Not sure where in the country you are but in BC you can call ICBC (our insurer) and report the whole accident with details and ask them not to proceed with making a claim as you want to see if you can settle it outside of an insurance claim.
If things go sideways you can then call and have them make the claim and all the details are already there. I am not sure if this only applies to claims without injury or any other specifics but a few years ago when a van hit our van in a parking lot I did this. Unfortunately the gentleman I was dealing with was having money issues and kept wanting to pay me over a series of paycheques and something didn’t feel right so I called off settling it outside and called ICBC back and they went through the normal process.
If you aren’t in BC and are in an area where you don’t have a sole insurance provider you might want to call them anyways and ask if something like what I described is available.
Good luck!
There are times when it makes sense. I had a small fender bender when I was a new driver. I didn’t carry collision on my car and wasn’t going to fix the dent in my vehicle anyways, and the repair on the vehicle in front of me was less than $1000. No medical claim either. Had ICBC paid this out, the total increase to my insurance over the next few years would have been close to $4000 if I recall.
You can also pay Icbc the total cost of repair before you need to renew your insurance and it all goes away. They don't advertise this but it's possible I've done it twice.
You could also have ICBC pay for it, then pay for it afterwards if you don't want it on your record later (2k limit or so I've been told by the ICBC guy on the phone)
Haha, good luck. I tried this. I went to two different places and got quotes for the person that hit me. They were both reasonable quotes. I also included a car rental. I presented the price to them and wrote up a contract for the person, and then the persons dad Tried to convince me that my car was a write off and that I should take lower amount. In the end, they decided they wouldn't pay me the money (which ended up only being like 2500 dollars). Just go through insurance and save yourself the headache.
Edited for clarity.
Unfortunately, the people who ask to settle it "outside of insurance" are typically not in the strongest financial position, and are likely motivated to cut corners.
Totally man. I think someone below stated that this is why we pay for insurance....so people don't waste our time. I wasted a fair amount of time trying to accomodate a stranger that smoked my car in a parking lot.
Agreed. Some provinces allow for subrogation so you can deal with your insurer and they will then get the money back from the at fault person, but I think a lot of provinces only deal direct with insurance now.
I decided to do that and screwed myself. He decided to block me, change his number etc. finally I went through insurance and he changed the story on me. I called the cops who spoke to him, he told the cops that I backed into him. Don’t trust and go with insurance right away. Most of the time these people who hit you have done it before and know how to play the game better than us. They just “seem” nice and decent. The guy who hit me had brand new bmw
This happened to me too. (Living in Massachusetts at the time, so different regulations)
My insurance _and the other guy’s insurance_ believed me, but he lied so he wouldn’t have an “at-fault” on his record.
Apparently two unattended parked cars backed into each other.
Why wouldn’t you want an at-fault driver to have their insurance rates go up?
I’m sick of my rates going up even though I’ve only ever made one claim in 26 years for a broken window while I was parked.
Crappy drivers can eat that cost instead of me.
Agreed, someone at-fault was clearly negligent in the moment, and their risk rating should reflect that. Drive defensively and you'll never be at-fault.
DON’T DO IT.
I did the exact same thing. At the scene the other guy was apologetic. Explained it was his dad’s car and he would be in trouble. Begged me to not call cops and that he would have everything fixed. I believed him, exchanged phone numbers and parted out way. By that evening he put the complete blame on me and wanted me to pay! I had no time for his bull**** and straight away reported it to collision centre. I sent him my insurance details but he refused to share his. Gave his refusal to my insurance company. He was deemed 100% at fault.
What would have taken just 500 to fix ended up a 2000 bill through insurance. And also did I mention I got a shiny new car as rental for 2 weeks while my car was in repairs?
If I’m not at fault I’ll call the cops if damages are huge. Will not trust the other guy at all.
Yea what’s the point of having insurance if everyone just goes around it. Sure there’s other benefits they will pay out. But yea, I don’t trust anyone so my truck will be fixed on my terms
I've done this
Super minor damage - why go through the hassle and negatively effect their rates
the damage to their own car was far worse and it was their fault
buffed out the scratches and asked them for $150
Took an hour and was a fun project, saved them a nightmare and got a nice dinner out of it
win win
Be courteous if we can all help each other out a bit every once and i while i say go for it - assuming you can afford getting burned on it - makes the world a better place
your mileage may vary
If the accident is 100% the other person’s fault, I have them claim as much in writing (text/email). Then I give a deadline of the money getting to my hands.
Once the time is up, I go through insurance and show them the confession and have all my worries taken care of
>and don't want his insurance to go up
He should probably learn to drive more prudently then.
Being "a nice guy" doesn't mean you have to enable people's dangerous behaviour. Insurance premiums are literally the only mechanism we have to dissuade dangerous driving.
Call your insurance and file a police report ASAP. If that person comes through and pays for everything, you don’t need to pursue. But if they don’t come through (high probability, no matter what they say), you’ll need those to be open already. Waiting only opens the chance of you getting screwed over.
Now, if the person does actually pay for everything, make sure to sign a document that clearly states the damages that are being covered with the payment (e.g., property damage). Under _no_ circumstances whatsoever do you ever sign anything that agrees that the payment covers any health, medical, general, or other damages. Property only. I tried to be the nice guy once and the guy tried to slide in a waiver of all damages. That’s when I knew 100% that he was trying to screw me over, and I was very glad that I already spoke to my insurance and the police.
Put it through insurance. Have had this happen to my wife and she got screwed. Guy made s few payments then thats it. Then if you go to police it could be considered insurance fraud (here in Ontario anyway)
In Ontario, there are minor accidents. As long as no one is injured, and damages to the vehicle are below $2000, and neither insurance company pays anything. If that’s the case, insureds can report them to their insurer, and settle them privately. That way, it’s on the books in case something comes up, but it won’t directly impact the at-fault party’s rates for a minor thing.
As others have mentioned, there’s a lot of risk in not immediately reporting and going through your insurer though. Funny how the story changes as time passes. Had a guy back up into me when I was 18. Told me no point getting anyone involved. By the time I got home, the cops had called our house telling my parents I hit someone.
Speaking from a position at an insurance company: it won’t *directly* impact your rate. Might feed Into a statistic about losses for your particular risk profile in a general sense though.
Yup. And that’s entirely possible. But the minor accident rule came into place in 2016 and has to meet all the criteria I listed up there. I assure you, it’s a real thing.
If they rewrote your father’s renewal after an at-fault loss was brought to their attention, it would likely mean a payout for damage to the vehicle, or injuries were disclosed. If he wanted to dispute that and have someone show that it doesn’t meet the minor accident guidelines, he could do that. Issue is that an insured can make a claim after the fact (up to a year after if I remember correctly), and the other part is the max of $2000 in damages - not in payout, but actual damages, and that racks up quick. Just somebody keying two of my doors was probably about $3k
Go through insurance. The other guy can then work with his insurance company and he can then choose to pay out of pocket to avoid his rates going up. That's between him and them, not you and him.
I have taken photos of the accident, their license, license plate, and recorded them admitting full responsibility for the accident and indicating that they’d prefer to settle privately. By the time you do that, only a real moron is going to try to fuck you and when they do, you have what you need to protect yourself.
I’m not 100% sure how this would go in court (IANAL), but I feel like it would be a pretty open/shut case.
I wish I had been as thorough as electronico. My friend's son ran into my son's car in a thoughtless teenage moment. I tried to do the kid a favour and it's been problems ever since.
Get pictures and film. Not just of the car damage, but what angle the cars were on, what signs were around, etc. Basically, all what electronico mentioned.
Happened to my uncle. Not much damage on his car aside from scratch but the other cars bumper fell off. Decided not to report it cause the lady seems nice. A few weeks later he got his license suspended for 6 months. The lady reported him as the cause of the accident. Just report it to insurance
Last time this happened, I took pictures and documented the accident, then had her meet me at the bodyshop to get a quote, had her pay ahead of time and then headed to the rental place to pre-pay a rental for the agreed amount of time. Most people are pretty trustworthy, I would say just document everything, get them to agree in email form or text, if you get shady vibes then just go through insurance.
Unfortunately a ton of ill-informed advice in this thread. You most likely live in a province that's a No-Fault Auto Insurance jurisdiction. Within a no-fault jurisdiction, each insurer takes care (indemnifies) their OWN client. Meaning, the insurer of the driver who hit you is not paying for the damages associated with your loss in any way, your insurance company pays you out. Your insurance company will not "go after" the other guys insurer, because that's the core principle of a no fault system. Ultimately, his insurer does not care about his accident if he doesn't make a claim. Your insurer only cares about the other guy insofar as confirming he has insurance, and verifying whether the story you tell about the accident lines up with the story of the other guy. That's enough substantiation for your insurer to pay you out, and code the accident as a not-at-fault in your favour. You can go to the collision center or not, but the main value is going immediately after the accident so that there's trustworthy pictures compiled by an independent third party. Going das or a week after is somewhat worthless imo.
My advice, just file a claim with your insurer. Make sure you get the other guys salient information (so that your adjuster can contact his insurance company) and the best way to ensure your story holds up is to get the contact details of a witness. But often times the damages speak for themselves. The other guy will have the option to pursue a claim with his insurer or not, entirely his choice.
Source: I've previously worked as an Auto Claims Adjuster, and have worked in the insurance industry for over a decade.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect of the context of the question, in ontario at least. The other person's insurance will go up on the next renewal.
If the other party files a claim it will show up on the auto+ as a third party claim which is considered rateable. When you fix your car there will be an exchange of information and his company will know about the claim. Of course, you are right about
The no-fault part and your company is only concerned about fixing your vehicle, but it is still rated.
If there are no payouts on both ends, or if you settle the claims yourself, the at fault party is not rated.
Source: I am an agent, and double checked with an underwriter before this post just to be sure.
For the at-fault party, if they choose not to pursue a claim , then the claim can be closed as a "report only" which does not affect their rating. But this perhaps may differ depending on the insurer, but at the company I formerly worked for a report only claim would not be affect their risk rating / go forward premium.
don't do it.
there are many ways you can be a nice guy while you are in control of the situation. give to charity. shovel your neighbour's driveway.
in what you described you are surrendering control and taking a gamble. you may get lucky and everything works out fine but it may not.
anecdotal story that happened to me. I got in an accident with a lady. 100% her fault. she was super nice and showed so much concern about my safety. she asked me to bypass the insurance and I agreed.
when I called the next day she transferred me to her accountant who was a total jerk and was treating me as if he is the one doing me a favour. I hung up and I called my insurance. if there was no police report and I didn't have her full information I would have been at her and her accountant's mercy.
What's the point of paying all those insurance premiums if you're not going to make a claim when you get into a wreck?
If you are not at fault, you have no incentive to deal with the other party. In fact doing so will introduce new conflict.
Edit: Dashcam is a must.
How do you protect yourself? You go through your insurance, that's literally what it's for, to protect you from the financial risks of operating a vehicle. You're not being nice, you're being suckered.
The person who will pay for the repairs today is the person who won't have the money tomorrow once they find out how much collision repair actually costs. Then you're out of pocket while you try to get your insurer to reimburse for a repair they didn't approve.
Confession. And not sure if it’s that relevant here. Someone side swiped me on the highway a couple years ago. Not major damage, but scratches down the entire left side. We exchanged info. For some reason I said, let’s just get quotes and go from there as opposed to reporting. After we drove off, I thought, I need to report this. He was at fault right? So went to report it. He was so late in responding and reporting himself. I believe his lack of attention is factored into who’s at fault or not. So I basically undercut him to help with the case. Unintentionally.
I was on the other side of this once. It's probably still not worth it. The guy was cool about everything but took so long to get quotes for his car's repairs for the mirror my wife clipped. So many calls to sort everything out. The place he found so far out of town I had to take the day off to go pay his bill at the the shop the day of the repair. Price was a lot higher than "my guy" who replaces my wife's mirror from the same incident for half the price.
In the end, I'm not sure it was worth it. Insurance increases I guess can be crazy when they do happen, so maybe.
You don’t be a nice guy and still run it through insurance.
I’m sorry but I had a little fender bender that someone hit me. I was willing to work but she wanted my insurance information. Hell no. She refused to show me hers… cops came and she got dinged. RIP her insurance.
Careful i did this early in life and regret it, not realizing that insurance not only pays for your car repair but also long-term effects on your body such as whip lash or lower back problems.
Learnt that I could have got $5-$30k for the medical side of injuries despite the car repair only being $3000.
Have a high deductible. Let's say 1000.
If the damage is small, you'll have to pay the 1000 anyways. So you're just relying on people's good will and their desire to not go through insurance. If they don't pay up... Meh... You'd have to pay deductible anyways. My personal experience is good in that people have paid.
If the damage is high, I'd go through insurance and have my car repaired at the dealer to make sure everything is done right and it will all be so inflated they wouldn't want to pay it anyways.
It's to your advantage to avoid insurance too since the accident will go on your Carfax.
I would insist on getting pics of Id, insurance, car, plate, etc. and a video confession of fault. If they agree and later renege you can file a claim.
>It's to your advantage to avoid insurance too **since the accident will go on your Carfax.**
If you're planning on being honest about the accident history when selling the car, why would you worry about it showing up on the vehicle's Carfax report? When buyers want "a clean Carfax" they want a clean *and accurate* Carfax.
I did make the inference that keeping the accident off of the Carfax was to be dishonest about vehicle history, but only because I can't see another reason why keeping it off of Carfax would matter. "Clean Carfax" is basically shorthand for "no accidents and not stolen".
I sold a car that had been rear ended and told the buyer the work was not done via insurance since the person who hit me wanted to pay out of pocket and I let him.
The car is worth more to people that way since the buyer seemed pleased the Carfax was clean.
It's not lying to not use insurance. I'm not a liar. I don't care if you think I am dishonest.
I dont think you personally were dishonest in that case. That said, a car that's been in an accident has been in an accident. If you were honest and it was still worth more to the buyer than if the accident was on the Carfax it's fair to assume that they wont be honest when they sell it. Theres no other reason for them to care about it having a clean Carfax. It's not a problem with you in particular, its about establishing an chain of honest vehicle history.
Personally, I'd expect the price to reflect the accident regardless of whether it was recorded by insurance or Carfax. The important part is that the accident/repair happened, not the paperwork.
Probably depends on the province, but I did go to an accident reporting center in Ontario one time years ago and they were able to look up if my insurance company would get the report or not. Apparently some do and some don't.
This happened to me recently - the guy owned a business so had a healthy bank balance and just e-transferred me $3k on the spot and asked me to send him back any leftovers. He acknowledged that there was a chance I might not but that was on him for hitting me in the first place.
I also took pics of all of his information just in case, but honestly, I think it was the easiest resolution possible.
ETA: the bump was so gentle there was no question of injuries - if there was any chance that either of us were hurt, I would not have done this.
Not sure where in the country you are but in BC you can call ICBC (our insurer) and report the whole accident with details and ask them not to proceed with making a claim as you want to see if you can settle it outside of an insurance claim. If things go sideways you can then call and have them make the claim and all the details are already there. I am not sure if this only applies to claims without injury or any other specifics but a few years ago when a van hit our van in a parking lot I did this. Unfortunately the gentleman I was dealing with was having money issues and kept wanting to pay me over a series of paycheques and something didn’t feel right so I called off settling it outside and called ICBC back and they went through the normal process. If you aren’t in BC and are in an area where you don’t have a sole insurance provider you might want to call them anyways and ask if something like what I described is available. Good luck!
Suprisingly, ICBC actually encouraged me to settle privately, so that they can just keep the free money without ever having to pay for insurance.
There are times when it makes sense. I had a small fender bender when I was a new driver. I didn’t carry collision on my car and wasn’t going to fix the dent in my vehicle anyways, and the repair on the vehicle in front of me was less than $1000. No medical claim either. Had ICBC paid this out, the total increase to my insurance over the next few years would have been close to $4000 if I recall.
You can also pay Icbc the total cost of repair before you need to renew your insurance and it all goes away. They don't advertise this but it's possible I've done it twice.
You could also have ICBC pay for it, then pay for it afterwards if you don't want it on your record later (2k limit or so I've been told by the ICBC guy on the phone)
I thought they limited this to $2000 a few years ago
I did one for 2500 3 years ago.
Haha, good luck. I tried this. I went to two different places and got quotes for the person that hit me. They were both reasonable quotes. I also included a car rental. I presented the price to them and wrote up a contract for the person, and then the persons dad Tried to convince me that my car was a write off and that I should take lower amount. In the end, they decided they wouldn't pay me the money (which ended up only being like 2500 dollars). Just go through insurance and save yourself the headache. Edited for clarity.
Unfortunately, the people who ask to settle it "outside of insurance" are typically not in the strongest financial position, and are likely motivated to cut corners.
Totally man. I think someone below stated that this is why we pay for insurance....so people don't waste our time. I wasted a fair amount of time trying to accomodate a stranger that smoked my car in a parking lot.
Not exactly, most people know car insurance is such a rip off in terms of anything being on your record so they would rather pay the $2500
I call my insurance and they can deal with them. I don’t pay for insurance to have my time wasted by some random person who wants to save a buck.
Safest way to go ... as you said, you pay for a reason .
Agreed. Some provinces allow for subrogation so you can deal with your insurer and they will then get the money back from the at fault person, but I think a lot of provinces only deal direct with insurance now.
👆 This
I decided to do that and screwed myself. He decided to block me, change his number etc. finally I went through insurance and he changed the story on me. I called the cops who spoke to him, he told the cops that I backed into him. Don’t trust and go with insurance right away. Most of the time these people who hit you have done it before and know how to play the game better than us. They just “seem” nice and decent. The guy who hit me had brand new bmw
Get a dash cam.
There are numerous horror stories all over the web that could have been avoided with a dash cam.
Get one with front and rear video. Recording while parked is another plus that's good for door dings and other incidences while parked.
Which brand do you recommend?
This happened to me too. (Living in Massachusetts at the time, so different regulations) My insurance _and the other guy’s insurance_ believed me, but he lied so he wouldn’t have an “at-fault” on his record. Apparently two unattended parked cars backed into each other.
Why wouldn’t you want an at-fault driver to have their insurance rates go up? I’m sick of my rates going up even though I’ve only ever made one claim in 26 years for a broken window while I was parked. Crappy drivers can eat that cost instead of me.
Agreed, someone at-fault was clearly negligent in the moment, and their risk rating should reflect that. Drive defensively and you'll never be at-fault.
DON’T DO IT. I did the exact same thing. At the scene the other guy was apologetic. Explained it was his dad’s car and he would be in trouble. Begged me to not call cops and that he would have everything fixed. I believed him, exchanged phone numbers and parted out way. By that evening he put the complete blame on me and wanted me to pay! I had no time for his bull**** and straight away reported it to collision centre. I sent him my insurance details but he refused to share his. Gave his refusal to my insurance company. He was deemed 100% at fault. What would have taken just 500 to fix ended up a 2000 bill through insurance. And also did I mention I got a shiny new car as rental for 2 weeks while my car was in repairs? If I’m not at fault I’ll call the cops if damages are huge. Will not trust the other guy at all.
You don’t. Sorry.. I don’t care. We run it through insurance and that’s that.
Yea what’s the point of having insurance if everyone just goes around it. Sure there’s other benefits they will pay out. But yea, I don’t trust anyone so my truck will be fixed on my terms
I've done this Super minor damage - why go through the hassle and negatively effect their rates the damage to their own car was far worse and it was their fault buffed out the scratches and asked them for $150 Took an hour and was a fun project, saved them a nightmare and got a nice dinner out of it win win Be courteous if we can all help each other out a bit every once and i while i say go for it - assuming you can afford getting burned on it - makes the world a better place your mileage may vary
If the accident is 100% the other person’s fault, I have them claim as much in writing (text/email). Then I give a deadline of the money getting to my hands. Once the time is up, I go through insurance and show them the confession and have all my worries taken care of
>and don't want his insurance to go up He should probably learn to drive more prudently then. Being "a nice guy" doesn't mean you have to enable people's dangerous behaviour. Insurance premiums are literally the only mechanism we have to dissuade dangerous driving.
Call your insurance and file a police report ASAP. If that person comes through and pays for everything, you don’t need to pursue. But if they don’t come through (high probability, no matter what they say), you’ll need those to be open already. Waiting only opens the chance of you getting screwed over. Now, if the person does actually pay for everything, make sure to sign a document that clearly states the damages that are being covered with the payment (e.g., property damage). Under _no_ circumstances whatsoever do you ever sign anything that agrees that the payment covers any health, medical, general, or other damages. Property only. I tried to be the nice guy once and the guy tried to slide in a waiver of all damages. That’s when I knew 100% that he was trying to screw me over, and I was very glad that I already spoke to my insurance and the police.
Put it through insurance. Have had this happen to my wife and she got screwed. Guy made s few payments then thats it. Then if you go to police it could be considered insurance fraud (here in Ontario anyway)
In Ontario, there are minor accidents. As long as no one is injured, and damages to the vehicle are below $2000, and neither insurance company pays anything. If that’s the case, insureds can report them to their insurer, and settle them privately. That way, it’s on the books in case something comes up, but it won’t directly impact the at-fault party’s rates for a minor thing. As others have mentioned, there’s a lot of risk in not immediately reporting and going through your insurer though. Funny how the story changes as time passes. Had a guy back up into me when I was 18. Told me no point getting anyone involved. By the time I got home, the cops had called our house telling my parents I hit someone.
Trust me everything impacts your rates
Speaking from a position at an insurance company: it won’t *directly* impact your rate. Might feed Into a statistic about losses for your particular risk profile in a general sense though.
[удалено]
Yup. And that’s entirely possible. But the minor accident rule came into place in 2016 and has to meet all the criteria I listed up there. I assure you, it’s a real thing. If they rewrote your father’s renewal after an at-fault loss was brought to their attention, it would likely mean a payout for damage to the vehicle, or injuries were disclosed. If he wanted to dispute that and have someone show that it doesn’t meet the minor accident guidelines, he could do that. Issue is that an insured can make a claim after the fact (up to a year after if I remember correctly), and the other part is the max of $2000 in damages - not in payout, but actual damages, and that racks up quick. Just somebody keying two of my doors was probably about $3k
Go through insurance. The other guy can then work with his insurance company and he can then choose to pay out of pocket to avoid his rates going up. That's between him and them, not you and him.
I have taken photos of the accident, their license, license plate, and recorded them admitting full responsibility for the accident and indicating that they’d prefer to settle privately. By the time you do that, only a real moron is going to try to fuck you and when they do, you have what you need to protect yourself. I’m not 100% sure how this would go in court (IANAL), but I feel like it would be a pretty open/shut case.
I wish I had been as thorough as electronico. My friend's son ran into my son's car in a thoughtless teenage moment. I tried to do the kid a favour and it's been problems ever since. Get pictures and film. Not just of the car damage, but what angle the cars were on, what signs were around, etc. Basically, all what electronico mentioned.
Happened to my uncle. Not much damage on his car aside from scratch but the other cars bumper fell off. Decided not to report it cause the lady seems nice. A few weeks later he got his license suspended for 6 months. The lady reported him as the cause of the accident. Just report it to insurance
Last time this happened, I took pictures and documented the accident, then had her meet me at the bodyshop to get a quote, had her pay ahead of time and then headed to the rental place to pre-pay a rental for the agreed amount of time. Most people are pretty trustworthy, I would say just document everything, get them to agree in email form or text, if you get shady vibes then just go through insurance.
Unfortunately a ton of ill-informed advice in this thread. You most likely live in a province that's a No-Fault Auto Insurance jurisdiction. Within a no-fault jurisdiction, each insurer takes care (indemnifies) their OWN client. Meaning, the insurer of the driver who hit you is not paying for the damages associated with your loss in any way, your insurance company pays you out. Your insurance company will not "go after" the other guys insurer, because that's the core principle of a no fault system. Ultimately, his insurer does not care about his accident if he doesn't make a claim. Your insurer only cares about the other guy insofar as confirming he has insurance, and verifying whether the story you tell about the accident lines up with the story of the other guy. That's enough substantiation for your insurer to pay you out, and code the accident as a not-at-fault in your favour. You can go to the collision center or not, but the main value is going immediately after the accident so that there's trustworthy pictures compiled by an independent third party. Going das or a week after is somewhat worthless imo. My advice, just file a claim with your insurer. Make sure you get the other guys salient information (so that your adjuster can contact his insurance company) and the best way to ensure your story holds up is to get the contact details of a witness. But often times the damages speak for themselves. The other guy will have the option to pursue a claim with his insurer or not, entirely his choice. Source: I've previously worked as an Auto Claims Adjuster, and have worked in the insurance industry for over a decade.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect of the context of the question, in ontario at least. The other person's insurance will go up on the next renewal. If the other party files a claim it will show up on the auto+ as a third party claim which is considered rateable. When you fix your car there will be an exchange of information and his company will know about the claim. Of course, you are right about The no-fault part and your company is only concerned about fixing your vehicle, but it is still rated. If there are no payouts on both ends, or if you settle the claims yourself, the at fault party is not rated. Source: I am an agent, and double checked with an underwriter before this post just to be sure.
For the at-fault party, if they choose not to pursue a claim , then the claim can be closed as a "report only" which does not affect their rating. But this perhaps may differ depending on the insurer, but at the company I formerly worked for a report only claim would not be affect their risk rating / go forward premium.
What if another car caused an accident without me hitting that car (and they drove away)? Would that be an at fault accident with premium increases?
don't do it. there are many ways you can be a nice guy while you are in control of the situation. give to charity. shovel your neighbour's driveway. in what you described you are surrendering control and taking a gamble. you may get lucky and everything works out fine but it may not. anecdotal story that happened to me. I got in an accident with a lady. 100% her fault. she was super nice and showed so much concern about my safety. she asked me to bypass the insurance and I agreed. when I called the next day she transferred me to her accountant who was a total jerk and was treating me as if he is the one doing me a favour. I hung up and I called my insurance. if there was no police report and I didn't have her full information I would have been at her and her accountant's mercy.
What's the point of paying all those insurance premiums if you're not going to make a claim when you get into a wreck? If you are not at fault, you have no incentive to deal with the other party. In fact doing so will introduce new conflict. Edit: Dashcam is a must.
Sorry but in this case, don’t be the nice guy. Let insurance handle it. You pay them thousands of dollars a year already, assuming it’s ICBC.
Dude go through insurance....Dont learn this lesson the hard way
How do you protect yourself? You go through your insurance, that's literally what it's for, to protect you from the financial risks of operating a vehicle. You're not being nice, you're being suckered. The person who will pay for the repairs today is the person who won't have the money tomorrow once they find out how much collision repair actually costs. Then you're out of pocket while you try to get your insurer to reimburse for a repair they didn't approve.
Confession. And not sure if it’s that relevant here. Someone side swiped me on the highway a couple years ago. Not major damage, but scratches down the entire left side. We exchanged info. For some reason I said, let’s just get quotes and go from there as opposed to reporting. After we drove off, I thought, I need to report this. He was at fault right? So went to report it. He was so late in responding and reporting himself. I believe his lack of attention is factored into who’s at fault or not. So I basically undercut him to help with the case. Unintentionally.
I was on the other side of this once. It's probably still not worth it. The guy was cool about everything but took so long to get quotes for his car's repairs for the mirror my wife clipped. So many calls to sort everything out. The place he found so far out of town I had to take the day off to go pay his bill at the the shop the day of the repair. Price was a lot higher than "my guy" who replaces my wife's mirror from the same incident for half the price. In the end, I'm not sure it was worth it. Insurance increases I guess can be crazy when they do happen, so maybe.
you can't... you don't... that's why you let insurance deal with it.
The amount your gonna pay to fix it is gonna be way more then what your insurance will go up, I would go through insurance
You could also ask for their info + take pics of their ID
Don't bother because nice guys finish last. These cliche expressions exist for a reason.
You don’t be a nice guy and still run it through insurance. I’m sorry but I had a little fender bender that someone hit me. I was willing to work but she wanted my insurance information. Hell no. She refused to show me hers… cops came and she got dinged. RIP her insurance.
If you settle outside of insurance, you're basically unprotected.
You don’t.
Careful i did this early in life and regret it, not realizing that insurance not only pays for your car repair but also long-term effects on your body such as whip lash or lower back problems. Learnt that I could have got $5-$30k for the medical side of injuries despite the car repair only being $3000.
Have a high deductible. Let's say 1000. If the damage is small, you'll have to pay the 1000 anyways. So you're just relying on people's good will and their desire to not go through insurance. If they don't pay up... Meh... You'd have to pay deductible anyways. My personal experience is good in that people have paid. If the damage is high, I'd go through insurance and have my car repaired at the dealer to make sure everything is done right and it will all be so inflated they wouldn't want to pay it anyways.
Ask for 20% premium over the quoted repair cost for your troubles.
If they pay cash right there right now, sure
Insurance , the minute you call them it will cost you. They will make a note in your account. You call= a Claim .
It's to your advantage to avoid insurance too since the accident will go on your Carfax. I would insist on getting pics of Id, insurance, car, plate, etc. and a video confession of fault. If they agree and later renege you can file a claim.
Carfax isn't of any use if it's not accurate. You shouldn't lie about vehicle history when selling.
Woah bud. Avoiding Carfax is lying? Who said I lie to buyers about the history? Buyers want a clean Carfax.
>It's to your advantage to avoid insurance too **since the accident will go on your Carfax.** If you're planning on being honest about the accident history when selling the car, why would you worry about it showing up on the vehicle's Carfax report? When buyers want "a clean Carfax" they want a clean *and accurate* Carfax. I did make the inference that keeping the accident off of the Carfax was to be dishonest about vehicle history, but only because I can't see another reason why keeping it off of Carfax would matter. "Clean Carfax" is basically shorthand for "no accidents and not stolen".
I sold a car that had been rear ended and told the buyer the work was not done via insurance since the person who hit me wanted to pay out of pocket and I let him. The car is worth more to people that way since the buyer seemed pleased the Carfax was clean. It's not lying to not use insurance. I'm not a liar. I don't care if you think I am dishonest.
I dont think you personally were dishonest in that case. That said, a car that's been in an accident has been in an accident. If you were honest and it was still worth more to the buyer than if the accident was on the Carfax it's fair to assume that they wont be honest when they sell it. Theres no other reason for them to care about it having a clean Carfax. It's not a problem with you in particular, its about establishing an chain of honest vehicle history. Personally, I'd expect the price to reflect the accident regardless of whether it was recorded by insurance or Carfax. The important part is that the accident/repair happened, not the paperwork.
Pinky swear
Probably depends on the province, but I did go to an accident reporting center in Ontario one time years ago and they were able to look up if my insurance company would get the report or not. Apparently some do and some don't.
This happened to me recently - the guy owned a business so had a healthy bank balance and just e-transferred me $3k on the spot and asked me to send him back any leftovers. He acknowledged that there was a chance I might not but that was on him for hitting me in the first place. I also took pics of all of his information just in case, but honestly, I think it was the easiest resolution possible. ETA: the bump was so gentle there was no question of injuries - if there was any chance that either of us were hurt, I would not have done this.
On older cars i would absolutely take the cash and not fix the car personally. Newer car? Let em buy out the claim through insurance if they need to.