Car Accident

[Lucy1979]

I was driving along a road at approximately 20mph (or less as I had not long turned a corner and was gathering speed).   The road has parking to both the left and right-hand side of the road.  I observed a car coming towards me which stopped and was waiting for me to pass in order to park on my left hand-side of the road.  As I approached closer, he started to turn towards me.  He started to come over to my left-hand side of the road so I performed an emergency stop but caught his driver's side wing with my driver's side wing.  We both parked up our cars on the left-hand side of the road and exchanged details. 
I know that this is the other driver's fault but is there any way he can get out of it???

[jake-the-peg]

Er yes.

He can lie outrageously and with the absence of witnesses and wing to wing damage the insurance companies won't know who to believe and you'll both end up loosing your no claims bonuses.

Hopefully though he'll say it was his fault

[Lucy1979]

That is what I was afraid of as I am only covered Third Party, Fire and Theft on my car I will have to fork out for repairs and the damage done and the car I have won't make it worth fixing!!!  I hope he turns out to be very honest!!!

[jake-the-peg]

Unfortunately you're a bit screwed either way in that case.

Even if he admits liability, if the cost of repair is more than 60% of the value of the vehicle the insurance company will write off the car and offer you their assessment of the car's value which you may not want.

If he does turn out honest you'll want to go and get a quote from one of the smaller bodyshops. If you go into a main dealer or one of the bigger garages you might get a quote that's more than the car's value.

[Lucy1979]

Just have to wait and see now I suppose.... how long does it normally take to receive the documents from the insurance company??