"self inflicted" body work damage to car - insurance or not,?

[Thisoldheartofmine]

Exiting a driveway from a roadside shop ,I drove over the edge of a BT manhole which has a sharp , raised edge.
There was a steep slope and a car (turning in the opposite direction) in front of me .
The manhole was completely invisible.
There is a lot of damage to the cill under the door
The car is old 2006 Ford Focus.
Should I try and claim on our car insurance ,?
Should I complain to BT ?
The pictures aren't the best.

It looks very much like the fault of the manhole cover, although might be the land around it to blame as it looks like the soil/land has been worn down around it. Call your insurance company for advice.

Might be worth trying the council as well as that manhole does have sharp edges.

Dont go to insurance as they'll probably write it off. What's the cars value before this? Probably about a grand? To repair that properly wouldnt be economical I dont think. Even if it was, you'd have to pay excess and your premium would go up.

I'd be tempted to get it filled with filler from a backstreet garage.

As for complaining, I doubt you'd have any joy from BT. Its probably whoever owns the pavement but even then its doubtful they would care as it was as you say self inflicted.

Thank you. Good idea to ring local council.

@LaraThot you've said exactly what I'm worried about. The insurance company will just write it off.
I can't think who is responsible for maintaining the cover . I suppose the problem is that one edge is exposed , presumably due to erosion of soil around it . Maybe it should have been set in tarmac or something.
It's on a grassy verge , the edge of a busy country road.

Yes this is very common here in Surrey. Search your local Facebook chats, for others to whom this particular place has damaged their car too. Council try to blame water company. But council has a set procedure for car damage road claims.

We're on holiday in Devon. I went back to ask the staff in the shop if they could put a traffic cone on it or take some action to alert people.
They said it belonged to BT and that I wasn't the first person to have come a cropper.

The thing is that it's on the edge of a hard surfaced entrance to the farm shop . The white in the picture is the surface of the driveway in to the car parking area.
So maybe it's partly the shops responsibility ?
I really wouldn't know. They must have got permission from whoever ( local council ? ) owns the verge to create a cross over. I don't know where the boundary would be between their crossover and the verge.

If its in the grassy verge, then were you driving over an area youre not meant to drive on to get around the person waiting to turn the other way?

It sounds like a complicated situation and its happened before and they'll all pass the buck. Would need to see a zoomed out picture to see more. I sincerely doubt you'd have a claim as its not much different to dropping off a steep kerb. And as PP says, it could be argued you shouldnt be driving over that bit.

@LaraThot And@Supermacs there was a car in front of me waiting to exit, I think that contributed to me not seeing the cover.
I waited until it was gone before I pulled out.
It's a busy narrow road and I was keeping in to the left ( obviously too much so ) to avoid swinging out too much into the middle of the road. I think it was the rear of my car that was clipped by the cover as I heard the noise when my front end was well in to the turn.
Better pic of layout below.

Hrm looking at that pic I'd say you're on a sticky wicket. It does look like a farm track, it's certainly "organic" looking. The farmer will be responsible for that concrete road I would guess, rather than the council. But the farm could blame the council, or BT and you'd never get anywhere.

Its annoying the farm shop knew it was a hazard but hadnt done anything to fix or spray paint it yellow! But its obvious that if you catch it wrong it'll open your car up like a tin of beans.

On your car I cant make out that black plastic trim is it?? Looks like theres a plastic bit of skirt/trim that's all mangled as well as the metal? I didnt think these had a bodykit on?? TBH I'd take it to a local bodyshop or 2 for their opinion. It may need metal cutting out and welding in rather than filler/bodge as I mentioned earlier. I'd guess just sucking it up and paying that would be preferable to paying insurance excess and premium going up. It's an 18 year old car now so wouldnt take much at all to write it off. But if you want to keep it cos its in otherwise good condition then I'd look to get it fixed to a safe and half decent cosmetic standard on the cheap.

Ahh. Oh dear. That's more complicated. I actually think this is more the shops fault/responsibility, isn't it? Tbf you are very very far over though, almost on the grass, that can't be good.

@LaraThot that's such a helpful reply, I'm really grateful. I pulled into a repair garage in the nearest town and although they didn't do body work the nice chap looked and said about cutting out and metal. Maybe £600 region. So my plan will be to see if it could be done down here before we go back to London.

You're spot on -I'm sure it would be a fruitless. and never ending effort to try and pursue with the shop or BT or the council. But the shop were very quick with the "oh we can't do anything it belongs to BT ".

@Oblomov24 I'm still smarting and really upset at this spoiling my holiday so forgive me if I disagree that I was very very far over.
I was exiting left and it was just the edge of the back of the car that was involved. If you knew the road you'd know why I was trying to keep in.

Your insurance company will probably write it off, although you can claim for that as accidental damage. They're unlikely to bother pursuing whoever owns the manhole for a recovery so you'll get a fault claim on your insurance which could push up your premium.

Yes Sitdownrosa , I'll not be going down the insurance route as per advice on here.
It won't affect how I proceed but I've looked up the planning application and one of the conditions was that the splayed concrete access apron be enclosed with a low brick wall or low planting .
Which, had it been complied with, would have saved me hundreds .

I dont know if London boadshop/coachworks prices are much worse than Devon tbh? Maybe someone else could comment. It doesnt even have to look great, as long as its structurally safe and MOT worthy. Good luck!