Last summer DH bought a car (£££), the first time he's ever bought a brand new car. We're a one car family so although it's technically his, it is the family car. Last week the inevitable happened and he dinged it into a stationary vehicle😫. Nobody hurt luckily.
The damage on the car he crashed into is somewhat worse, so an insurance claim is already underway. Rough guess would be £2-3k which given that car is quite old, could be a write-off situation (not sure if this makes a difference).
We have been told that the claim for our car would be separate issue and we have two weeks to make a claim...or not.
The damage on our car is virtually entirely cosmetic - basically quite a big scuff but covering several different parts. We can do one of four things.
- claim through insurance to get it sorted properly. This will likely mean the replacement of the entire bumper and other parts (£££). It could also be a bit of a pain practically because it's our only car and it could be 'in' for a while, though our policy should cover a courtesy car.
- Get it sorted properly but not claim and pay ourselves. In this case we'd likely have to pay for a courtesy or hire car.
- Get the local bodyshop to do a good touch up job, at our cost - probably a few hundred quid.
- Get DH to do a touch up job - he was previously quite into detailing as a hobby and does know what he's doing though the result would probably not be as good as option 3. We don't plan to sell the car for many years, hence this being an option.
Now we know our renewal premium (in May ,if it makes a difference) will be sky high regardless and clearly this incident will make things worse. But - question - will it make much of a difference to our future premiums if we do or don't make a claim, given that the larger claim is happening anyway? Of course our insurers are not able to advise, so I'd appreciate anyone with inside info on this one.
Secondly, WWYD?
TIA