Hi all,

Now I know you are all a knowledgable helpful lot on here, help me with this please.

My son who is 17 ran into the back of an AUDI at the weekend. The damage was to my sons car and it appeared not to the Audi. The lady who he ran into said she couldnt see any damage to her car but the two of them exchanged details at the scene. We have not heard anything up to now but I am unsure whether it is a legal requirement for my son to notify his insurance company of the accident even though he is Third Party only and the lady said she was not going to claim because there was no damage.

We know that it was purely his fault and he will have to pay for his own car damage but we wondered if he STILL has to tell his Insurance just in case the lady decides to notify hers.

Any help very greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jacqui

technically you should ring the insurance company and tell them that you want to inform them of an accident "for notification purposes", say there was no damage and all parties are happy there is nothing more to do, this will cover your back if in (up to 3 years time) the other party decides to put in a claim.

in most cases it shoudnt increase your premiums in any way

you missed the point that insurance details were traded albert.. if it wasnt for that point I would be tempted to say "inform them of what? nothing happened" but there was a similar post on here not so long ago where the fella was screwed over even though there was nothing damaged, personal injury is a likley claim these days.

I always say try to be squeeky clean with insurance, they'll try to worm out of paying out.

This has happended to me before when I was younger and I drove into another car, the only damage was to mine. We exchanged details but I never notified my insurance because there was no damage and no reason to contact the insurance company.

More recently someone at work drove into me in the carpark, I called my insurance to tell them the details and they started a claim, we decided to settle privately so cancelled the claim. The insurance company have not counted this as a claim, because it was never completed.

scaring the bejesus out of me used to work for my parents...

All parties to an insurance contract must operate on a principle of uberrima fides which roughly translates as 'utmost good faith'. What this means in practice is that you must declare anything and everything that you think might have a bearing on your insurance, this includes anything that might affect their assessment of risk for insuring you.

Hence, if you are unsure as to whether or not you should report this incident then it is arguable that you should give the other party (the insurer) the option to decide whether or not it has any relevance. I can understand your reluctance to do so given that insurers do often 'take advantage' of factors such as this (although from their perspective this practice is likely entirely justifiable).

Check your insurance T&Cs - mine (Equity Red Star) is very clear that all 'insurable incidents' (it does not limit this to just accidents) must be notified whether or not a claim is made.

That's the legal obligations, what you do now though is entirely up to you. I once had someone roll back into me and we exchanged details. Damage was minimal to my bumper (certainly not worth claiming), and whilst theirs was cracked I am not sure if that was as a result of this collision. The other party had the cheek to say it was my fault and that she would claim - I argued the liability but exchanged details anyway. I notified my insurers of the incident but received a phonecall later that day from the other party saying that having spoken to her husband she had decided not to claim after all. I phoned my insurers to tell them this and assumed the whole affair would disappear into a blackhole never to be seen again...

Oh no... it stayed on my record as a 'claim' and upon renewal I was unable to get new insurance until this claim was closed! I wrote a letter formally declaring my intent to not pursue the claim and that, to the best of my knowledge, neither was the other party. This effectively 'closed' the claim and allowed my cover to continue. The premium seemed unaffected however it is to this day (a couple of years on) still listed on my record as a claim but with a note saying that it was the third party's fault and no costs were incurred. There is every likelihood that this issue is a considered factor when assessing my risk (understandable really - if people were driving into me every other week then it is arguable that I should be considered a greater risk to insure even if it is not my fault!).

All said and done, the whole incident made me think twice about what I'd do should this ever occur again...

Mathew

To be honest you don't have anything to worry about. There was no visible damage to the 3rd party's car and unless they have an accident in the near future (eg reverse into a post or something) and try blaming any damage on you crashing into them weeks earlier then I would forget about it.