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Car hit while parked up


MartinW

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My car was parked up at Gatwick airport for the last 2 weeks and upon returning to it the other day I found that someone had clipped my rear bumper and wheel arch but didn't leave a note or anything.

They've put a small dent and a scratch on the wheel arch and cracked the bumper slightly, it's quite small but definitely noticeable and I imagine would cost a couple of hundred quid to fix properly.

I've spoken to the car park customer service who have checked the CCTV and can't find any evidence of the accident. They've advised to report it to the police and my insurance.

Before I do that I thought I'd see if anyone else has been in a similar situation and what happened with them...

I currently have no claims to report when renewing my insurance and my worry is that if I report this one then for the next 5 years I'm going to take a hit on my premium for a relatively cheap repair job. What impact will claim like this usually have?

 

I have some not very good pics of the damage.

IMG_20180906_123255.jpg.7a24853fd72d45935ee8e9aeb7e1044b.jpgIMG_20180906_123300.jpg.bb0fe08ef4738b32d618a1672349a43f.jpg

 

And this is the car that was parked up next to me at the time, he has a scratch which seems to match up but I guess that's not enough proof that he did it...

IMG_20180906_123230.jpg.4eb0d6ac5e20a20250cb0262c3f586c2.jpg

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Bodywork is often more expensive than expected, may cost more than just a few £100 depending on where you go.

 

I probably wouldn't report it to Insurance, your excess is probably close to the cost of the repair, and you're premiums will most likely go up.

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Get a quote from a body shop. If it's sufficiently above your excess then go through insurance, but if you can stomach the cost then don't.

 

If you're worried about future premiums, try doing a couple of dummy quotes to see what sort of difference a non-fault claim will make. Some will say it significantly increases premiums for future years, others will report that it made no difference at all but to be honest when it comes to insurance there's so many variables that massively affect premiums that it really doesn't matter what anyone else's experience is frankly.

 

 

Also, as a side note, the paint on your bumper looks horrendous in those photos. Looks like it's been sprayed before so don't take it back there (unless you've deliberately gone for the orange peel finish...). So silver lining and all that. :lol:

Edited by ilogikal1
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I think it may have been sprayed before but that was before I got the car.

The paintwork in general needs some work (couple of small rush spots around wheel arches, stone chips on bonnet, parking dings in door and a general machine polish) but I was going to save up and get everything redone in one go properly, I guess the decision now is whether I should try and fix just this bit or live with it like that for a while until I've got the cash to get everything done at once

 

If anyone has any body shop recommendations around Oxford that would be appreciated.

 

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