I think my neighbour has committed insurance fraud and it's impacted me

[Tabitha005]

Apologies in advance for the long post, but I feel I need to get all the info down. Last summer, I caused a very, VERY minor rub - not a scratch - to one of my neighbour's cars as I was reversing off my driveway. For context, this particular neighbour always parks his car opposite my drive which makes getting off the drive difficult as the road is narrow. He parks places which inconveniences other neighbours and appears to enjoy the confrontation this causes. He isn't breaking any laws by where he parks, but neither does he ever park considerately.

Anyway, when I rubbed up against his car, I immediately knocked to tell him. One of his family members answered and said he was in bed but she'd tell him later. She didn't ask, and I didn't say, exactly WHERE I'd caused the rub (it was on the front offside corner of the bumper).

I went back into my house to tell my husband what had happened and that the neighbour might knock whilst I was out. As I was about to leave again, I saw the neighbour looking around his car, front, bac and sides, evidently unable to find the rub. My husband went outside and pointed it out. Immediately, the neighbour says it needs a new bumper. Husband said he didn't think that was the case, that it looked like a rub and also checked under the front bumper with a torch - there were no broken brackets or otherwise any damage. Also, when my husband rubbed his thumb over part of the rub, it disappeared - at which point the neighbour got quite aggressive and told my husband to stop touching his car. Husband took several photos of the 'damage' as evidence.

Husband said; 'Get a written quote for a repair and let me know how much'. A couple of days later, the neighbour knocks, saying it'll be £1,000. Husband asks for the written quote and neighbour tells him the guy who runs the garage he took it to for a quote '... can't write...'. Husband says; 'Go through the insurance then, I'm not just handing over a grand for a rub that would come off with some T-Cut'.

We hear nothing for weeks until our insurance company then phones us a couple of months after the incident. Husband sends our insurance company the photos he took of the 'damage' and says he believes our neighbour is trying to claim there was more serious damage than there actually was. Our insurance company says they are looking into it. We hear nothing for a further 10 months.

Fast forward to today - we're changing the car insurance over to a new car and, in doing so, find out the neighbour has been paid £2,280 by our insurance company for 'repairs' and the use of a hire car. At no point did our insurance company contact us to tell us this was how the claim had progressed.

This is clearly fraud as the 'damage' did not warrant that sort of claim by any stretch of the imagination. I don't understand why the insurance company permitted this claim to go through.

Does anyone who works in insurance have any advice, or am I just unlucky to have rubbed up against the car of someone who was always going to try and make the situation work to his advantage? This incident happened last summer and we renewed the car insurance in December - and it did go up by around £100 or so - which doesn't strike me as 'much' but, even so, I'm bloody furious that this neighbour has clearly been lying to his (and, consequently, out insurance companies) in order to extract money from the situation.

Do I have any recourse for this?

Cars are so frustrating. My husband had the tiniest mark on his and local garage said it needed whole new side panel and wheel changing in case of internal damage. We had a courtesy car for four days whilst it was being repaired and honestly we were gobsmacked as only took it in to get brake light checked and they saw the teeny scratch and said it needed properly looking at! So it could be something like that? He does sound like a cf chancer though and I'm sorry this has happened. Luckily you had the insurance to sort it out

People who have done damage always think it costs less to repair or there's less damage than there is. I can well imagine with a hire car you could hit those costs.

Yes I used to work in insurance

I don't know, but I would try your insurer first - they don't like being defrauded and they will try to claw back money if they were defrauded. You have a photo of the "damage". Basically the police don't care about insurance fraud anymore. My ds had an accident, just driving along and a woman pulled out of a side road whilst on her phone, smashed into the side of him. Completely her fault, but she told the insurer that my ds hit her. We had dashcam proving otherwise and our insurer said straight out that the police would not give a shit about the attempted fraud.

He won’t have been given a cheque for £2280, it will have had to go into a registered garage which will have been paid for the repair. It’s definitely worth checking with them though - was it definitely your scuff that was repaired?

As my car mechanic/engineer hysbband always says no one panel bears now they just switch out panels or bumpers for brand new ones which increases the costs and time it takes to repair a car.

Surely you don’t rub a car. You scratch or dent it? It’s unfortunate but I don’t think you can claim that’s fraud.

I don't know if the neighbour committed insurance fraud.
When they took the car to the garage the garage will have insisted on a new bumper etc. This happens every time. I have had two small scratches on bumpers - once on mine, someone scraped my car and once the other way round when I scratched the neighbour's car. In both cases the bumpers were exchanged. On mine they did something else too as they said something else had been damaged. I am very skeptical about that to be honest.
Personally, I think that garages do extra work in cases like this, knowing it's an insurance claim.

Important for future incidents or for others who might experience the same. Take photos immediately. Inform the neighbour. Put it all through the insurance straightaway. Don't trust anyone.
So fill in a form for your insurance company detailing the incident and what has been damaged and also upload the photos.
Then let them get on with it.

Your mistake was in not contacting your insurance with the photos immediately after the incident. But yeah new panel and hire car for the day(s) it took to fix, the amount doesn’t sound totally unbelievable.

chalk it up to luck I’m afraid it’s a fact that no one in insurance or the garage cares

My son’s car was hit from behind by a van, there was quite a bit of damage so was booked into a local garage for repair. He was told he had to have a hire car, even though he said he didn’t need one. The car was at the garage for 5 days, apparently waiting for parts and he had the hire car for around 10 days in all. The car hire alone would have cost around £750. When they collected the hire car, we spoke to the driver and said we weren’t happy about the car hire aspect of claiming through insurance and he said that’s where the insurance companies get their money back

It will be the hire car that costs I imagine. My car was scraped by a bloke while it was parked (he left his details which most people wouldn't have).

He's gone through his insurance and so I went through mine as well. My lot put me onto a company that wanted to keep my car for 15 days! Which wasn't acceptable to me but would have meant a hire car for that long as well - it's where insurers make their money.

Then his insurance company called me and said if I dealt directly with them they'd give me £150 cash and if I made do without a hire car they'd give me another £300! So I went to a local garage recommended by someone I know and he fixed it in 2 days. Insurance company paid him direct (and his costs were £1500 for a relatively small scrape) and then I got the £450 cash!