💥 Hey there! Sorry to hear about your car getting hit while you were at work. 🚗😔 It’s great that the person who caused the damage left a note with their contact information. 📝🤝
It seems like the lady who hit your car is willing to take responsibility for the damages and pay for it out of her own pocket, which is commendable. 🙌💰 However, she doesn’t want to involve the insurance companies in the process. 🚫🤝
Before making any decisions, it’s important to assess the damage and determine the potential expenses. 🧐🔍 Tomorrow, you’re planning to visit a car shop to get a professional evaluation of the damages and an estimate for the repairs. 🚙🔧💸
Considering the situation, it can be a tricky choice whether or not to involve insurance. 🤔💡 It’s essential to understand that by not contacting the insurance company, you may have to bear the financial burden of the repairs yourself. 💸💔
However, involving the insurance company can have its own implications, such as potential premium increases and deductibles. 📉💰💥 It might be worth calculating the potential costs of repairs compared to potential insurance impacts.
Additionally, not involving the police at the time might not seem necessary now, since the responsible person provided their contact information. ✅🚓 However, it’s always a good idea to have a police report in case any issues arise during the process or if facts become disputed later on.
Ultimately, the decision is yours to make, but it could be beneficial to weigh the potential costs, insurance implications, and the trust you have in the responsible individual to fulfill their promise of payment. 💭💵🤝
She’ll want to involve insurance once she hears how much the quote is. People who “don’t want to involve insurance” typically think the repair bill will only be (and they can settle for) a few hundred bucks.
It never is.
>My mom called the number and the lady said she’s willing to pay for it but doesn’t wanna involve insurance.
My next question would be “Do you have insurance or not?” and if the answer is yes, then “Great, give me the info.”
What often happens in this situation is that people say “I don’t want to go through insurance” because the person thinks the dent that he or she put in your car can be fixed for $300.
Then you go to a body shop and they quote you $1400.
Then you send that bill to the lady and she says “That’s too high, my uncle can fix it for $300, I want you to take it to my uncle.” And so on.
Good chance she just strings you along a bit and then ghosts you if her insurer isn’t involved.
If someone else is at fault, it’s often better to go through insurance because it can be tough to get insurance to get involved later. At this point, all you have is her word that she’ll pay. You have no idea if her word is good or not. And even if it is, that word may have an upper limit on what she can afford. Personally, I see the “don’t want to go through insurance” request as a way of rewording “I’m about to rain drama on your life”.
If nothing else, call your insurance to report the incident and tell them that you’re attempting to work with the at fault party to pay for the repairs directly. On that same call, ask what your options are if you run into difficulty getting them to pay. Specifically ask if they might be willing to subrogate a claim.
Subrogation is when you file a claim against your insurance but then they go after the other person or insurance company to get paid back. In the end, it should mean that your insurance company gets all their money back so it ends up not counting as a claim against you. My insurance company does this, but I have USAA via my dad who was a Naval Academy graduate so they’ve always been good to me.
Before giving any advise just checking that you aren’t a minor as you said your Mom made the call. If you are a minor you should probably let your parent guide you through the process.
yo, my favorite stories from my ute.
I was at a stop sign and this lady put the car in reverse and just bashed into me. I got out and walked up to her window. I was going to say, it’s cool… but she just peeled the fuck out.. gone. I saw her plate number and told my dad and he was like, call the cops.
I get a call later that night, her old man was like.. lets settle this. He came over and looked at the very minor damage and started laying $100 bills on the hood of my car and said “tell me when to stop” at around $500 I was like.. it was a piece of shit before she hit me and then I went and bought a Nintendo.
How severe is it? Scratched paint? A dent? Fender half ripped?
A proper repaint of a fender or bumper is gonna run $700-1500. This is without fixing any dents. If you have a late model German car, forget it. Any body work is going to cost $1500+. If any sensors are damaged, you can expect that to double or more.
It’d help a lot if you can give some details or simply post a clear pic(s) of the damage.
Make her pay the shop upfront. She doesn’t want to make an insurance claim so her rates don’t go up, just make sure she pays the repair shop. Just because she left a note doesn’t mean she’ll follow through and pay. Learned this the hard way when a guy hit my parked car, left me his info, then ghosted me when it was time to pick up the car.
I have a very high deductible. I just bumped someone at a light (came to stop, fiddling with my gps to look at traffic routes and rolled into them at maybe 2mph).
I would much rather pay the money out of pocket than put this on insurance.
Always go through insurance. If someone doesn’t want to use insurance they either don’t have it or are gonna try scamming you by calling every couple of months claiming their car still isn’t fixed and they just need a couple hundred more to fix it.
The fact that she left a note at all is promising. If she’s really a dead beat you probably wouldn’t have even gotten that.
I’d get the estimate and give her the chance to pay it first. But I wouldn’t wait too long for payment.
I was hit by a noninsured driver and my car got total. Now Iam getting the run around from tgis driver because she didnt have insurance and dosent want to pay for the damages. What must I do?
You are also likely eligible to receive diminished value to your vehicle (depending on your state) which I’m sure she won’t want to pay outside of insurance.
Depends on what the offer is. I’d take 3000$ right now if somebody wrecked mine out and happily let them walk unless I was in the vehicle when the wreck occurred. The way I see it I’ll go pay off the loan on this POS, then sell it for 400$ or so in scrap, then get a refund for the 1100$ or so I have prorated left on my insurance premium. It’d just about break me even, I’d actually be genuinely grateful if someone hit it tomorrow.
Go through your insurance unless the damage is so minimal that you wouldn’t have it fixed for yourself.
In other words, contact your insurance if you would have done so without finding the note.
I had a lady turn left in front of me last week. She was driving an older beat up car. My front bumper has a hole in it and rash all over one side. It’ll have to be replaced. Her first words were how she had the right away. I told her she didn’t cause the lights were green each way.
She then said can I just pay for it. I said no and called the cops. I thought for sure she didn’t have insurance, and she would balk at the repair once I had a quote. I’m figuring it’ll be over a thousand to put it right again.
Sure enough when the cops showed up to make the report she was back to saying it was my fault. Luckily with the police report, my insurance has found her to be at fault.
It was a good learning experience for my son who’s soon getting his license to see how the process works. I stayed calm and polite with the police (and the other driver as much as I could). She got pretty irate and ended up storming off once the reality set in.
You can file a police report without notifying insurance. Go in and fill out the form. This is a huge CYA. What if you get a quote on the damage and she doesn’t agree or ghosts you altogether? That is extremely common and not just among dirtbags…people see that body shop estimate and assume its a scam. Then you have the police report and have a leg to stand on if you need to call their insurance and file a claim.
I hate to say it, but you’ve got no choice. All she has to do is tell her insurance that she never hit you and has no ideas what you’re talking about. That’s enough to deny the claim because you have no proof. A letter with a phone number isn’t enough.
Having been down this road (not the hit and leave a note, but not wanting to involve insurance) you have the admission of guilt on a piece of paper, so it doesn’t hurt to get estimates, you will have to anyway.
If it was in a parking lot (at least where I live) the police won’t show up or get involved if no one was injured because it is private property.
Once you get the estimates, hit them with it. They will either pay or you will have to turn it into your insurance which will work it out with their insurance. Depending on the car and the damages, they may be enough to just get a new car.
Otherwise, yours gets fixed and you go about your day.
It never hurts to make an attempt. Plus, if you turn it in to your insurance they will likely raise your rate anyway so what do you have to lose.
Go through insurance always. Repairs are going to be more than she thinks and there are almost always supplements when the vehicle is torn down for repair. The first estimate is for visual damages only.
My solution is always “sorry, I’m filing a police report as well as calling my insurance company, and telling them that you don’t have insurance”.
Seems like you’re taking an unnecessary risk to save them some money.
I wouldn’t do it unless I knew the person.
If they are willing to pay a reputable body shop to fix it shouldn’t matter. Make sure you get quotes and agree on a shop. We had a friend hit our car. $7k in damage but didn’t want insurance to jack his rate up so he paid it.
I fell for this recently, because the at-fault driver was a coworker and the accident happened at work. I sent her the estimate and she started blowing me off. I sent her a payment demand letter this week via certified mail, and am preparing to file a lawsuit.
Learn from my mistake. File a police report while you still can.
Find out the costs and if there was damage to the frame. How bad was the hit? Is there only body work needed?
I would use email when possible, but if she covers the cost it’s a good idea to not use insurance. Who knows if this could affect you, it shouldn’t as you had absolutely no fault, but leave to insurance to jack your rates.
They pay the bill or you contact your insurance if they can’t cover repairs.
When you use insurance, your insurance may go up by $10 a month or $100 per month. Giving someone cash, even if it is two or three or $400 is typically cheaper than your insurance premiums going up.
Because insurance is mandatory, it is essentially like a ball and chain around people and paying for an accident, many times, will be cheaper than the increased insurance premiums.
On top of that, many people that have their bumpers, scratched or dented a little bit don’t really care and will gladly take two or $300 and never fix their car.
If you are concerned that the repairs will be $1,000 and the people will get cold feet and back out, I would consider your state laws about recording conversations and make sure you have some sort of evidence.
Get estimates from 2-3 shops, and double the highest. Then take the cash. Otherwise not worth the risk of what if.