Scratch on a car

[KimchiLaLa]

Not sure how to proceed here as I'm in a new situation. I scratched someone's van and exchanged details. (Well I was in shock so managed to give them mine but not take theirs).

They called me and told me their garage was quoting £££ to get it fixed. I consulted two other repair people who quoted a lot less and told me it was minor work.

I stupidly didn't tell my insurance company at the time. The other people are saying they won't let either of the cheaper quotes do it and they will now go through their insurance. But I told them I'm happy for one of my people to do it and even tho I know nothing about cars, the scratches are so minor. It feels unnecessary to go through insurance?

Not sure what to do?

There is nothing you can do. Call your insurer like you should have done and hope you don't have a clause that makes your excess shoot up if you don't report within 24/48 hours.

How can people give you quotes without physically seeing the damage?

It is entirely up to them who fixes their car you don't get to decide.

He sent photos and it is such a small scratch it was clear that it was minor. One of the guys was like "wow, that's small, I wouldn't bother if I was him!"

Could you ask him to go to a couple of garages and get quotes from them once corona is over? You would usually get three quotes for any work so i don’t think it would be unreasonable to expect this?

The issue is he works for a cab firm so I don't think he owns the car. He's also got very angry with me (and made racist comments) on email, so it seems best to let insurance deal with it.

I got two quotes and both were miles cheaper than his, both recommendations from others too.