DS17 has crashed his car, then cancelled his insurance help please !!

[iloveshetlandponies]

He only passed a few weeks ago and yesterday was driving home from school and he went into the back of the car in front of him. This was due to someone pulling out on the driver in front and my son braked hard but unfortunately did not stop in time and has bumped the back of the car in front

Luckily no one was hurt and the other driver was reasonable and exchanged numbers and agreed DS (aka me!) would pay for the damage rather than going through insurance . The other chap is going to get a quote for the damage and contact us today to sort

However in his panic my son decided he doesn't want to drive for a while and so went onto his car insurance app and cancelled his own policy 🤦‍♀️ (he has pay as u go with Veygo and it's still insured because I've got my own insurance on the car which you have to have when insured with Veygo)

But now I'm panicking in case the damage is not affordable / the car is a write off and the chap has no choice to go through his insurance. My son now isn't insured - although he was at the time of the accident - so what will happen ?? And it's not like we can just reinstate the insurance as he's now had an accident, Altho not reported

It sounds daft but in all my years driving I've never had an accident and never had to claim so I'm not even sure how it all works !!

veygo specially state as a condition of their insurance to notify them of any incident even if no claim

Wow, this was an entertaining read.

Everyone on MN immediately tells their insurers about any accident, a 17 year old who panicked is immature and shouldn't be on the road, OP is a liar. I think i need to stay on the gardening/cleaning side of MN where it's less snake pit and more friendly!

Reality is as a 17 year old he messed up. Kids don't know stopping distances, road conditions, make dodgy judgements at junctions etc. They are still learning. Yeah he was silly for cancelling his insurance but it's a learning experience for him.

For those who say every accident has to be reported.... come on. Someone clipped the wing mirror in my car. This was way before cars had fancy electric heated windows etc and I said to the other driver get yourself down the scrappy and grab a replacement and the old man will fit it.

Saw your update OP- great if the other driver seems genuine. I was coming on to say report to insurers as the driver and passengers have a number of years to make a claim against your son for whiplash, trauma etc and you deffo need your insurers, specialist, doctors and solicitors to deal with that- expensive and can be lengthy to deal with with thousands potentially being awarded to those affected unless their claim can be disproved- the vehicle repair costs are almost insignificant in comparison. This is a cloud that will be there legally until the others are time barred from bringing an injury claim, even if you settle privately for the damage to the car.
Your son is young and may have been in shock still and decided he’s never driving again hence cancelling the cover.
Id phone the insurance company as his authorised person, explain and put them on notice re the accident- it sounds unlikely that the driver will later say there were 3 passengers and they all had whiplash and want £1000 each( more serious would need hospital evidence) etc

👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Agree with @fromtheshires i know plenty of honest people who would rather just sort minor damage between themselves than inform insurers, they’re not scammers or intimidating other drivers because they’ve got no insurance. Even if you have an accident that has no claims and you’re not at fault your premiums will still go up - this is why people prefer not to report.

Someone drove into the back of my car at a traffic light, minor damage, I got a quote from a local bodywork tech and the other driver sent me cash. It was about £150 to fix the dent and respray on my driveway. For some unknown reason the other driver then also decided to report to her insurer admitting fault but saying we didn’t want to claim meaning I had to do the same. My premium went up over £120 the next year for a no claim, no fault incident and now that’s following me around for 5 years!

Chances are high the other driver in this scenario will just take the cash and get a repair and nothing else will come of it. I wouldn’t make a catastrophe of the situation yet OP but would encourage your son to keep driving or he’ll lose his confidence.

Yep.

There’s nothing wrong with agreeing a settlement out of insurance for minor prangs as long as both parties are happy.. I suspect the people saying otherwise have never had to deal with the utter bullshittery of dealing with insurance claims, I’ve done it twice now for non fault accidents, and in my experience it takes months and countless phone calls and even though you pay them YOU have to do all the legwork yourself, you have to fight for every single penny.. then at the end if you don’t have protected no claims they whack your premiums up.. they ARE robbing bastards, each and every one of them.

obviously the risk of settling yourselves is that the ‘at fault’ party can choose not to pay up after agreeing.. or start denying liability, and arguing the cost, and generally being twats.

as long as both parties agree and fulfill their obligations it’s fine.

user1471505356 · Yesterday 08:08

Do not panic, he was insured at the time of the incident. The fact that he subsequently cancelled his insurance does not change that.

That's 100% correct and he needs to tell the insurance company.

Ffs why are people being so nasty calling her son stupid? He's 17 ! Haven't we all done daft things when we were young and inexperienced in life? It doesn't mean the lad can't drive 🙄
Hopefully as he was insured at the time the accident occurred he should be covered. Maybe just call and ask the insurance company how you stand.

Our thoughts exactly

Thankfully I've never had to claim (touch wood!) but I imagine it's a pita

Thank you

Some people on here just love to stick the boot in don't they and it's got nastier I think

I swear it's since covid / cost of living. people are angrier and mn is a more hostile place than it was, I mean aibu I can understand, it's always been wild in there. but even in chat now it can get super bitchy

Anyway Well now this is sorted, I'm going to stick to handbag threads from now on 😂 mind you they can go a bit batshit too 🤦‍♀️😳

Enjoy having his future insurance policy voided then OP! Don’t be so ignorant

brace yourself!

My thoughts exactly

did i do stupid daft things at 17? hell. yes.

did i quite obviously try and wriggle out of my liability in a car claim? nope

genuine question, why would it be voided?

failed to notify insurer

the op is putting a lot of faith in the other owner not to go to his insurer (or perhaps already gone) for personal injury claim ie whiplash

You have to declare any accidents or claims within the last 5 years at the start of a new policy. OP believes that she and her son are above this (not surprising judging by her replies, apparently fraud is hilarious) and are planning on lying about it which would give them good reason to void the policy

eg owner of other vehicek adhere with condition of his insurance and tells insurer about the incident.

He complains to colleague about sore neck. he sustained during a minor prang that is all being sorted without insurance as other driver paying him direct.

colleague says… you do realise you’d probably get money for osteo treatment and possibly compensation if you did pursue a claim.

owner has second thoughts. and contact insurer to say that injury has developed and actually he would like to pursue a claim for PI against the other driver

prepping myself for the op posts lots of laughing emojis!

He didn't try to wriggle out of it though did he? The OP explained he cancelled his insurance the day after as wanted a break from driving after the accident, as was probably shaken and unnerved by it all. His first TA. He acted in youthful haste and God forbid made an error of judgment without realising potential repercussions. It's a life lesson. We all had to learn them to varying degrees. The OP isn't asking for judgement on her DS. She is asking for friendly helpful advice. MN is not a nice, friendly helpful place anymore sadly....but good ones lurk amongst thankfully.

I think if you did a poll you'd find an awful lot of people that have settled fender bender claims without involving the insurance.

All the insurance will do is batter his premiums for 5 years for something that didn't cost them a thing in the first place.. I'd question who is scamming who.

I know what you're saying in principle, and you are right, but there's other reasons people don't want to claim. Insurance will have most likely wrote off his mini, he'd have to spend hours filling in paperwork and dealing with the insurance on the phone, he'd be without a car, they would bid him in the bollocks for what his is actually worth, he wouldn't be able to find another car for anywhere near £1000 as the used car market is insane, and it's all time, effort and bullshit which can drag on for months and at the end of it, without PNCD his policy will go up for the next 5 years too through no fault of his own to boot!

I don't judge anyone for choosing to swerve that option for minor prangs.

You’ve misunderstood. Whether OP’s son claims from his insurance or not is irrelevant. OP is planning on simply not declaring the accident when he gets a new policy as one of the questions that they ask is ‘any accidents or claims within the past 5 years?’. An accident is still an accident no matter what way they choose to settle it hence OP is planning on lying and committing insurance fraud.

he cancelled the insurance 2 hours after
not the day after

and he did it without talking to the op

but she found out via notification that cancelled