Recently I have had to make a claim on my insurance, not something I have ever had to do before and something I would hope I would never have to do again. The incident was nothing serious and my insurance company has already paid up but the situation which lead to the accident has been causing me some concern.

Basically it was a passenger in my car who caused the damage to another parked car while opening the door, my car door hit the other door and there was some paint transfer and a small dent/scratch. The photos below will give some idea of the damage to the other car (poor quality due to the sun reflecting off the bodywork)

The first dilemma to face in a similar situation would be whether you admit what you have done or do you simply drive away and let the other driver chalk it up to experience. I am sure there are many people reading this that would have returned to their car after leaving it parked at a supermarket and discovered that someone has hit it! Anyway it is always easy to say what you would have done – I was not given that option as the parked car was inhabited and the driver was soon out of the car asking for my insurance details and I could not really do anything but hand them over – my car had caused damage to his car.

My passenger of course was very sorry and a lot was said at the time about making sure that I was not out of pocket and this is what is concerning me the most. The other driver went though his insurance company and my insurance company ended up paying £821.61 for the repair. If it had not gone though the insurance company it is possible that it would have been £250 cheaper but could I have really forced my passenger to pay for the repair it was after all his fault?

Ultimately there is not much I can do about it now as nothing will be gained, I was fortunate to have protected my no claims bonus, I paid an extra premium for this and even though I have been told that when I come to renew my policy they should not take into account the claim I have made that most insurance companies do find a way of bumping up the premium.

My passenger could argue that I have not lost anything; that I am not actually out of pocket financially but in my mind I have lost out for something which was not my fault I have actually lost one strike from my no claims and it has certain made me think more about insurance and carrying other people in my car.

I have tried thinking what I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.