My fault but should I pay for the damage?

[CountryGirl17]

I can admit that it was totally my fault that I drove accidentally into my employee’s VW Transporter in the car park at work. When I told him, I was devastated and he was obviously annoyed.

As I am insured with a social, domestic and commuter policy, I thought the process would be very straightforward, but it’s not. When my employee looked into his policy, he only had social and domestic insurance and then immediately changed his policy to include commuting after the incident. When he told me, my heart sunk as I had technically hit an uninsured driver as he was using his car to travel to work. Though, as it wasn’t his fault, my insurance would cover it. I told him that it wouldn’t be an issue, but he wasn’t confident or comfortable about that.

But, that wasn’t the only issue, as he advised me that he made some modifications to his vehicle, increasing its value and I am not 100% sure that he notified his insurer (that’s my suspicion). He did say to me that he was concerned that any repairs may not factor in the cost of the modifications or could effectively right off the vehicle. Another reason to not go through insurance. Again, my insurance should cover the cost of the damage.

The damage to my car is over £1,500, so I have to make a claim and I am okay pay the £250 excess. Though, my colleague has been really paranoid and doesn’t want to go through his insurance for the reasons that he wasn’t insured at the time and his car was modified. He doesn’t want to take any risks. As he doesn’t want to go through insurance, he has decided to get his car fixed by recommended bodyshop repairer. This repairer offered to do my car too, but they are not recommended by my insurer. This is his choice.

To protect him, I’ve submitted my claim but not involved my colleague. They haven’t questioned it and the claim is going through just fine, which is good. My colleague isn’t bothered that I not telling the complete truth to my insurance company. Now, our HR department has gotten involved because my employee is upset about paying for the damage that my insurance would have covered. I can understand his annoyance, but the complications are not my fault and it was his choice to not go via insurance. If we went through insurance then he wouldn’t need to pay anything! The company has offered to loan me the money to pay for his damage, but I would have to pay it back, which basically means they are encouraging me to pay for his damage. It’s a lot of money and this is a nightmare!!!

AIBU to not pay out as I am insured or should I pay out as he works for me and it’s not his fault? I don’t know what the right thing is? Thanks.

You've likely really messed up here by not telling your insurance company what happened.

You hit his vehicle - your insurance company pays out. Even if you hit a completely unisured driver, your insurance company would still pay out.

He needs to sort out the validity of his own policy with his insurance company. The claim for the damage against your insurer doesn't come into that.

It is absolutely not unusual for a vehicle like a VW Transporter to be insured only for SDP, and not for commuting. Many transporter owners convert them to, or use them as, camper vans and use them for weekends and holidays. (I used to own one myself, for exactly this reason). It makes sense not to pay for commuting if you're not going to do it in the vehicle. Most camper van style transporters will be covered on fairly specialist insurance policies as well. Sadly in my experience there are a number of owners of these types of vehicles who under declare on their insurance, either by mistake or deliberately to keep costs down.

It's also not unusual for them to be modified by the owner, there is a whole culture in the UK around owning VW vans of all ages, and modifying them. Good (smart) owners notify their insurance companies of the changes made, but not everyone does, for sure, because it makes the insurance much more expensive. Keep in mind a modification for insurance purposes could be something as simple as changing from the standard wheels to a set of alloys.

He needs to go through the insurance if he wants the vehicle repaired. I would absolutely not engage with HR, or with any discussions about paying him. I would keep to the line that you are willing to go through insurance as you're legally supposed to do. Insuring his vehicle correctly is his responsibility, and he has to live with the consequences of his choices here.

You are responsible for the accident but the total sum of your liability is the £250 excess on your insurance policy which you have paid for. That's why you have insurance. It's totally wrong for you to pay out a penny more than this. Your insurance company is responsible for assessing how much to pay to the colleague, and if any dishonesty or idiocy on his part means that this amount is less than they might have got if they were honest or sensible then that is simply not your fault.

The validity of his policy has absolutely nothing to do with this. If you hit an uninsured driver, your policy would still pay out for the damage if you were at fault. It's OPs insurance that is being claimed against here, not his.

The colleague asked her to do something that she felt was unreasonable….to pay up herself. She didn’t have to do that if she claimed in insurance.

However, by only claiming for her own repair and not mentioning the colleague, the insurance won’t be covering that cost.

So who exactly does OP think will be paying her colleague for the damage she caused? If she’s not told the insurer about it (even if that’s what the colleague wanted) surely she knows she will have to pay. Or did she think the colleague was accepting that there would be NO payout from either insurance or herself? Seems unlikely.

I think OP is more shifty than it initially appears. She’s getting her car repaired. But she seems willing to let colleague not be compensated for the damage she caused. Why? Why in honesty did she not tell the insurer what really happened?

YANBU op! By the by it was only on a MN thread that I first discovered that commuting wasn’t covered as standard on insurance policies, dh didn’t either and we got ours changed that day. So everyone, if you use your car to travel to ANY place of work check it out (if I remember correctly dh’s actually did cover him to one single work address but if he ever had a meeting elsewhere he wouldn’t be covered).

The problem is that she has submitted her claim and it is being processed as an incident involving just 1 vehicle. This is not true.

Questionnfor those invovled in insurance world….can OP partway through the claim, return to the insurer and say ‘actually there was a 3rd party and I’d now like you to pay out to them too please’. Is that possible?

Would doing this now mean OP jeopardises them paying out on the claim for her own vehicle? Is it acceptable to change the story to such an extent? Will her insurers be willing to pay out for his vehicle at this stage? Is her only option for compensating him, to pay herself?

To me, he asked something unreasonable. However, asking is always allowed. It was actually OP who has committed fraud and lied to insurer and who hasn’t made sure her colleague is compensated for damage she has done.

More absolutely wrong 'advice' being posted on here with regard to motoring/legal matters.

It makes zero difference if the other vehicle wasn't insured at all. If OP damaged it, her insurance will pay for the damage.

Anyone telling her different has no idea what they're talking about.

People will reply to this swearing blind that it's incorrect, though.

@Rosula there's nothing mysterious about it, it's a standard question when you take out car insurance, e.g. this from Confused.com:

@WombatChocolate the 3rd party can make a claim against OP's insurance.

Either she can contact them and tell them about it, or he can contact them himself - he can get the details from MID if he wanted to, without even telling OP he's doing it.

Think of it being an incident between 2 people unknown to each other and having not exchanged details at the time.

It happens every day.

I think people are muddling up a number of issues.

Colleague not having full insurance for type of driving or modified vehicle is one issue….and separate to the issue of the accident.

OP having hit his vehicle and damaged it and the issue of claiming/paying out privately is a separate issue.

Fact Colleague might not have full insurance isn’t actually relevant here. HE hasn’t caused an accident and isn’t needing to claim. He is worried about not having adjusted his insurance, but assuming he actually did have standard insurance, then this isn’t something he needs to be worried about, as it is not a claim on his insurance IF OP admits liability and claims on her insurance for it.

Possibly, OP has got the 2 issues muddled. However, it is her who has lied to insurer and not ensured the colleague gets paid for damage. All the issues of what type of insurance he has are and should be irrelevant to her. All she needed to do was tell her insurer what had happened and they would sort out repairs for her car and colleagues. But she hasn’t done that. She is at fault.

The OP also has no idea what modifications have been made. People here have decided it's dodgy based on absolutely nothing at all. What the OP says is that she has suspicions he hasn't told his insurer. Based on nothing at all.

That is a point, actually. Thinking further, he might have bought a standard VW van and then extensively kitted it out as a camper conversion - but then when it comes to the official value, if it's written off, he only gets the equivalent value for a standard van.

When insurers ask about modifications, I always assume they mean souping up the engine, changing the wheels, adding a twin exhaust or whatever - but I wonder where you draw the line? Do they care if somebody has, say, fitted a sink unit into the boot space for use when the vehicle is stationary?

I suppose, in this chap's defence, he might not regularly use the van for commuting, but maybe his normal car is in for service/repair or he was planning on going straight from work to a campsite for the weekend? Still technically wrong, of course, but more understandable. After all, you get a discount for declaring that your car is kept on a drive overnight - but you're obviously still covered for however many nights when you're away from home and parked anywhere, so it could get a bit blurry.

Nucon · Today 13:13
Just so people don't end up with the same problem, this is Admiral's definition of the policy types. I think most are the same

Social Domestic and Pleasure
The class of use described as Social, Domestic and Pleasure covers the drivers named on the policy for normal day to day driving. Shopping, visiting friends or family and pleasure driving such as going to the park or on holiday.
For Admiral, this doesn't include commuting to work, but some insurers only offer a combined class of use called Social, Domestic, Pleasure and Commuting. It’s best to check when you’re getting a quote to be sure of the cover you’re getting.
Commuting
Commuting is the next class up, and covers everything included in Social, Domestic and Pleasure, plus driving to and from one place of work in a day. Driving your car to the train station and leaving it there while you go to work counts as commuting for some insurers.

Exactly this!

I added commuting to my car insurance when I had to come in to the office every day during Covid. It cost me £8 (eight not eighty) for the year!

Absolutely!

Sofia, yes….so the insurance colleague had it didn’t have isn’t the issue in terms of OPs insurance paying out. Because she caused the accident.

However, if SHE declared the accident and both vehicles invovled, HER insurance would deal with it, via his insurance. The matter of him maybe not having quite the right insurance probably wouldn’t have been an issue.

However, as SHE didn’t declare it, presumably HE needs to claim against her insurance. Does he need to do this via his insurance, or is he able to do it outside of his insurance? Presumably he didn’t want to claim himself because he’s worried (probably wrongly) that he won’t get anything as his insurance wasn’t quite right.

I think that it’s impossible for his insurer not to know about what happened immediately OPs insurance is invovled by either her or him. They will look up his car on their data base and contact his insurer. To them, they will notice his recent amendment for commuting and modifications. Honestly, he didn’t need to do this as it wasn’t relevant to the accident that happened. But it will make them look more closely at his insurance.

If OP isn’t willing to pay privately, I suppose she will now have to tell colleague to claim against her insurance. She clearly doesn’t want that as it won’t fit with the story she has told. But this is down to her choice to lie.

You should have told your insurance company what happened, with both vehicles. But not mention his insurance/modification issues, and just left it up to them.

If it goes though as it should, the OP's insurance company may well contact his insurers. It sounds like this is what he's afraid of, either because he didn't have the correct policy or he didn't have one at all.

OP this is not your problem. Get back in touch with your insurers and come clean. Explain to them that you were being put under intense pressure by your employer, whose van it was, and that he was making life very difficult which is why you originally lied. Apologise profusely for what you did. And then let them get on with it.

This is what insurance is for - either he goes through your insurance company and gets his car fixed or he pays for it himself. These are the only two options available to him - you are not obligated morally or legally to do anything else so dont.

I thought he'd have to tell his own insurance company though as you have to inform them of all accidents whether at fault or not? Then when his insurance company see it was in work car park and he isn't covered for commuting would he not get into trouble for that?

He coukd say oitwas a pleasure trip to thecwork place car park?

I think OP is trying to deflect blame here.

She has done the wrong thing. She hasn’t told the insurer the full story after her causing damage. She hasn’t been prepared to pay privately, but also hasn’t taken the issue through insurance.

I think she is trying to justify her wrong-doing (which has come up via HR getting invovled) by pointing to the red herring that isn’t really relevant of his modifications or lack of commuting insurance. It might be that the colleague was genuinely worried, in error, that these would prevent him getting the payout for damage she had caused. Or it could be that OP is emphasising these to try to justify her actions to not tell insurer about the full accident.

In fact, it has worked, because many posters have fixated on HIS insurance and the fact it might be rather lacking. They have been diverted by the side issues, which maybe OP wanted to do to justify herself.

However, if the insurers get invovled as they probably will, they won’t be taking the view that OP was right to not mention the other vehicle, or that she was right because the colleague asked her to sort it privately. Her insurer won’t be bothered about if he modified his vehicle and didn’t say, because it is HER insurer that needs to pay. He won’t be asking his insurer to pay because HE didn’t cause the damage to his own vehicle.

But would his own insurer not have something to say about the accident happening in a work car park when he didn't have commuting on his policy? I get they won't be paying for the accident but they have to be informed of it and the details?

As Sofia said, even uninsured drivers can claim for damage done to their vehicle by someone else.

• *What will your car be used for?Commuting covers the vehicle being used to travel to one permanent place of work.
• If you, your spouse, civil partner or partner use the vehicle to travel to more than one permanent place of work, choose Personal, Commuting & Business Use: Class 1.
• Other named drivers may not use the vehicle for business commuting purposes.
• Personal
• Personal & Commuting
• Personal, Commuting & Business Use: Class 1*

I've just renewed my insurance and this was a question I had to fill in.
As nether myself or named driver use the car for commuting to work mine is just personal use.

I would just go back to your insurer and tell them that the other driver initially had asked you not to put the repairs to his vehicle through your insurance claim, but that you have changed your mind and ask them to cover it.

I wouldn't get into the reasons why.