Settle accident claim privately or through insurance

[Katastrophe13]

Had to perform an emergency stop yesterday as someone stepped out onto road in front of me. Car behind went into the back of me and dented my rear bumper, the corner of which has come away a bit and is sticking out. Other driver has asked if they can pay for the damage and not go brought our insurance. I think if we did claim they would have to admit fault. I am trying to work out if settling privately will have any benefit for us? Does having a no fault claim effect future premiums? Would we get our excess back? If we don't claim should we still notify our insurance company? Any advice much appreciated!

*brought should say through

Even if you are in a no fault accident your insurance premium will go up, I'd take the money but get 2 independent quotes for the repairs first.

Having a no fault claim can affect your premiums.

However, I would go through the insurance. There may be damage underneath the bumper you can't immediately see which would cost more to fix.

DH's car was hit by another driver who wanted to sort it out outside insurance. The repair to DH's car ended up being a lot more than the other driver anticipated and he went nuts - calling DH a liar and accusing him of trying to rip him off, threatening to turn up at our house with his panel-beater mate to 'prove' DH was lying etc. The other party will always want as cheap a repair as possible.

This is what you pay insurance companies for, I would just go through them.

Having a claim will affect your insurance, even if its no fault. It also makes the ringing round process a bit longer.
It depends how much you trust the person to pay up
If you claim You will get your excess back, it won't be your fault as the person should have left enough space to stop if you did do an emergency stop.
If you don't claim, don't notify your insurance company otherwise it defeats the object.
Alternatively, and this is probably the one i would go for, is the person can pay the insurance company directly.

Its shit, as you end up through no fault of your own having to deal with the shit either way.
I know some repair garages who are fantastic and better than 'insurance approved' (in fact I've had nothing but crap jobs by insurance companies!) but i also know some absolute dives who would never touch my car. So it also depends if you know a nice garage who can fix it for you and lend you a car etc rather than go through insurance.
I was a witness recently to an accident where the girl at fault was adamant she was paying for the damage, i left my number in case. Sure enough a month later I had a phone call from the insurance company as she wasn't paying up anymore.
Have you checked on the MIB database that they are insured?

Agree with Dizzy, no fault claims still affect your premiums so get at least 2 independent quotes.

this is hassle and cost whatever happens - but that's why you have insurance. There's no question of who is to blame, it's him.

there may be more damage than you can see. Go through insurance. If you don't notify and it does come out you could have much bigger problems.

You can choose whether to notify your insurers. You only have to declare claims made, not accidents suffered, to insurers.

Although a delay in notifying a claim could cause problems as insurers will want to control costs of repair etc.

I would keep it all above board and go through the insurers. You can't guarantee that the other driver will fulfil his promise to pay for your repairs, or that the repair will be any good.

Thanks for all the advice. I've had a quote from the manufacturers (it's on a pcp agreement and any repairs have to be done by them) and the other party have agreed to pay them direct. I've notified my insurers of the situation, just so I don't somehow get in trouble down the line for not declaring something. Little worried that I may have screwed this situation up for the other person though, as when I notified the insurers I told them the other persons name (but not their car reg). does anyone know if this incident could get onto the other persons record on the CUE database just by my giving their name to my insurer? Can you tell that I have anxiety issues??!!!

not your problem - silly sod needs to learn about stopping distances.

don't waste sympathy on them. You are the innocent party and the one who was paying attention and driving safely when something unexpected happened.