Someone bashed into our car last night and then scarpered

[bookthief]

Bastard . Dh found it this morning. Someone has obviously reversed straight back into it and decided to not leave details because they were drunk/uninsured/without morals. There is no way they could have missed the impact.

The front passenger side door is pretty bashed but the paintwork doesn't look damaged so I suppose, at worst, I could just leave it as it is and be permanently reminded that some people are careless, selfish twats. Otherwise:

• Does anyone know ballpark figure for panel beating?
• If I phone my insurance company to get an idea about how much excess + increase in subsequent premiums would be will it be held against me anyway when I come to renew?

Really didn't need this (obviously) and I suspect we just won't be able to afford to get it fixed. I hope the culprit is feeling guilty as hell but somehow I doubt it.

I presume there's absolutely no point reporting it to the police.

bastard.

this happened to me a couple of years ago when visiting a friend. insurance company wanted to write off as beyond economic repair [bumper and tail light unit damaged, + scratches]. i bouht it back from them, less the excess. i aslo lost 3yrs no claims.

Sods, the lot of them.

please scuse te one-handed typing

Have you got any insurance paperwork? It should tell you the excess on that. If not, ring up and say you want to know what the excess is.

You could get a free quote from a garage to see what the cost of repair is.

Then think about whether you are going to involve insurance company or not.

I doubt they would be able to give you an answer about the increase in premiums.

I think a claim stays on your record and therefore affects your premiums for 5 years.

I'm guessing that you don't have protected NCB? Get a couple of quotes for the repairs and see if you can find the money for that if it's less than your excess (doubt if it will be though). If it's more, it might be worth reporting it as the worst is that you will lose your excess but the worst would be losing your NCB.

This is assuming you want the car repaired. If you're not bothered about the state of the door but the car runs ok otherwise, then leave it!

I checked it more thoroughly today and the paint is cracked so it will rust if not fixed. I think it'll need a new door so I'll have to get it sorted.

Will get repair quotes before contacting insurance company but I just got a speculative quote from their website and it looks like it would put my premium up by £500 .

My excess is £250 so if it would cost less than £750 to repair I'll just have to pay for it. I don't have £750. Bugger.

Someone did this to my car 2 years ago - totally wrecked one side of it - £1500 worth of damage. I claimed on my insurance (had protected no claims bonus, thank goodness) so only cost me my excess £150...but has had a real knock-on effect on my renewal cost and it is really difficult shopping around for a new insurer because I'm not sure how to class it as an accident ie. it wasn't my fault but I had to pay.
One thing my dsis mentioned a lot later was that you could possibly report it to the police as a 'fail to stop' and try to get compensation via the uninsured motor fund thing.

Thanks milarkie. I have checked out the MIB thing but it appears that I'd have to be able to identify the car that did the damage in order to claim.

I'm going to report it to the police anyway just to get it on record. Dh has also just realised that the street may be on cctv so there's a chance.

Millarkie - I think you report it as a non-fault accident but it might be tricky with online broker sites to classify it.

Thanks SimplySally - yup it's the online forms which I struggle with.

This is such a joke that those who pay into the insurance system are left out of pocket by those who don't!
Sane thing happened to dp we had to pay for repairs !