Things that make you go What the F**k?

[David McKeown]

Elderly father had a small accident, were he reversed into a parked vehicle. Tiny scratch on rear bumper of father's vehicle and small dent in rear panel of the other vehicle.
    Dad offered to get the dent fixed but young lad went ahead and put it through insurance. Used that CRASH crowd. Our insurance wrote back after it and gave us final figure that they paid out. Over £36k
    Actually still cant believe it.
Costs include credit hire, credit repair and solicitors costs.
    Parasites, really if we are being honest.

that is surprising as anything above the cost of the car they declare as write off as its cheaper then repairs and ongoing legal fees, what was the other car worth?

I would say max 8k. BMW 3 series 2012 Small dent rear quarter panel.
  Young fella does have a new car now so I'm not sure did he have it written off.
  I think as others have said probably hire car and other add ons. I've been told people are being advised to claim for damage to car seats, laptops etc.
  As I said I think some people basically see it as free money without repercussions for the other party. In our case had fairly big effect on my dad and basically put him off the road.
 
 

From the young fellas point of view he's in between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't report it and they find out which is highly likely he's facing potentially very large cost implications down the line because of how insurers operate.

So I have a lot of sympathy for both parties here.

David, maybe I'm missing something, but if we had of paid his mechanic/body man to repair the car, how would anybody find out about that?
    Surely neither party would be informing their insurance provider, sure that's the whole point of paying it yourself so they dont find out and your premiums aren't affected.
    I suppose I can sort of understand going through insurance for a bigger repair( this was I'm not kidding an egg size dent) or maybe in a different area were you worried the other party mighn't pay. But in a small rural village were both parties are well known to one another it's hard to understand.
      No the main thrust of my post anyway, but was trying to highlight the absolute absurdity of a 36k cost for this.
   
 

Insurers are obviously aware this happens so have systems in place to detect it. The biggest system is the incentives they offer repairers to report jobs done for cash. Some repairers can benefit greatly from these incentives and are happy to comply. They obviously have other ways of finding out that are less obvious.  It's happened to both my mother in law and sister in law in recent years one in the north and one in the south. They paid privately for sub £500 repairs. Then received letters after the next renewal querying the repair and why it wasn't disclosed. Result one insurance was cancelled leading to increased premiums. The other just resulted in slightly increased premiums.

In addition is not uncommon if there is a subsequent accident for a loss adjuster to query why a previous repair was done and not disclosed.

It's becoming very common in the criminal sphere in the north for insurers to hold the information of a previous undeclared accident up their sleeve then when there is an accident claim the insurer will tell PSNI insurance is invalid and the driver has no insurance (no basis in law for this) or that the policy was obtained fraudulently.

Given that you are legally obligated to report to the police any accident that causes injury to another person or damage to someone else's property and you are legally obligated to declare 6 year accident history even when not at fault I can see why others wouldn't want to take the risk. Even if the person at fault is acting with the best of intentions there's always a risk

I wasn't aware of the fact that you must autommatically report to police any accident that caused damaged to another
person's property. I thought you are obliged to report to police in the case were you cant contact the person/exchange details.
   So if I reverse into neighbours fence by accident, get hold of the neighbour and tell him I'm going to fix the fence, I still must contact the police to report the incident, is that the law David?

Assuming the fence is on a road or other public place then yes. It's Article 175 of the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. Certain animals too.

I had two friends fail their test back in the day because the first one hit a dog and didn't contact police and the second one knowing the reason the first had failed got failed for stopping after hitting a cat.

[Tony Baloney]

Elderly father had a small accident, were he reversed into a parked vehicle. Tiny scratch on rear bumper of father's vehicle and small dent in rear panel of the other vehicle.
    Dad offered to get the dent fixed but young lad went ahead and put it through insurance. Used that CRASH crowd. Our insurance wrote back after it and gave us final figure that they paid out. Over £36k
    Actually still cant believe it.
Costs include credit hire, credit repair and solicitors costs.
    Parasites, really if we are being honest.

that is surprising as anything above the cost of the car they declare as write off as its cheaper then repairs and ongoing legal fees, what was the other car worth?

I would say max 8k. BMW 3 series 2012 Small dent rear quarter panel.
  Young fella does have a new car now so I'm not sure did he have it written off.
  I think as others have said probably hire car and other add ons. I've been told people are being advised to claim for damage to car seats, laptops etc.
  As I said I think some people basically see it as free money without repercussions for the other party. In our case had fairly big effect on my dad and basically put him off the road.
 
 

From the young fellas point of view he's in between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't report it and they find out which is highly likely he's facing potentially very large cost implications down the line because of how insurers operate.

So I have a lot of sympathy for both parties here.

David, maybe I'm missing something, but if we had of paid his mechanic/body man to repair the car, how would anybody find out about that?
    Surely neither party would be informing their insurance provider, sure that's the whole point of paying it yourself so they dont find out and your premiums aren't affected.
    I suppose I can sort of understand going through insurance for a bigger repair( this was I'm not kidding an egg size dent) or maybe in a different area were you worried the other party mighn't pay. But in a small rural village were both parties are well known to one another it's hard to understand.
      No the main thrust of my post anyway, but was trying to highlight the absolute absurdity of a 36k cost for this.
   
 

Insurers are obviously aware this happens so have systems in place to detect it. The biggest system is the incentives they offer repairers to report jobs done for cash. Some repairers can benefit greatly from these incentives and are happy to comply. They obviously have other ways of finding out that are less obvious.  It's happened to both my mother in law and sister in law in recent years one in the north and one in the south. They paid privately for sub £500 repairs. Then received letters after the next renewal querying the repair and why it wasn't disclosed. Result one insurance was cancelled leading to increased premiums. The other just resulted in slightly increased premiums.

In addition is not uncommon if there is a subsequent accident for a loss adjuster to query why a previous repair was done and not disclosed.

It's becoming very common in the criminal sphere in the north for insurers to hold the information of a previous undeclared accident up their sleeve then when there is an accident claim the insurer will tell PSNI insurance is invalid and the driver has no insurance (no basis in law for this) or that the policy was obtained fraudulently.

Given that you are legally obligated to report to the police any accident that causes injury to another person or damage to someone else's property and you are legally obligated to declare 6 year accident history even when not at fault I can see why others wouldn't want to take the risk. Even if the person at fault is acting with the best of intentions there's always a risk

I wasn't aware of the fact that you must autommatically report to police any accident that caused damaged to another
person's property. I thought you are obliged to report to police in the case were you cant contact the person/exchange details.
   So if I reverse into neighbours fence by accident, get hold of the neighbour and tell him I'm going to fix the fence, I still must contact the police to report the incident, is that the law David?

Assuming the fence is on a road or other public place then yes. It's Article 175 of the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. Certain animals too.

I had two friends fail their test back in the day because the first one hit a dog and didn't contact police and the second one knowing the reason the first had failed got failed for stopping after hitting a cat.

The young fella knocked over bit of a hedge and the owner contacted the police who contacted me to sort it out ourselves directly. He gave it the big sell about how it was mature hawthorn etc. and asked me what I was gonna do about it. I told him I couldn't magic up a mature hedge so he asked for cash instead to my complete (un)surprise. Went back a while later and he had propped up the flattened part of the hedge until it took again and looked as good as new. w**ker but kept him away from the insurers.

[trueblue1234]

A AMC won't maximise a client's claim anyway more than just engaging a good solicitor would. Once a TP insurer accepts liability the majority try to take ownership of the CH costs to ensure a claimant doesn't slip through to an AMC given the difference in daily charge rates. I understand using a AMC when there's no other option or if liability's disputed. But if liability is accepted by the TPI then an AMC doesn't bring anything more to the claimant. The additional costs are in relation to CH, storage etc. nothing that brings anything additional to the claimant.
I agree they are absolutely good to deal with as a claimant. But it comes with an overall cost to the industry. There's been plenty of cases against AMC's over the last 20 years that demonstrate this.
Is there a place for them, yes, but just like insurance companies, they need a hell of a lot more regulation.

[David McKeown]

A AMC won't maximise a client's claim anyway more than just engaging a good solicitor would. Once a TP insurer accepts liability the majority try to take ownership of the CH costs to ensure a claimant doesn't slip through to an AMC given the difference in daily charge rates. I understand using a AMC when there's no other option or if liability's disputed. But if liability is accepted by the TPI then an AMC doesn't bring anything more to the claimant. The additional costs are in relation to CH, storage etc. nothing that brings anything additional to the claimant.
I agree they are absolutely good to deal with as a claimant. But it comes with an overall cost to the industry. There's been plenty of cases against AMC's over the last 20 years that demonstrate this.
Is there a place for them, yes, but just like insurance companies, they need a hell of a lot more regulation.

I certainly agree with the end of that. I've done enough cases to see a real difference in the quality provided by AMC compared to good solicitors. Be it from the speed and convenience of organising everything to the attention to detail of things you wouldn't think of.

I remember when I had my accident getting a lot of flack for using an AMC from my solicitors. When I explained what they'd done in terms of organising car hire/ delivery recovery physio etc. Every solicitor accepted they were things that the wouldn't have done.

I think the way I view it is if I'm not at fault why should my time be wasted organising recovery or a hire car etc. Why should I be out of pocket to fund these things in the hope I'll get it returned when the claim gets sorted.

If I use a third party to do all that for me at a time where I'm also in pain or worried about an ability to work then why shouldn't that third party benefit financially too.

Yes it will increase costs but costs that by and large but certainly not entirely that courts have held are reasonable. Moreover I don't think that in the scheme of the multi billion dollar industry that is insurance that these increases are anywhere near as significant as the insurance companies suggest.

If insurers behaved in a less reprehensible

[grounded]

Elderly father had a small accident, were he reversed into a parked vehicle. Tiny scratch on rear bumper of father's vehicle and small dent in rear panel of the other vehicle.
    Dad offered to get the dent fixed but young lad went ahead and put it through insurance. Used that CRASH crowd. Our insurance wrote back after it and gave us final figure that they paid out. Over £36k
    Actually still cant believe it.
Costs include credit hire, credit repair and solicitors costs.
    Parasites, really if we are being honest.

that is surprising as anything above the cost of the car they declare as write off as its cheaper then repairs and ongoing legal fees, what was the other car worth?

I would say max 8k. BMW 3 series 2012 Small dent rear quarter panel.
  Young fella does have a new car now so I'm not sure did he have it written off.
  I think as others have said probably hire car and other add ons. I've been told people are being advised to claim for damage to car seats, laptops etc.
  As I said I think some people basically see it as free money without repercussions for the other party. In our case had fairly big effect on my dad and basically put him off the road.
 
 

From the young fellas point of view he's in between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't report it and they find out which is highly likely he's facing potentially very large cost implications down the line because of how insurers operate.

So I have a lot of sympathy for both parties here.

David, maybe I'm missing something, but if we had of paid his mechanic/body man to repair the car, how would anybody find out about that?
    Surely neither party would be informing their insurance provider, sure that's the whole point of paying it yourself so they dont find out and your premiums aren't affected.
    I suppose I can sort of understand going through insurance for a bigger repair( this was I'm not kidding an egg size dent) or maybe in a different area were you worried the other party mighn't pay. But in a small rural village were both parties are well known to one another it's hard to understand.
      No the main thrust of my post anyway, but was trying to highlight the absolute absurdity of a 36k cost for this.
   
 

Insurers are obviously aware this happens so have systems in place to detect it. The biggest system is the incentives they offer repairers to report jobs done for cash. Some repairers can benefit greatly from these incentives and are happy to comply. They obviously have other ways of finding out that are less obvious.  It's happened to both my mother in law and sister in law in recent years one in the north and one in the south. They paid privately for sub £500 repairs. Then received letters after the next renewal querying the repair and why it wasn't disclosed. Result one insurance was cancelled leading to increased premiums. The other just resulted in slightly increased premiums.

In addition is not uncommon if there is a subsequent accident for a loss adjuster to query why a previous repair was done and not disclosed.

It's becoming very common in the criminal sphere in the north for insurers to hold the information of a previous undeclared accident up their sleeve then when there is an accident claim the insurer will tell PSNI insurance is invalid and the driver has no insurance (no basis in law for this) or that the policy was obtained fraudulently.

Given that you are legally obligated to report to the police any accident that causes injury to another person or damage to someone else's property and you are legally obligated to declare 6 year accident history even when not at fault I can see why others wouldn't want to take the risk. Even if the person at fault is acting with the best of intentions there's always a risk

I wasn't aware of the fact that you must autommatically report to police any accident that caused damaged to another
person's property. I thought you are obliged to report to police in the case were you cant contact the person/exchange details.
   So if I reverse into neighbours fence by accident, get hold of the neighbour and tell him I'm going to fix the fence, I still must contact the police to report the incident, is that the law David?

Assuming the fence is on a road or other public place then yes. It's Article 175 of the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. Certain animals too.

I had two friends fail their test back in the day because the first one hit a dog and didn't contact police and the second one knowing the reason the first had failed got failed for stopping after hitting a cat.

Thanks David, I never knew that. The police's advice from their own website is not very clear

1. Stop your vehicle and remain at the scene for a reasonable time
2. Report the collision within a reasonable time, either to police via 101 or the other party involved if they are present.
3. Exchange details with the other party, regardless of where you feel fault lies. The details you MUST exchange are: Name, Address, Vehicle registration number, details of your vehicle owner (if you do not own the vehicle you are driving). It may also be helpful if you carry a copy of your insurance certificate and be able to provide details of your insurer and the policy number you are covered under.

[trueblue1234]

We'll agree to disagree then. I wouldn't believe that AMC provide better service that a good TPI & solicitor combination imo. I've used a TPI in the past, who sorted CH out immediately and allowed me to use garage I wanted for repairs. TBF there was no injuries or anything. But everyone's got their own views I suppose. The industry is a racket that's for sure.

[SaffronSports]

Just wondering if the young lad had a box installed? If he did then his insurers would know.

Whole insurance thing has got ridiculous. 17 year old daughter has a box installed and still 300 a month.

[David McKeown]

We'll agree to disagree then. I wouldn't believe that AMC provide better service that a good TPI & solicitor combination imo. I've used a TPI in the past, who sorted CH out immediately and allowed me to use garage I wanted for repairs. TBF there was no injuries or anything. But everyone's got their own views I suppose. The industry is a racket that's for sure.

We can 100% agree on that

[David McKeown]

Elderly father had a small accident, were he reversed into a parked vehicle. Tiny scratch on rear bumper of father's vehicle and small dent in rear panel of the other vehicle.
    Dad offered to get the dent fixed but young lad went ahead and put it through insurance. Used that CRASH crowd. Our insurance wrote back after it and gave us final figure that they paid out. Over £36k
    Actually still cant believe it.
Costs include credit hire, credit repair and solicitors costs.
    Parasites, really if we are being honest.

that is surprising as anything above the cost of the car they declare as write off as its cheaper then repairs and ongoing legal fees, what was the other car worth?

I would say max 8k. BMW 3 series 2012 Small dent rear quarter panel.
  Young fella does have a new car now so I'm not sure did he have it written off.
  I think as others have said probably hire car and other add ons. I've been told people are being advised to claim for damage to car seats, laptops etc.
  As I said I think some people basically see it as free money without repercussions for the other party. In our case had fairly big effect on my dad and basically put him off the road.
 
 

From the young fellas point of view he's in between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't report it and they find out which is highly likely he's facing potentially very large cost implications down the line because of how insurers operate.

So I have a lot of sympathy for both parties here.

David, maybe I'm missing something, but if we had of paid his mechanic/body man to repair the car, how would anybody find out about that?
    Surely neither party would be informing their insurance provider, sure that's the whole point of paying it yourself so they dont find out and your premiums aren't affected.
    I suppose I can sort of understand going through insurance for a bigger repair( this was I'm not kidding an egg size dent) or maybe in a different area were you worried the other party mighn't pay. But in a small rural village were both parties are well known to one another it's hard to understand.
      No the main thrust of my post anyway, but was trying to highlight the absolute absurdity of a 36k cost for this.
   
 

Insurers are obviously aware this happens so have systems in place to detect it. The biggest system is the incentives they offer repairers to report jobs done for cash. Some repairers can benefit greatly from these incentives and are happy to comply. They obviously have other ways of finding out that are less obvious.  It's happened to both my mother in law and sister in law in recent years one in the north and one in the south. They paid privately for sub £500 repairs. Then received letters after the next renewal querying the repair and why it wasn't disclosed. Result one insurance was cancelled leading to increased premiums. The other just resulted in slightly increased premiums.

In addition is not uncommon if there is a subsequent accident for a loss adjuster to query why a previous repair was done and not disclosed.

It's becoming very common in the criminal sphere in the north for insurers to hold the information of a previous undeclared accident up their sleeve then when there is an accident claim the insurer will tell PSNI insurance is invalid and the driver has no insurance (no basis in law for this) or that the policy was obtained fraudulently.

Given that you are legally obligated to report to the police any accident that causes injury to another person or damage to someone else's property and you are legally obligated to declare 6 year accident history even when not at fault I can see why others wouldn't want to take the risk. Even if the person at fault is acting with the best of intentions there's always a risk

I wasn't aware of the fact that you must autommatically report to police any accident that caused damaged to another
person's property. I thought you are obliged to report to police in the case were you cant contact the person/exchange details.
   So if I reverse into neighbours fence by accident, get hold of the neighbour and tell him I'm going to fix the fence, I still must contact the police to report the incident, is that the law David?

Assuming the fence is on a road or other public place then yes. It's Article 175 of the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. Certain animals too.

I had two friends fail their test back in the day because the first one hit a dog and didn't contact police and the second one knowing the reason the first had failed got failed for stopping after hitting a cat.

Thanks David, I never knew that. The police's advice from their own website is not very clear

1. Stop your vehicle and remain at the scene for a reasonable time
2. Report the collision within a reasonable time, either to police via 101 or the other party involved if they are present.
3. Exchange details with the other party, regardless of where you feel fault lies. The details you MUST exchange are: Name, Address, Vehicle registration number, details of your vehicle owner (if you do not own the vehicle you are driving). It may also be helpful if you carry a copy of your insurance certificate and be able to provide details of your insurer and the policy number you are covered under.

Yeah never trust PSNI advice on their own website.  When I am bored I like correcting their advice on no insurance law on social media because a i am that nerdy and b I dont think they should continually misapply the law and then brag about it.

To be fair to them if you report to the other party they are highly unlikely to ever waste the resources prosecuting you but you do get the odd officious cop.

[Milltown Row2]

Friend of mine was telling me the story of a bumper to bumper hit in Andytown, the fella at the lights nudged into the car in front of him, no real damage or anything out of the ordinary, but the young lad got out of the car and was probably weighing up his car getting fixed and a whipper, so the lad that nudged him said look follow me back to the house so I can get ya the insurance details, as he'd left them there..

They head back and the man brings the lad in to show him his details and whips out his baseball bat and lets the lad know that he knows where he lives (as he'd given him his details lol) and he'd bring his insurance details round to his house if there was any hassle..

Case closed your honour

[Armagh18]

Friend of mine was telling me the story of a bumper to bumper hit in Andytown, the fella at the lights nudged into the car in front of him, no real damage or anything out of the ordinary, but the young lad got out of the car and was probably weighing up his car getting fixed and a whipper, so the lad that nudged him said look follow me back to the house so I can get ya the insurance details, as he'd left them there..

They head back and the man brings the lad in to show him his details and whips out his baseball bat and lets the lad know that he knows where he lives (as he'd given him his details lol) and he'd bring his insurance details round to his house if there was any hassle..

Case closed your honour

Thats the way to handle it lol

[brokencrossbar1]

Friend of mine was telling me the story of a bumper to bumper hit in Andytown, the fella at the lights nudged into the car in front of him, no real damage or anything out of the ordinary, but the young lad got out of the car and was probably weighing up his car getting fixed and a whipper, so the lad that nudged him said look follow me back to the house so I can get ya the insurance details, as he'd left them there..

They head back and the man brings the lad in to show him his details and whips out his baseball bat and lets the lad know that he knows where he lives (as he'd given him his details lol) and he'd bring his insurance details round to his house if there was any hassle..

Case closed your honour

Had to be Andytown....whiplash central!  It was some industry back in the '80's and 90's. The other one was in the south the 'American' cousin would come over to visit. Get the rental car and go for a drive with the 'cousins' ....whoops where did that car come from...American 'cousin' away back home and a half dozen whippers from an accident around Ravensdale...Hertz the feckers fought them all!!

[square_ball]

Friend of mine was telling me the story of a bumper to bumper hit in Andytown, the fella at the lights nudged into the car in front of him, no real damage or anything out of the ordinary, but the young lad got out of the car and was probably weighing up his car getting fixed and a whipper, so the lad that nudged him said look follow me back to the house so I can get ya the insurance details, as he'd left them there..

They head back and the man brings the lad in to show him his details and whips out his baseball bat and lets the lad know that he knows where he lives (as he'd given him his details lol) and he'd bring his insurance details round to his house if there was any hassle..

Case closed your honour

And if they'd continued that tradition throughout the country, we'd all be paying £100 a year for our insurance.

[general_lee]

Had someone go into the back of me at traffic lights about 15 years ago. Now it was noticeable enough oul slap but there was zero damage on either car... could see the panic in your man's eyes lol but I obviously said not to worry and we both went on with our lives...

Another time I was the villain who bumped into someone on Tates Avenue... I cracked my number plate but again no damage on his motor... exchanged details etc but again nothing came of it.

A woman during Covid scraped up the side of my car and only I was in the car at the time she'd have drove off, she was oblivious  we sorted it without going through insurance and I sent her the invoice and she paid me the money over Revolut.

In those three instances there was face to face communication. The one that really fucked me off was some idiot who according to the note he left on my windscreen, "thought" he had hit my car. This was a 17 year old shitebox runaround I was using as a stop gap. There was no visible damage on my car, and (according to the note) none on his either. I messaged the number and said no need to worry about anything as there was no damage. Later than year when I went for renewal, I couldn't get an online quote that would have shaved £100s off the previous years premium. When I queried it the person with less than perfect English informed me it was to do with a collision I had earlier in the year!