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Someone dinged my car...
Disrupter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So last Friday as I was leaving work, I noticed that there was some scratches on the back left side of my car and a small dent. Now, admittedly, I am bad at noticing stuff, so I wasn't positive that this was a completely new issue, however I never noticed it before. I get home and my wife asked what happened to my car, and since she usually notices everything, its pretty apparent that this happened Friday while I was at work.
I didnt notice it when I went to lunch but did on my way out, so chances are it happened between like 11-4pm on Friday in my work parking lot.
What are my options? Did I mess up by not calling right away? I had planned on talking to my HR at work this morning to see if they have any policy or if perhaps my companies insurance would take care of it instead of mine.
Basically I want to get it fixed while costing me the minimum amount out of pocket and causing the least damage to my insurance. Should I contact my HR and see what they have to say? Should I file a police report? Should I contact my insurance? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
I didnt notice it when I went to lunch but did on my way out, so chances are it happened between like 11-4pm on Friday in my work parking lot.
What are my options? Did I mess up by not calling right away? I had planned on talking to my HR at work this morning to see if they have any policy or if perhaps my companies insurance would take care of it instead of mine.
Basically I want to get it fixed while costing me the minimum amount out of pocket and causing the least damage to my insurance. Should I contact my HR and see what they have to say? Should I file a police report? Should I contact my insurance? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
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Its a mid-small company, but we have a lot of contractors who park in our lot, so if one of them was responsible, simply trying to ask around wouldnt get me very far. Ill contact HR asking if there are any cameras that may have caught the person. Beyond that, do I file a police report, or not?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Is major damage involved or is it quite literally a ding? Dings happen. It sucks, but they happen. Want them to happen less? Park in the farthest corner of the lot and hope that your car doesn't then get broken into.
I contacted HR, they do not believe the cameras reach out to where I was parked, but they are looking into it. Based on the replies I suppose calling the cops is not an appropriate response. Would the next step be to contact my insurance? What sort of impact does having them cover have on my rates? Am I held responsible for this in their eyes? Does filing a police report help when it comes to the insurance?
Ive never had an insurance claim before, or been involved in any sort of accident, so this is all very new to me.
My deductable is 500.
The repair might exceed that, but likely not by much. It depends on if theyd have to replace the entire panel. Im not sure if $500 is even worth the repair, its minor cosmetic damage, nothing too crazy, its just annoying because I drove for like 6 years on my old car without any incident, and I have this one for two months
Also...I just did call my insurance company. Which depending on Thantos's response...im regretting? They said it was considered no fault and wanted to set up an estimate/repair, but I told them I needed to determine if the damage was worth my deductable to take care of. Im guessing the reason I shouldn't have called was because now this is on file with them and could hurt my rates/future incidents?
Then again i don't drive a really nice car.
If you want to find out you could check your policy (they should mail a copy out to you either yearly or bi-yearly at least. It's a fatter renewal envelope cause it has 10 more sheets of paper in it, or might be available through the online portal of your insurer.
Im hoping maybe I can polish out the scratches and just deal with the dent. (I didnt even notice the dent right away...so...maybe ill stop noticing it now that Ive seen it?
Ugh...now Im worried i messed up in calling them. Because they gave me a claim number and said they were closing it even though I didnt actually have them do anything. So, im pretty sure they took this incident down on record. Whether or not that was for my convenience so I can go ahead and get them to pay for it if I decide to get it fixed and just pay the deductable. Or whether it was to dick me over in the future...I have no idea.
Depending on the jurisdiction, and you insurance, hit and runs and/or vandalism must be reported in order for you to use your insurance to repair the damage.
If it's just a dent, but didn't go through the paint/clear coat, that's up to you - still may be over 500.
The general advice with insurance is they are not your friend. It's done, so just something to keep in mind for the future. If there are other people involved - you getting hit/being hit - yes, always call them. Just property damage sometimes it's best to hold off.
If you do claim vs insurance your premiums are going to go up and that's never a good thing and that's why most posters here advice against it.
Unless ofcourse something like this happens.
Chances are you are so out of luck on this one and will have to pay to repair the damage out of your pocket.
No, you can file a police report if a crime is committed. You can call the police and tell them things and say things like "I just want this on the record" but that doesn't really mean anything other than, by default, whenever you call the police everything is recorded so it is "on the record."
For something like this there is absolutely no reason to call the cops. Get it fixed yourself or call your insurance if you really want, but the latter is really never worth the hassle for something as minor as a door ding and is likely to cost far more either upfront or in the long run.
edit: And that isn't to say that this isn't potentially a crime, but it's so minor that I seriously doubt they'd bother to write one up. Unless you can prove who did it, and that they did it with intent, there isn't a whole lot you can do criminally, but you could definitely get their insurance to pay for it.
And since the insurance folks asked if I filed a report for it, it seems like its a common, appropriate thing to do in this situation.
Right now my HR is still going to check the security cameras to see if there is a small chance they go out that far, but until then Im not going to do much.
With the insurance companies I deal with, calling and asking about a hit and run is almost certain to leave your status and rates unchanged. Even filing a claim on a hit and run will usually not affect your rates. It's usually treated like windshield claim where a single incident is ignored, but several would be a problem. One claim can come into play at the very low end (lots of claims and/or DUIs) or at the very high end with esoteric rules, but not so much in the middle.
Can you post pictures of the damage? There's a lot that can be taken out with elbow grease and touch-up paint. Conversely, seemingly minor damage can get very expensive to repair.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
If an agent suddenly decides to raise your rates because you called him on questions of your policy, you need to drop that insurance now. It doesnt happen in any of the respectable insurance groups.
Matter of fact you should contact your agent, get advice from him on how to proceed. For example some insurance agents want a police report when you file a claim. Sometimes your policy won't cover the damage you recieved on private land. It won't hurt to ask, this accident wasnt your fault, and thus will not raise your rates. Accidents like these are the reason you have insurance in the first place. And insurance policies are often long and confusing and often have things in them that may be hard to understand, there is a reason you have an agent. And typically that agent gives you all sorts of contact information.
I have called my agent several times and gotten reimbursed for towing when i have breakdowns. When I was driving a lot in my previous job that happened 5 times. They even reimbursed my towing when I broke down out of state in a snowstorm and was towed to the nearest repair center. (They only reimburse for towing to the nearest place you can get your vehicle fixed). They have never raised my rates over it, and have paid promptly. My brother works in the insurance industry and did sell auto insurance. The only way you could get your rates jacked is if you were in an at fault accident, or you got a ticket. And this was based on a points system, 2 points for an accident, 1 point for a ticket. Over time the points would go down, and it would take 3 points to raise your rates on a typical policy. (note that an accident, may give you 2 points for the accident itself, then additional points for the tickets the police hand you for whatever you were doing wrong that caused it).
In this case, you are not at-fault, so there is no harm in talking to your agent.
And before I forget: TAKE PICTURES.
@mushroomsick a police report will probably not change that situation. An officer likely wont bother taking the time to give them a visit or call, and it definatly isnt worth getting a court order over a measly accident. That process is more costly than your repair bill.
At the time my anecdote took place, the people you'd have to deal with would just keep making excuses about stuff like security tape footage until you gave up. Obviously, everyone's mileage will vary on this, but sometimes some sort official documentation, like a police report, makes the situation real for people like that and may result in actually getting some cooperation. That being said, It wasn't worth the trouble of a police report for me and probably isn't here either, but different people, different principles/values/etc.
If your insurance is going to pay for it, you have no reason to perform a witch hunt to find out who dinged your car. It isnt worth your time. Often if your company isnt forthcoming with the video when you ask the first and second time, to them it isnt worth looking up. Maybe their tapes arent clearly labeled, maybe it isnt worth it digging through multiple hours of recording to find that 10 second moment where someone dinged your car. And most often the company you work for wont just give you the tape. The security camera isnt there to protect your car, its there to protect the company. If you manage to get it great, but I wouldnt count on it and often it isnt worth your time.
Even if you get the tape there is a good chance its stored in too low a resoultion to make out anything other than the make and model of the car, which in a company might point you to the right person, but if a lot of guests and customers come in and out, tough luck. Take that video above, what was the license plate # of the suv?
Disrupter has no risk of a rate increase over this. With newer cars fixing a scratch can cost you more than 500$
My old place had expensive cameras hooked to a DVR/HDD system, but set it to just record over when the disks were full. Which with several cameras recording 24/7 was a fairly often occurrence.
When I made my request for security footage, it was less than an hour after the incident had occurred.
You can follow through with the police report and insurance, which is fine, but note it may increase your rates. "Some stranger dinged it in a parking lot" is the standard excuse used to insurance companies. Do you know how many people do the damage themselves, only to blame it on the faceless stranger? Sometimes unintentionally.
But I regress. Is the potential rate increase, and your deductible, more dollar value than the repairs? That's obviously been asked in this thread and something you need to consider carefully.
If by some miracle you can find the faulty party, your insurance company will aggressively get the money from them. I've had a similar situation and I was able to track down a neighboring car that has marks that looked like my scrapped paint. By finding that guilty party, and having police get her to confess, I paid nearly nothing on a $1200+ repair. Why so expensive? If damage is significant enough, they replace the entire panel for that car. Costly.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Industry standard is to keep all CCTV footage for a minimum of 90days before erasing/overwriting.
Of course, if they are PTZ cameras, it is a pain to go thru the video and almost impossible to actually find something that happens as fast as a door ding.
This place was not up to any laws, codes, standards, or general well-being.
Here is the real "industry standard"
"We have them because we have cheaper insurance rates with them installed, we dont care if they actually work. Bob from barely above minimum wage security desk only changes the tapes when he feels like it".
This right here, if your insurance company raises your rates due to a non at-fault accident, find a new insurance company. With the amount of competition in the US auto insurance company, them raising your rates for a non at-fault accident are extremely slim. Many also have dollar threshold amounts as to whether or not you see an increase on at-fault accidents as well.
PSN : Bolthorn
Unless, of course, you live in a "no fault" state. Oh the ire I have over no fault.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
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