AIBU to ask why so many motorists involved try to wriggle out of giving their insurance details?

[AlderGirl]

Over the course of 30 years’ driving, I’ve been involved in three car ‘impacts’. I believe the correct procedure is to exchange details at the time of the accident, but two of these drivers refused. On the first occasion, the police just happened to be driving and they made the other driver give me their insurance details. Then this morning, on the school run, a driver ran into the tail board at the back of my car. He did stop and admitted what he had done. He even apologised. I took his name & phone number but I forgot to ask for his insurance details. I also took a screenshot of his vehicle. When I texted him later, he refused to give me his insurance details, saying that no contact was made. There were no obvious signs of damage, but I haven’t had that confirmed by my garage yet. I have pointed that out to him but he’s still refusing.

Is it more usual these days for people to not give their insurance details, or have I just been unlucky?

Give your insurer his reg number and they’ll find his insurance details.

Yes, I know I can do this. But my question is as to whether more people than not refusing to handover their insurance details in the first place. It is a requirement that they do this, so why don’t they?

It's fairly easy to work out why.
They're either not insured, or don't want their already massive insurance premium to increase, if at all possible.

I don't have a clue what my inurance details are.

I can find them, but I really dont want to be faffing about trying to find an email when I've just been crashed into.

Your insurance can trace them from a number plate - and ideally a name.

It isn’t necessary. I’ll give my name, phone number and reg. I’ll take the same from you. I’ll tell my insurance about it and they will deal it.

I was just hit recently. I only dealt with my insurance agent.

I think it's 2 reasons:

1. they don't want their insurer to know even if there is no claim. Its known that insurers will increase your premiums even for accidents that aren't your fault so a minor bump that is their fault will definitely increase it.

1. They worry it's a scam and you will inflate your claim. A few years ago around here there was a group of people deliberately stopping mid road so people drove into the back of them and would claim vast sums of money. I know the driver behind should always have room to stop but that's not always feasible in busy traffic or when a car deliberately does something unexpected to cause an accident. Eventually the group got prosecuted for insurance fraud but they got a lot of claims in first. (It was when whiplash claims were paid out by insurers )

I'm not saying it's right but if you ask for insurers details it does imply you think there is a claim rather than just being cautious.

You only need name number and reg I used to process car insurance claims and we just do an MID search on the reg to get all the relevant info. As pp said you don't need to dig out insurance details in the middle of the road.

If you actually mean they don't want to swap details at all- then it's pretty obvious isn't it? It's because they either aren't insured or are getting annoyed about their insurance going up. In which case you remind them its a legal responsibility to swap details at the scene.

But no, it doesn't have to be full Policy Numbers if that's what you mean.

I crashed into someone and said I'm happy to go through insurance but would rather not and offered them the option. They went Tamworth doing privately so that it got resolved quicker and I guess as a favour to me . I was super grateful but also would have done insurance route if they wanted

Because insurance is expensive and they don't want their prices going up unnecessarily.

But it's a bit silly to refuse as your insurer can find out anyway. I couldn't get worked up about it.