Remarkably, despite driving for more than 30 years, I had my first ever contact today - and I'm therefore heading for my first ever involvement with insurance other than paying my premiums.

I got rear-ended today (ooerr missus) - woman not paying attention went straight into me, stationary at the back of a line of traffic, hit at about 15 mph, plenty of good witnesses, details collected from them and the blind assailant who doesn't deny responsibility.

I went to a local main-dealer body shop for a quick look and its about a grand's worth of parts, paint and labour to put right.

They said "we'll put our claims handler in touch with you, its straight no-fault so it won't cost you anything, you'll get a decent courtesy car whilst the work is being done and save you all of the hassle".

So my question is this:

Given that this all seems too easy and painless- where is the catch?

 

The the other party has (or does) accept liability there really won't be a catch, unless the chosen body shop is staffed by Stevie Wonder sorts!

If on the other hand the third party does want to be an arse and makes the whole thing harder than it needs to be then you'll have to be verbose with your claim statements and get as much as possible from your witness etc.

If it's the former; then sit back and enjoy what you've been paying all those years for!

 

Who are "they"? The main dealer or your insurance company?

 

When it comes to insurance claims against an at fault party there are no catches, any loss of earnings can be claimed and legal costs are crazy so insurers will pay out no fuss. Plus a rear end collision is a straight forward £2-3k compensation claim if you're so inclined. Annoying the claimant by not making it as painless as possible is only going to make one more likely to think balls to it I'll claim.

The real catch is you now have an accident repaired car which may or may not be as good as it was pre-accident.

 

I assume you have told your insurers?
If not, you need to ASAP - they will normally sort out all the repairs etc. And.....you need to inform them regardless of whether it's your fault or not.

And I suspect the "decent courtesy car" will in fact be a hire car which the other parties insurers will be shafted for!

 

Tell the insurance company ASAP.
They may well ask their own body shop to do the work. You may/may not accept that as you wish. For example it may infringe the corrosion warranty if you don't go through a dealership.
You've been rear ended so its near on impossible for them to put it as a fault claim against you (the other party would need independant witnesses to say you did something wrong a video evidence for example). Last time I has taken from behind ( ) They didn't even bother getting me to pay the excess and claim it back on my behalf.
Depending on the company they may take your statement over the phone or ask you to supply a written statement. I took a bunch of just in case photos last time it happened but never really needed them.

After that your insurance company will contact the third parties insurance company to claim back the excess, damage (so it doesn't affect your claims history) any loss of earnings (have you had to take time off work for example) and injury.

Expect to start getting the ambulance chasers ringing you up now. If you have got back/neck pains its best to get them seen by a doctor earlier rather than later. A good set of stretching exersizes and a few ibuprofen will sort you out but it can be very painful too (3 hours on a plane with little scope for stretching had me in serious pain shortly after a rear end shunt)

 

I got hit in the rear whilst stationary at a red traffic light in March last year, claim still on going and no claim bonus still lost as until the claim is settled they won't give me back my NCB so I have currently got 6 years instead of 10, I used a body shop of my choice which seems to make to process much slower, good luck with your claim, hope its easier than this.

 

I had similar with the NSX, I refused to use a back street garage who wanted to panel beat the aluminium rear wing.
Held out for a while and had an NSX specialist repair it in the end.
Was never 100% happy with the repair and this was one of the reasons for selling in the end.
I then declared the damage to any interested party and had to wait and wait until it sold, eventually to a buyer who only saw the car after his grease monkeys collected it.
Payment was made by bank transfer and cleared before they even came to view the car. (Not eBay though)

 

I guess the catch is that your insurance is inexplicably more from now on.

 

"They" are the main dealer - which is why it seems suspiciously easy (suspicious that it would be that easy..)