Unoccupied seat in rear-ended car

[CalpolOnToast]

DH got rear-ended earlier, thankfully on his own in the car but DS's Cosatto Moova was in there. Should we bin it? RoSPA says probably, DH thinks it's a bit over-cautious.

Does anyone know how likely insurance is to pay out for it? Not a disaster if they don't, we have a spare albeit less comfortable for DS (it's a HBB)

Ask your insurance company. If they wibble, send them a copy of the letter on the RoSPA website. I think they will pay in the end.

How fast was the other car going (ish?)

50ish I think. His airbags all went off!

I had a minor bump (probably about 5 mph over a couple of feet!) and didn't replace. At that speed at would be advisable. I agree with MrsCakes, ask the insurance company to cover it.

The person who hit you will pay (or rather their insurance will). We just had to send in a receipt for the new car seat and got a cheque back. 50 is fast

As a precaution, you should let them know it's a permanent fixture in the car. We had a car stolen and burnt out, many years ago and made the mistake of saying we transferred the seat between my car and my sister's car. They wouldn't pay our as it wasn't a permanent fixture!

I am Calpol, I have ended up with a different username on my iPad after the Heartbleed thing.

I have realised that 50 sounds scary! I think DH was probably doing 40 from what I know of that road, he slowed down for a truck, the other guy was very close and didn't.

I have told DH we're ditching the seat. When he called the insurer earlier he didn't think to mention the seat, do we call them back or do we sort it out when they pick up the crashed car?

Found the RoSPA letter, thanks

Call them back.

Thanks Staywithme, I prevented DH from taking it out earlier as he was just going to put it in the courtesy car when it comes. It's only been in my friend's car once so pretty much permanent

Another option is to deal with the other driver's insurer direct - you can do this if both insurers agree the other driver is at fault, which is generally the case with rear-end collisions. It means you will not have to pay your policy excess, and you can negotiate with the other insurer e.g. tell them you'll deal direct (which keeps their costs down) as long as they cover the car seat and give a courtesy car etc.

Replace. You never know what damage might have been done, and never will know unless it is needed for protection in another crash, at which point it's too late.
I've shared this before, but a friend had a bad crash with her dd in the back, in a rear facing seat (dd was approx 6 months. Car ended up rolling multiple times down an embankment after being clipped by another car, and landed on a road, on its roof, where a car ploughed into it. Df was injured (not too badly luckily), car seat did it's job and dd was fine apart from a little bruising where the straps were.
The car seat still looked in perfect condition, and my df could easily have passed it on to someone else if she wasn't honest. she destroyed it before binning it so no-one else could use it.
Anyway, all that was to point out that even after a major smash, where the seat was most likely compromised, it still looked perfect, so I would always replace after any sort of bump.