OK thanks for the advice guys. I've got a quote for £1700 for the door (Williams Manchester) - yikes! I've had a good look round my insurance and i'm now convinced it's dangerous for me not to do it via them - the main issue is that if i don't tell them about it i am breaching some very strongly worded rules on my policy!

I suspect that the Police will inevitably be involved now - although the culprit is willing to pay up - the insurance company may be happy with that... but if i were them i would want a crime ref to help with the recovery of money if it got difficult.

At least the guys at Williams seem happy that it will get done & dusted inside of a week (after reading some horror stories on here about waiting months for random parts). I'm going to insist that my insurer uses them (i've used them for a lot and been very happy) - i will forfeit my courtesy car to do this but worth it in my view to get what i hope is a proper job done.

Hate to say......

Remeber the Filth isn't bothered with who pays who. Thats a civil matter and liability. All they are concern with is the criminal aspect, so don't expect any sympathy there.

Also, don't act as an unpaid insurance collator for the RTC. If your insurance company wants details, you pay them for a profesional service as an insurer, so they can pay 45 squid for an abstract.

As regards the courtesy car. Yes, you will forfit it by going somewhere else other than where your insurance want you to go. That will be in the T&C's.

Ways round it, use a firm like Accident Exchange to pursue the driver of the other vehicle for a hire car similar to the one in for repair or hire a car and sue the other driver for it. With the last option, it's you that having to fork out to start with, so make sure you have a stonewall case and all the expenses are 'reasonable' or you could end up loosing out.

You don't have to claim on your insurance only notify them of the no fault claim settled direct with the 3rd party, as your policy will just state that you need to inform them of an inccident wether your going to claim or not

that's all you need to do, no need for crime numbers and the like, just a rather large cheque from those who like to drive uninsured plus 10% for unfound overheads and loss of car for a week (towards bus fares) Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Yeah i think that's it - if the insurance company are happy for me to take the money from the 3rd party then fine & no claim made. I guess i need to be able to go back to them if the 3rd party doesn't pay up instantly (i want the money up front)... starting to feel like i will let the insurance company deal with the whole lot.

rlgillyon
Back in November, my wife had some clown hit the OSR door of her Corsa while she was parked and as usual didnt leave details. I looked into whether or not it could be repaired but a complete new door was suggested, so we put it through insurance as she has full protected NCD. The bodyshop that I wanted to use came highly recommended but wasnt on their "approved" list. I told insurance that I wanted to use them and were fine about it although they wouldnt provide a courtesy car under the policy. However the bodyshop themselves did provide a car (Punto) and all we had to do was to arrange to transfer the insurance off of the Corsa on to the Punto for the duration of the repair. Repair cost including matching perlescent paint approx £900.
The owner of the bodyshop told me that a lot of these so called approved places try to use pattern parts if they can rather than original parts, our new door was straight from Vauxhalls.
Oh and the finished job was first rate!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Land-Rover-Freelande...2a04aebe9b

Pinky, Quick go and check ya car, The lollipop mans got his own back

rlgillyon
If you like your neigbours it sounds like you are between a rock-and-a-hard-place ...but at least this little dilemma has shown you to be a really nice person - i sympathise, i really don't know what i would do!

Personally I would show your neighbours the quote for the repair from the garage and offer them the choice of either paying you cash upfront before the repairs are done, if they don't accept that then tell them politely that it will have to be done through the insurance which will then be out of your hands and will inevitably involve the police.

Don't stand any B/S, they only have 2 options. They caused the damage so it isn't your resposibilty to sort out. ______________________
2011 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8
2012 FL2 SD4 Auto HSE
2013 Kawasaki Versys 650

Spoken to insurers (Elephant) - they are totally cool and say (a) don't worry as we know the people responsible one way or another they will recover the money so no claim on my insurance (b) if the neighbour wants to pay me then they will be happy & no claim made, (c) if they become difficult they will take over and get it themselves (presume a fair bit more as they will want to add on their costs) and (d) it's up to me if i get the police involved... they have their own investigators so not a forgone conclusion. i think i will use that as a last ditch negotiation lever...

impressed with insurance company so far - they are totally on top of it & seem sure that all will be claim free for me!

Just want to endorse all FLETCH says about preferred repairers. For many years the the garage where I worked had a good relationship with small local coachwork and seldom any problems.
Then customers started going (being forced) to insurers appointed repairers. I have seen so many of the results some of which border on being criminal.

Stick to your guns and rights, you say where you want repairs carried out. All FL2's (3) Gone
2011 Mercedes C180 CGI Gone
FL2 GS Auto SD with heated leather, factory tints, alloy spare and a few other bits.

Had a very similar incident last year. Our neighbour bumped our van whilst it was parked outside our house but admitted it and we claimed on his policy. The work was done and we thought no harm done....until we got our renewal quote. As you are supposed to, we informed our insurers of what happened and despite it not costing them a penny the policy went from £400 to £800

We protested, but were told that though the incident had not effected our NCB as it was entirely the third party's fault, it was still counted as an accident and had changed our 'risk profile'. We tried loads of other insurers and the story was the same; hugely increased premium because we has an 'accident' on our record (despite the fact that the van was parked at the time!).

Now I know why so many people just dont bother paying anything to this bunch of robbing . One insurance company pays out £400 to fix the van and another thus find an excuse to charge us this amount more in premium. They're all in it together.

A mate of mine reckoned I might be able to sue the third party insurers for the increase in the premium...?