[zaks]

This incident happened when I was returning from work. While approaching a junction where I had to turn left my car left orvm brushed a Honda CRV which was parked just a few feet away from the intersection. That guy was very upset and I ended up shelling out 2000.

The damage to his car was that it got a few mild scratches around the rear wheel area. He was adamant that I get it repainted at a honda station but I negotiated with him for the above amount.

My question is, was the accident entirely my fault or some of it could be attributed to his illegal parking?
Would it have been better for me to ask him to claim insurance from ny insurer for this accident? Because I have paid approx 15k for insurance and and fell stupid at not using that faclitity.

Minor expenses like these add up to a significant sum over a year so is it wise to always not to claim insurance? what is the cut off value when it makes sense to claim insurance than shelling out on your own?

[abhinav.gupta88]

If it was an illegal parking , you should not have paid him a single penny.

About the insurance claim , you get no claim bonuses if you dont claim insurance which can be then used on your next car as discounts.

Arey you sure he will get it repainted. He might go in for some touching / polishing

If i were in your place , i would have given my card and told him to send the bill across to me ( max upto 2000 )

Atleast i would be assured that he is getting the work done for what he is claiming the money.

[Steeroid]

If the CRV was illegally parked, you should've shown him a finger and asked him to take a walk. And claimed money from him for a damaged mirror.

[GTO]

If it was an illegal parking , you should not have paid him a single penny.

Even if it was properly parked, you do NOT have to pay anyone money, from a legal standpoint. Register a police complaint & ONLY if the matter escalates, let the insurance companies haggle it out amongst themselves. After all, what are we paying them thousands of rupees in premium for? Again, you do NOT have to pay any other car owner money. Even if it was indeed your fault.

Remember that few go through the long procedures for small nicks & dents.

[zaks]

Originally Posted by GTO

Even if it was properly parked, you do NOT have to pay anyone money, from a legal standpoint. Register a police complaint & ONLY if the matter escalates, let the insurance companies haggle it out amongst themselves. After all, what are we paying them thousands of rupees in premium for? Again, you do NOT have to pay any other car owner money. Even if it was indeed your fault.

Remember that few go through the long procedures for small nicks & dents.

There was no NO-PARKING sign there though it was about 10 ft from the intersection but his parking was not haphazard. But isn't there a rule about not to park within 50 mts or so from intersection?

So what is the procedure to be followed in case I decide not to pay him and allow him to claim from my insurance if at all he does. Do I pass him my insurance numbers and my contact number?

[Sudipto-S-Team]

Originally Posted by zaks

So what is the procedure to be followed in case I decide not to pay him and allow him to claim from my insurance if at all he does. Do I pass him my insurance numbers and my contact number?

No. Unless it's a serious accident where there is an injury etc, you are supposed to do nothing (if your car is not damaged at all). You just drive on. He is supposed to note your registration number, go to a police station, lodge a complaint and then claim his insurance for repairs where he has to quote the police diary number etc. Then his insurance company will get in touch with your insurance company (through the police and RTO etc) and settle the matter between them.
If you want to be very gentlemanlike you can give him your phone number.
Now this is the official rule.
Unofficially anything can happen depending on who the two drivers are (if it's one thug and one gentleman, the thug wins), what the situation was etc.
You shouldn't have paid unless he looked very threatening.

[Swifty2008]

Originally Posted by Sudipto-S-Team

No. Unless it's a serious accident where there is an injury etc, you are supposed to do nothing (if your car is not damaged at all). You just drive on. He is supposed to note your registration number, go to a police station, lodge a complaint and then claim his insurance for repairs where he has to quote the police diary number etc. Then his insurance company will get in touch with your insurance company (through the police and RTO etc) and settle the matter between them.
If you want to be very gentlemanlike you can give him your phone number.
Now this is the official rule.
Unofficially anything can happen depending on who the two drivers are (if it's one thug and one gentleman, the thug wins), what the situation was etc.
You shouldn't have paid unless he looked very threatening.

Normally people tend to pay-off the damages on the spot.

Can you please provide further details on the proceedure to be followed incase of minor accidents?

[sukiwa]

@ zaks:

OT: Two incidents/accidents in less than two months. What's distracting your attention from road, traffic? Just be cautious & stay focused on road while driving.

[GTO - Touring]

Originally Posted by zaks

So what is the procedure to be followed in case I decide not to pay him and allow him to claim from my insurance if at all he does. Do I pass him my insurance numbers and my contact number?

If the matter is getting out of hand and the opposite party is aggressive / adamant on extorting money out of you, walk into the nearest police station and officially record the incident. Exchange registration & insurance details. Your garage, insurance company & agent will take care of the rest.

[zaks]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

@ zaks:

OT: Two incidents/accidents in less than two months. What's distracting your attention from road, traffic? Just be cautious & stay focused on road while driving.

Why do you say that?

But my question was what would be the gain/reduction in insurance premiums if I don't claim? for ex: If I am paying 10,000 per year then would it be if I started claiming the insurance?

Yeah, he was a little threatening and also I was not clear about the rules.

[rohan_fonseca]

Originally Posted by GTO - Touring

If the matter is getting out of hand and the opposite party is aggressive / adamant on extorting money out of you, walk into the nearest police station and officially record the incident. Exchange registration & insurance details. Your garage, insurance company & agent will take care of the rest.

In case of FIR are the vehicles in question impounded?

[m4ugr8]

You should have not paid him a single penny, whether parked legally or not. Happened with me also when i was reversing my car into a parking spot, a guy suddenly got his car in the way in order to occupy that spot, result was a small dent on his right fender, Easily removable by Dry denting. His car was a Civic, i was in my swift.

But the guy told me pay me for the whole fender plus painting, I dont repair things i get them replaced.

I asked him two questions

1. Is your car insured??? If yes then talk to them, if no then let me call the police, you cant drive a vehicle on the road without insurance.
2.Secondly i showed him a little attitude. had too, I told him why the hell do you buy and drive such expensive cars when you cant afford to get them repaired, Its better you buy a vehicle which you can maintain as well.

He quitely reversed his car and left.

[zaks]

Still nobody has been able to answer my trade off question i.e, when a claim is made on my insurance what would my premium jack up to?

Why should we be worried about anything when we have insurance other than for safety reasons??

[sonirohit]

Originally Posted by zaks

Still nobody has been able to answer my trade off question i.e, when a claim is made on my insurance what would my premium jack up to?

Why should we be worried about anything when we have insurance other than for safety reasons??

In Insurance there are 2 parts - one Liability (Or 3rd Party as we know it commonly) and second is OD or Own Damage.
Per the IRDA rules - an insurance company can give discounts only on OD premiums - which basically means you will get NCB discount unless until you claim OD. So in such cases where damage to your vehicle is minimal you can get it repaired and write off the loss. If there is a liability claim - it does not have an impact on your NCB.

Coming to the question "How do you determine if you should be filing a claim or if there is a cutoff amount above which you should claim an insurance". Now that would depend on a number of factors -
a - Extent of the damage and estimated cost to repair
b - How much of the repair cost you will have to bear if repairs have to be carried out (All the repairs are not covered for 100% - ex rubber parts are covered uptill 50%). So you would need an estimate that out of the damages how much your insurance policy would cover.
c - Voluntary Deductible you carry on your insurance policy (deductible is the amt which you will have to pay out of your pocket - insurance company would need you to pay some amount and they would pay an amount in excess of your deductible)
d - The time you have kept the vehicle and the current premium & NCB bonus you have on your insurance.

If say your premium for current year is 10,000 and you have had this vehicle for 2 years now - you can predict for next year the premium should be close to 6,000 (The car's insured value would have come down and at the same time you would be eligible for a NCB discount of 30-35%) so if you don't claim any own damage - for the next year you save 4,000 as your insurance premium.

Now suppose that you meet with an accident - and say your bumper needs to be replaced - assuming that the cost of replacing a bumper is 3500 and labor is 500. The total cost is 4000. Obviously - you'd have to shell out 500 as deductible and Insurance would not pay for 100% of the repairs so insurance would cover you for about 3200 and rest you will have to pay out of your pocket.


Now in such a case it'll be better if you get the work done on your own rather than claiming an insurance because if you claim insurance it'll cost you 4800 in the long run. 800 for the part you would have to pay and 4000 is the discount you will lose out for next year's premium.

At this point there is one more thing which comes into play - which is "For how long you intend to keep the car?" If in such a case you plan to sell off your car shortly after the accident - it'll make sense for you to claim the insurance and get the repairs carried out. However if you plan to buy a new car after you sell off this car - then it's better not to go for an insurance claim. You can transfer the NCB from your old car to the new car that you will be buying, the first year premium of a new car is high so a 35% discount you'll get is going to translate into a higher figure.

So that's the long and short of it. Actually there is no magical figure or formula that you can apply to find out if you need to go for insurance claim or not. You will have to determine it for yourself.

[d_himan]

Originally Posted by m4ugr8

1. Is your car insured??? If yes then talk to them, if no then let me call the police, you cant drive a vehicle on the road without insurance.
2.Secondly i showed him a little attitude. had too, I told him why the hell do you buy and drive such expensive cars when you cant afford to get them repaired, Its better you buy a vehicle which you can maintain as well.

He quitely reversed his car and left.

cool, what immaculate logic! I will shamelessly plagarize the same!

The only enemy I find is 'Time'. I had to pick my mom-in-law once from Central Station in Chennai, slightly cracked the tail lamp of a Tavera in a particularly tight parking spot with my rear view mirror . Two thugs got down and demanded 2000 bucks for the entire tail light assembly. Argued it down to 500 bucks and rushed to the platform. Where's the time to file a complaint :( . Plus one of those guys had a rock in his hand to smash my tail lamps, and they were pretty well built.