to think that you can't just opt out of going through your car insurance?

[tittytittyhanghang]

Some one rear ended me today. God knows what they were doing but it was a bloody good jolt they gave my car (i was stationary, waiting at lights) so i assume he must have been going a decent speed. Luckilyish i have a 4x4 with a spare tyre on the back so think this took most of the impact. At the time didn't see much damage other than a few scratches (i was in the middle of a busy high street) but i took other driver's details anyway. At the time he accepted he was at fault. Later on dp had a proper look at my car and there is quite a bit more damage than i realised (a bit of the body panel is dented and pushed out/not sitting flush and driving home my tyre has blown out and it looks like it has been caused by the exhaust has shifted slightly and now rubbing off tyre). Anyhows have texted the other person and he is keen not to go through insurance but willing to pay for all work in his local garage. Im not keen and would rather go through insurance. Am i right in thinking that he has to go through his insurance if i ask him. Dp says that if he refuses theres nowt i can do. Also i have had a cracking headache since it happened. (the crash didn't cause me to hit my head off anything). Dp says this is sympton of whiplash but i dont have a sore neck or anything, just a headache. Am i going to wake up tomorrow with a sore neck because i have loads to do housework to the extreme and a sore neck would be umm a pain in the neck lol.

Definitely go through insurance. It always worries me when people are keen not to do that, as it could be because they are not insured! Also if you do have whiplash, that can take a while to sort itself out, and could end up costing you. By law if you are injured the accident needs to be reported to the police, which might be worth doing. At least that way they will check he has insurance MOT etc! I hope you are not too sore this morning!

Yep go through insurance as then you can claim for uninsured losses such as car seats, PI etc.

Have you spoken to the police about your card being nicked? As it was a busy street they may have the people on CCTV. What a bunch of bastards

What a crap day!

If it was only a tiny dent/scratch I'd be open to dealing with it privately, because our car insurance is horrendously expensive and whatever they say every claim ups your premiums We even had this when our car was written off whilst parked outside our house with no one in it!

But in your situation I definately wouldn't, the damage sound far more serious and could all be very costly.

Hello, I really wouldn't recommend letting him do it his way! He went into the back of you, therefore it is entirely his fault, no dispute there.

I had a similar situation a few years ago. A valet company were cleaning my car at my workplace, miles away from my home. They crashed my car somehow. The guy who owns the company offered to sort it out himself, as he owns garages as well. I knew him vaguely, he did a lot of work for my company, so it seemed like the easiest option to let him sort it out. I called my insurance company to ask if it would invalidate my insurance, they said it would be ok.

So, he gave me money for a hire car and took my car away. Got it back a week later and took it to my garage to check it, they said it was still messed up, hadn't been fixed properly at all. I called my insurance and they washed their hands of me, saying that because I had let him fix it, they were no longer liable. I went a bit mad at them, they came out with all manner of excuses to not help me out.

Eventually I decided to let the valet guy take it again to repair it properly, against my better judgement. It was the only way to get it fixed at that point. It came back a bit better, and it was deemed to be roadworthy by my garage and I sold it, couldn't bear to look at it after all that!

The lesson I learned - just go through the insurance, unless maybe it's a wing mirror or something. If you don't even know the extent of the damage yet, don't agree to anything. He has no choice regarding you informing your insurance and letting them sort it out for you. Whether he chooses to foot the bill at his end or let his insurance pay it is up to him and nothing to do with you.

You're asking for trouble if you let him sort it privately!

Thanks for the advice. I dont think he was in league with the three boys. He was driving an expensive looking 08 plate Mercedes. The three boys, to put it bluntly, would be what mn refers to as underclass maybe. Im from Scotland and i describe them as dodgy minky fuckers who id probably be very wary of if i had my wits about me. I am going to text the other driver and tell him that i am going to refer myself to my insurance so that they can contact his. Dp doesn't want me driving the car at all until it has been looked at and we don't have another car so i need this to be sorted asap.

Will i need another car seat? I thought it would have been all right since we didn't roll or anything, just a bloody good jolt from behind.

I am also going to contact the police force from that city. Im kinda that they didn't even get out their car to check that we were ok, considering there was a small toddler in the back. Im from a wee town and the police would most definitely stop and check if you were ok in that situation. Also gonna ask if there is any cctv to see if they caught any footage of the thieving scumbags.

Im rather sore this morning, but its not so much my neck as my lower back. Very stiff, trying to turn over in bed was like when i was pregnant, where i had to hold onto the headboard and pull myself over! Ds2 also had a pretty unsettled night but i have been giving him calpol and he seems better for it now.

Contact your insurance, they might need you to pay your excess and they will fix it, then they will claim back the costs from his insurers (assuming he is insured) and you'll get your excess back - annoying though.

I have, however also paid to fix someone's car I've hit not via insurance, but it was a tiny bump and happened in our church carpark so I know her - I asked her to check with her garage what it would cost to fix, it was only £200 (which is less than my excess) so I paid her garage bill and we both told our insurers what had happened but we'd sorted it amongst ourselves (apparently if it had to go via both of our insurers, I'd have had to pay for those admin costs as well as the repairs, so I'd have had to pay my excess and lose my no-claims).

If your back isn't better tomorrow/your DD has another bad night, get to the doctors.

I'm pretty sure car seats need replaced after any knock. If you mention it to your insurers then i'm sure they will insist on a new one (and even if you had another car seat in that was not in use) Maybe go to the docs and get the pain reported incase it gets any worse. Hoping it all goes smoothly for you, i have nightmares about this happening.

You'll need another seat (our insurance paid for a new one when I was rear-ended). Another reason to go through the insurance!

I'd definately go through insurance too. The damage might be more than you think

I got rear ended at a roundabout and on initial inspection it didn't look bad and the other party (a 19 year old on his dad's insurance) wanted to sort it privately which initially I agreed to but once we'd taken my car to the garage it turned out about £3k's worth of damage

We went through the insurance who also gave us a courtesy car, new car seats etc. My premiums didn't increase at all

you are about to be taken , and then some! ,dont tell your ins. co. ? get it all sorted ? fine! if u are unlucky enough to be involved in a.n.other shunt and ins. co. find out about last unreported shunt you are totally UP TO YOUR HAIRLINE IN LEGAL POO !!! trust me on that one. that old chat "dont want to go thru my ins ", we can sort this out .... switch on your grey matter..!!!....your call.

As I said earlier, I'm going through this now. Originally when I had to take out insurance on my new car my premiums were affected. Now that the "no blame" has been registered on the system they have been reduced to reflect that. It has not affected my insurance cost and both companies (the one I was with when the accident happened and the new one I'm with now) have confirmed this. In future when I get an insurance quote I will declare the "no blame" accident.
A couple of days after my accident I was mortified to realise that I genuinely had whiplash and it was all a bit worse than I'd expected. I felt like a cliche and that people would think I was trying to swing it. Whatever, I lost money due to time off work and am pursuing an injury claim. You can't do that between the two of you.
I suppose the bottom line is that if you don't go through the insurance companies you risk not having your car repair dealt with properly, and also having a future insurance company coming back to you for not having declared the accident to them. At which point, because it didn't go through insurance, "no blame" will not have been recorded so I guess your premiums would be affected.

For me it comes down to the fact that you pay insurance premiums for a reason. Why have it and not use it?

Go through your insurance, for your peace of mind. The registration of the car should be enough for them to get his insurance details.

If it's found to be his fault, his insurance will cover everything, including your excess and car seat replacement etc.

If he wants to, at the end of it he can pay instead of them, to not affect his no claims, but legally, he must inform them anyway. Which makes me wonder why he wants to bypass them.

Dp is going to see other driver tonight as he wants to see the damage. Dp`s going to tell him we need to go through insurance. Also my dmother has worse whiplash than me and her leg is sore and badly bruised from where it hit off the passenger dash. If we don't claim off his insurance, then should my dmother make a claim for compensation does this mean she would have to claim through our insurance, which i really don't want.

You and your DN both need to see a doctor and should both be claiming for injury. I have no truck with fake whiplash claims but I've had genuine whiplash and it's horrible, I had months of physio. It will impact on your ability to care for your children and you should claim.

There's no need to have any further contact with the driver. I'd advise against it on the offchance he gets aggressive. Let the insurance companies deal with it. I'd really recommend an accident management company so you can get a replacement vehicle ASAP.

I had whiplash a long time ago now (albeit not from a car crash) and I remember being told at the time that it was one of those strange injuries where you might think you are alright at the time but it can get worse before it gets better and that it might take a few days/ a week before the full extent of the injury is known and before you can even start to get better.

Also - if you and your mum have both got whiplash and are suffering (more and more by the sound of it) from it, then it would be really worth getting your ds checked out - can't see how old he is but guessing he is young if he is in a car seat. He might be too young to explain how he feels but if his body has experienced the same shunt that you and your dm have then chances are he might be feeling something - and that he won't know what or why, especially if his is taking a bit of time to come out too...

and yes, please get yourself and your mum checked out - you don't want to be making yourself worse when some simple thing like a neck brace or collar will help right from the start. (When I had whiplash I seem to remember wearing a neck collar for ages - mind you I did get the injury a few days after starting a new 6th form and was therefore particularly mindful of the fact I had it on! having said that - it did help the pain and enable me to do a lot more than not having it on, so I did wear it!)