Was rear-ended on the freeway when the person behind didn’t stop in time. Luckily low speeds and everyone is okay and there is just some bumper damage. I placed a claim with the person’s insurance company but the guy wants to handle this outside of insurance.
His insurance company (Mercury) called me and said they can either do it through insurance or outside of insurance and it is up to me. They provided me with a body shop they work with.
So… what to do? Go through insurance and forget about it or try to work with the guy and have him pay. The guy called today saying he wants to pay. Down side working directly with the guy?
Car is a Volvo S90, leased. A little over a month old.
Don’t have an estimate yet.
Contact a local Volvo dealer and take it where they recommend (or use their body shop) for an estimate. Give guy a chance to decide what he wants to do. Keep all receipts etc for lease end regardless of who pays.
Figures. Then I’d do a little research and find the best foreign car repair shop in the area. If they’re fixing Mercedes, Audi, bmw, Porsche etc, that’s a good place to look.
Point is, you don’t need to settle for the shop his insurance recommends. Not your problem.
A similar thing happened to me. After I sent him the estimate, the guy fell off the face of the earth, ignoring phone calls and texts.
I ended up submitting to my insurance, paying the deductible. He claimed and told his insurance he was never there. I had a picture of his license plate and the time and place it was taken (thanks, iPhone!). Should have taken a picture of him too. Anyway, my insurance paid, got it fixed, then went after his insurance and successfully subrogated the claim. A few weeks later, I got a check for the deductible.
So I would not be so concerned about him, and more concerned about getting it fixed properly.
I don’t know how this works, but the incident may also get reported and show up in Carfax when you go to trade.
Estimate came back at slightly less than 2k. Haven’t talk to the guy to see what he wants to do. But body shop said there could be additional items once they actually take the bumper off and look.
Yeah, that is why I feel better going through insurance. If they find something else then I would need to call the guy again and have him charge more. Blah.
Ask around, get a good independent body shop and get it done through Mercury. Yeah, it would be nice to try to work it out with the other guy but in today’s world it could turn out to be a lot of extra crap. If his insurance is willing to cover you should be good to go, just don’t sign a release till it’s completed to your satisfaction.
This happened to us with a newly leased BMW. The guy took responsibility, then after he wasn’t happy with wanting to fix it at our auto shop, he denied it, and we had to go through insurance. Luckily, we had a witness even though he denied it and lied, even after we sent the email stating that he took responsibility. Always get as much evidence no matter what they say at the scene.
go through his insurance, not doing so is higher risk to you, your car needs to be put back into the condition it was before, which is almost brand new and trying to do a side deal because he doesn’t want to go through his insurance really isn’t your problem.
Good advice here. Sounds like you’re trying to be kind about it (good on you) but you need to protect yourself. For that much damage, I’d go through insurance. If it was $500, it’d be different. $2k+ is a lot of liability.
Kind on someone who’s trying to do unkind thing and hide his fender bender from his insurance so his rate doesn’t go up but someone else will pay for that in the end
Well I went through insurance.
Took the car into the recommended body shop (pretty reputable). Now they are saying there is no ETA from volvo on the new bumper. So the body shop is instead trying to fix the old. They are open to putting a new bumper but just not available, fishy or maybe the car is too new (however doesn’t make sense).
