Someone has hit my car and driven off

[Chocolatelabradorsarethebest]

I'm looking for some advice and experience.

I’ve just come back from taking the dog for a walk to notice someone has hit my car and driven off 😭There is a big dent to the drivers and rear door. It was parked on the road outside my house - it’s all on street parking here.

Do I call the police? I’ve only had the car a couple of months and when I call the insurance company they’re going to think I crashed it myself getting used to a new car aren’t they?!

Not sure what to do, I’ve been driving over 20 years and this is the first time I’ve ever had an accident / had any damage to my car. So annoyed someone would hit it and leave, they’d 100% know they hit it.

Phone 101 to get a crime number, then phone insurance company to report damage/make a claim.

Yeah report to police and insurance. This happened to my friend and a neighbours ring doorbell had caught the incident and the reg of the van that hit her car. This evidence was sent to insurance company as well.

Might be worth asking neighbours etc

What a pain. Yes report it to 101 and your insurer. Might be worth asking neighbours if they have a ring camera they may have caught it?

First job is police, then insurance and then go to each and every neighbour surrounding your house and ask about cctv. They could have caught it on camera and if you're not quick about it then the footage could get wiped.

And when you've done all that, get yourself some cctv. I don't know why people don't have it. It's a huge help if stuff like this happens. There are systems of all different prices. Mine is battery powered and stores the videos via WiFi in the cloud so I don't need a wired in recording box. No monthly charge and it cost something like £80 to be paid up over 3 months so affordable.

Report to police and inesrance and then put leaflets through streets door asking if anyone has camera footage

Ask your ndns if they have cctv...

Log it with police, call insurance and check for ring or cctv with neighbours

Log with 101 then check with neighbours for CCTV then call insurance.

They won't think you've done it yourself.

Do you have a local / community Facebook group? Post on there asking for witnesses. Lots of people do that on our local one.

Whilst crime reference and insurance is certainly one route, it's worth considering how much the cost of your increased insurance premiums for 5 years and any excess that you'd have to pay stacks up against the cost of repair. Although I suppose big dents on two doors might just be cost effective to claim.

I've just had my car repaired whenever someones done it to me, the charges are significantly reduced when the garage knows you're paying yourself - i had to have a dent pulled and a panel and door resprayed last year on a zafira - cost me £250 cash for a perfect job. Initially they quoted £800 when they presumed we were going through insurance.

It's the scam of insurance in that we have to have it and pay about £220 for the privilege, but its too expensive to claim for most damage. I think I'd only ever actually claim on my insurance if there was an injury or car written off type claim.

@SleepyRich massive dents on a new car are definitely worth claiming for

The insurance company won't think that! "Found damaged" claims are an everyday occurance and it's pretty easy to tell by looking at photos if it is consistent. Thank your lucky stars that you are comp and call your insurance company

@ThisIsWednesday you don't know why people don't have CCTV? Many reasons I assure you, one of them being it's expensive for good quality reliable CCTV.

And you still have to notify your insurer, as per your policy terms.

I was driven into a while ago, the other party drove off. I had a witness who agreed other party was at fault, not me, but unfortunately neither of us got the other driver's reg. I took the witness contact info and I reported it all to the police online (much quicker than phoning) to get a ref number for the insurance. Meanwhile I also put up posts on local fb groups to ask for any dash cam footage and local business cctv to try and track the other driver down. Any chance someone near where you parked has a ring doorbell or cctv or anything?

No footage was found in my case, so I had to claim against my own insurance. The repairs were expensive so it was the easiest way for me, my insurer also did keep some years of my no claims even though I'd not protected them. I think maybe 3/4 years out of 12, so when I came to re-insure although I had to declare it as being 'at fault' because the other driver couldn't be found, it didn't push my premiums up quite as much as I was expecting. Good luck OP!

large Dents on two doors is going to be in the thousands to repair, it will be far cheaper going through insurance. When you report to police you’ll need to present all your documents though, I’m not sure I’d bother. If you can now do
it online I guess that’s not too
bad unlike trying to find an open police station! The insurance assessor can tell from the damage that someone has struck you,

Technically yes but I don't think I'd know anyone who would with a minor incident that would be affordable to pay to repair. Any expectation otherwise is a nonsense! Would you honestly really tell your insurer that you reversed into a bollard causing a small amount of damage, even if you weren't bothered and had no intention of repairing it? Because you're right technically you should, but there's no way on Earth I'm going to call mine up just for the privilege of increasing my premiums. I doubt my premium would be under £240 a year for a large 7 seater car parked on the road in the middle of a city!!