Car crash and car seats

[Carcrash123]

Minor car accident, we were stationary and a car went into the back of us at the most 10mph. There insurance has contacted us and admitted full liability. They said do we want to claim for the car seats.

Online it states low impact you might not need to change them, there’s no visible damage to the seats.

Our bumper and boot all have a big dent on them with minor damage to the other car.

Should we replace the car seats? There’s a part of me that’s tempted to be on the safe side but the other side thinks of the environment and throwing away two car seats?!

We did in the same scenario but just moved the original two to my husband’s car as we use that one less often

Yes you should. You can’t see the mechanisms inside etc. always replace no matter the crash.

If the insurance will cover it I would claim.

It's not a good idea to re-use car seats which have been in a crash. Yes there's an argument that a minor crash might not have damaged them but why take the risk? 10mph and bumper/boot damage is a bit more serious than a parking shunt.

You have convinced me. The guy on the phone seemed to be swaying me not to but said it was my choice. He also tried to say as I have access to another car I wouldn’t need a hire car…corrected him quickly that if it’s over a week that’s not doable with work and kids.

I will ring them back Monday.

Do they just give you like for like seats and post replacements? A voucher for new ones? Just want to make sure we get the same standard of seat as I spent ages researching them

I had an expensive car seat and had to provide proof of purchase - after which they honoured it. The insurance company said that under a certain amount you didn’t have to provide it - I’m not sure what that amount was though. They sent me a voucher for John Lewis as that’s where I’d bought the original seat from.

What age are the kids? It might be possible to use the money to upgrade them to the next stage or something, then it's less of a waste. The car seats will be thrown away eventually anyway.

They will want to give you Halfords vouchers but if you can't buy your same seats in Halfords, e.g. Axkid Minikid, then you can argue for cash.

Definitely replace. You don’t know if they are damaged from impact so not worth risk.

Depends on insurer re what happens next. With a previous shunt I got voucher for Halfords. The recent one (Hastings) paid cost of like for like

If you could do without the hire car I would
they have massive insurance excess

as as you found out you can have a bump and it’s nothing to do with you
also when you hand it back some places photo before after do if you went to Asda and someone caught/scratched it you would be liable and charged

I need a car to get to work and the kids have a few clubs that clash so we split ourselves again that needs car. If it was only in the garage a day, we would work around it and do it on a day that suits. However our car is being taken 30 miles away and it could take a full week.

Hire car is being dropped at our house. So I will make sure I take lots of pictures on arrival just in case. And park it really far away if we go to the supermarket.

I hope it’s not Halfords as I just looked and they don’t do our car seats. I spent ages researching and getting these ones so would like for like if possible.

Wait. Are you claiming through your own insurance or are you going through the other parties insurance? Because when you say in your OP that the other parties insurance had been in touch and admitted liability and the guy in the phone is trying to sway you against car seats and a courtesy car. It certainly sounds like it.

if it is the latter. Stop. When we had a similar crash, I was driving, it was 100% other drivers fault. Their insurance called me immediately and firstly sent me official sounding text messages that basically said I needed to give them my details / go through them.

when I ignored those, because they seemed more like a scam. They then started selling me.
they put loads of pressure on, tried telling me that I’d have to pay all sorts of excess and even that if I went through my insurance, they’d dispute the costs and I’d be left with the bill to pay. Oh and my premiums would go up. It was frankly disgusting.

i had already called my insurance who were great. They said at that moment it was a no fault claim so in theory i would have to pay excess but the minute the other party insurance admitted liability then that would change and there would be no costs to me.

sure enough, as soon as I told the other insurance to get lost. They admitted fault and ive since renewed my insurance and it didn’t change. It’s like it never happened on MY record.

so if you are going through the 3rd party. Just know, you don’t have to. You post your premiums for a reason and if something goes wrong with the repair you can’t go to your insurance to fix it.

The other persons insurance contacted me, I have notified my insurance. Everything is going through their insurance provider so far.

i didn’t realise this wasn’t normal?!

This is normal - not a scam, and it’s a way of the at fault insurer managing the claim - using their own repairers, dealing with hire etc so they have control over it and less admin dealing with other insurer choices. They might suggest you might not want to have a hire car but will provide one and should provide a matched equivalent (I got a very lovely car whilst mine was repaired)

You can, of course, just get your insurer to sort, but either way is absolutely fine.

I’m a lawyer and have had the third party insurers sort my last two incidents - I have no concern about this approach at all and both times with different insurers was fine. My repairs are guaranteed for 10 years or life of my ownership in same way as of my insurer had done it.

Re the Halfords thing for first accident - that was fine for the particular seat I had but if you can’t get your own seat through there they will pay you for a like for like. Just say what you need.

The other party insurance try to get you to do that because it’s cheaper for them. As you can already tell, they’re trying to cut down on what they pay out to you.
replacing your car seats are a pay out, they’re trying to put you off and may well give you next to nothing if you can’t prove what you paid for yours.

giving you a courtesy car is a pay out to you, they’re also trying to put you off getting one.

you pay your insurance provider to cover you for accidents. If it’s not your fault, they just claim the money back off the other party.

I didn’t have receipts for the car seats. My insurance asked if I could send them links to the same or as close as possible to ones online. I did and they transferred the cash into my bank account straight away.
the courtesy car was delivered the next day and a similar size to my own.
when my car was fixed they were in no rush to collect it and I could drive it as much as I wanted to.

Thanks everyone! Very useful information, I will ring them back today and if they keep trying to sway me a certain way I will just get my insurance to sort it.

You can buy add on insurance for hire cars that covers the excess. Around £3 a day last time I looked.

When through insurance, you are not subjected to the usual hideous excess that you get with standard car hire - the insurer effectively covers that. Both times I have had hire car paid for by insurer it’s been zero excess.