Expensive fender bender with parked car, settle privately or file a claim?

Sorry for another car insurance thread. I will be as concise as possible:

Last night when backing out of my drive way, my rear bumper hit a car parked on the other side of the street. The reason is our street light was out and usually no cars are parked on the street. The car belongs to my neighbor's visitor. I rang the door bell and we exchanged contact info, after which she went back to my neighbor's party and I rushed out to where I was going. When I came back 1 hour later I wanted to get a flash light to check out the damage but she has already left. My rear bumper is not damaged at all. However, the other cars front fender did have at least one dent as far as I could tell in dim lighting.

Normally this is a classic case for settling privately, since there is zero liability for personal injuries (the car was parked). However, the other car is a fairly new BMW. I have good insurance and never had an accident, and haven't got any tickets for years. If I file a claim, how much if any will the insurance go up? Also does reporting the accident to insurance automatically count as a claim or not? If I don't report the accident or file the claim immediately, will I risk the claim being denied after I wait to get the estimate?

TH2006 said:
Normally this is a classic case for settling privately, since there is zero liability for personal injuries (the car was parked). However, the other car is a fairly new BMW. I have good insurance and never had an accident, and haven't got any tickets for years. If I file a claim, how much if any will the insurance go up? Also does reporting the accident to insurance automatically count as a claim or not? If I don't report the accident or file the claim immediately, will I risk the claim being denied after I wait to get the estimate?

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I gave green for not peeling off after the accident happened. Besides for that though, I have no input.

brettdoyle said: For people that drive in reverse and don't look behind them, press 3.Thanks for the humor, just pressed 3, even though it was more of a mis-judgment of distance by a couple of feet or so. If my bumper hit the other car's bumper, there would have been no damage.

uutxs said: TH2006 said: Normally this is a classic case for settling privately, since there is zero liability for personal injuries (the car was parked).
I dont see why it is natural?Since the other driver knows where I live and I know she is my neighbor's friend, we trust each other enough to settle privately. The real unknown risk in this kind of situation is injury claims like neck and back injuries, which is out of the equation.

TH2006 said: Sorry for another car insurance thread.

Mistake #1

TH2006 said:
Last night when backing out of my drive way, my rear bumper hit a car parked on the other side of the street.
Mistake #2

TH2006 said: we trust each other enough to settle privately.
Mistake #3

To turn it around.

If I were the party that was hit, I'd make sure that I got your insurance info, and I'd contact them directly. I wouldn't trust you to pay me.

TH2006 said: uutxs said: TH2006 said: Normally this is a classic case for settling privately, since there is zero liability for personal injuries (the car was parked).
I dont see why it is natural?Since the other driver knows where I live and I know she is my neighbor's friend, we trust each other enough to settle privately. The real unknown risk in this kind of situation is injury claims like neck and back injuries, which is out of the equation.
It is your neighbor's friend. Trusting your neighbor (and more important, neighbor to trust you) is as far as I take it. I assume you dnt know this friend from before you hit his/her car.

Second, it is a fairly new BMW. Chances are, it costs a chunk to fix it.

As suggested above, get the estimate and decide if it is worth your while to go through insurance.

xoneinax said: TH2006 said: The reason is our street light was outSue your HOA, city, county, and state

Call Dick Cheney too.

There's a huge different between inflated insurance estimates at dealers and the actual cost to repair at the local Body Shop in town with a good reputation. Do your homework and get the name of the Body Shop everyone in town trusts, and call the neighbor's friend before they go to their dealer. Say that you'll meet them at the local Body Shop for an estimate and let the manager there know it's for an out of pocket quote and you'll pay cash for a discount. Offer the car owner to pay in full to the shop when the work is completed, and no one will ever know the car was in an accident -- no carfax reports, no insurance records.

martin628 said: There's a huge different between inflated insurance estimates at dealers and the actual cost to repair at the local Body Shop in town with a good reputation. Do your homework and get the name of the Body Shop everyone in town trusts, and call the neighbor's friend before they go to their dealer. Say that you'll meet them at the local Body Shop for an estimate and let the manager there know it's for an out of pocket quote and you'll pay cash for a discount. Offer the car owner to pay in full to the shop when the work is completed, and no one will ever know the car was in an accident -- no carfax reports, no insurance records.

I completely agree with this solution. A dealer will charge atleast 1K even for small repair (they still charge $135 per hour labor charges... woa). Try to get it settled through local Body Shop. If your neighbour/car owner insist on getting it repaired through dealer, I would recommend go through your insurance. It is just between you and your neighbour to decide the date of bender/fender. You can request them to cooperate. my 2 cents...

Argyll said: I have a deductible of $500. If there is an accident I caused with fees of $500 or less I settle it privately. This has happened twice in the last six years --- they were dents in cars. I told the owner I wanted to settled privately without notifying insurance. One cost me $500-$600 because the woman wanted payment for a rental car. The other cost me $400 (my car door was caught by a gust of wind and hit the car next to mine).

I learned this from someone who hit me and said she did not want to go through insurance. It was a dent repaired for a few hundred dollars. Otherwise it would not have occurred to me because I don't have accidents frequently.

Depending on your deductible you may want to pay more without notifying insurance. For instance, if I file a claim for $700, I pay the first $500 and insurance pays $200 and then it goes on record as an accident that may raise my premium.. So it's worth it to me to pay $200 to avoid a possible premium increase. If there's a claim up to $1000 I might pay it privately without notifying insurance.

Tip: If you get the estimate from the repair facility inform them you're not going through insurance and request a break on the price. It might be worth it to them for an immediate cash payment rather than waiting on an insurance company. Sometimes this works. One Body Shop cut the bill 10%. Another did not.

So, two things to keep in mind in this case re insurance: 1) You have to pay the deductible anyway; 2) making a claim counts against you and could increase your premium costing you more than the repair (My company increases the premium for three years after an accident.)

One more thing: some plans have an "accident forgiveness clause" where they forgive one accident every three years or so.

Im lost as to the relevance of a deductible in this case since it doesn't involve the OPs own auto.

My g/f's son hit my car which was parked in our driveway. His insurance paid 100% of the damage (approx $1,500) to my vehicle and he paid nothing since his car was not damaged.

Ecuadorgr said: TH2006 said: The reason is our street light was out and usually no cars are parked on the street.

Interesting excuses.
What kind of car do you have that doesn't provide enough light for when you are backing up (slowly)?
As for the second "reason"... Seriously? A parked car on the street throws you driving off?

At least you notified them, so you get a point there.

could be a very narrow street?

BrlDsguise said:

Im lost as to the relevance of a deductible in this case since it doesn't involve the OPs own auto.

My g/f's son hit my car which was parked in our driveway. His insurance paid 100% of the damage (approx $1,500) to my vehicle and he paid nothing since his car was not damaged.

CORRECTION TO MY PREVIOUS POST -- I WAS MISTAKEN

Yes, you are right. The deductible does not apply to paying for someone else. What you have to keep in mind is when a claim counts against you.

I just called my auto insurance company and was informed the threshold is $750 for causing a premium rise. Accident claims less than that don't count against the premium, but they did tell me that a number of claims under that amount would likely trigger a reassessment of the premium.

In your case, a payment of $1500 probably counted as a claim that might cause a raise in the premium.

I could have notified the insurance company and not had the claims held against me for the two accidents I had. However, despite the fact the threshold is $750 I'm quite sure they count these things in risk assessment. They told me that they count speeding tickets because people with speeding tickets get more accidents. A few years ago they were used to raise my premium.

I actually had three of these minor accidents in three years so despite the fact insurance could have paid with no penalty, I'm still glad I paid for two of them because I believe they would use it in risk assessment. The one in which insurance was notified cost $494 which was below the threshold so it didn't count against me. I suspect if I reported the other two, which means an average of one per year, that would have triggered a reassessment of the policy. So I'm still glad there are fewer reported accidents to my company.

So...... a change in previous advice: You can ask your insurance company the threshold for claims counting against your premium. If the repair costs are less than that and you have a clean driving record, I'd let insurance pay.