

Is it more likely to happen again? I mean not just for premiums sake but in real life? I'm already wondering whether to never go on motorways again so it'd be good to know the facts.

I had someone pull in front of me a couple of years ago, so his fault.

We had the option of notifying our insurance but dealing with his insurance direct or letting our insurance company deal with his insurance company. We went for the later. It didn't effect our no claims and our premiums were not effected. We didn't notify the police, he admitted it was his fault (there was no way he could say it wasn't) so it just got processed

My car was a write off technically but we chose to have it fixed

It won't affect your no claims at all. It will be the other party's insurance that pays out.

Thanks PrayingandHoping and IhaveALooBrush (great username!)

In terms of likelihood of a crash...all I guess it says is that you were on a road where people do crash. It’s like where you live affecting your premium. So, on a sample of you as a person, no, but across the whole country, possibly. I think most companies use many, many (think 50+) different factors to calculate your risk and hence the premium.