Hi all,
As I am sure many of you are aware via either Facebook or SBQE2's post (my dad) I ended up riding into the back of a van last wednesday and basically smashing up the front of my Kawasaki ER6f. The van was a work vehicle but the driver was very kind and basically said he aimed to not go through insurance and for us to settle it privately as his boss’ father in law carried out repairs to vehicles. This was good news for me as I only have third party fire and theft insurance so was therefore unable to claim for the damage to my bike (the accident was my fault). I rang the man on Friday and left a message on his voicemail thanking him for staying with me until the recovery van came and telling him to let me know when he had a quote for the van. Today (Monday) I received a text from the van driver saying “ ...I am sorry to tell you but for legal reasons I will have to go through your insurance...”. I have a £950 excess (£550 compulsory and £400 voluntary) on my insurance so I assume the damage to the van will not come to this much ( At the bottom of my essay is a link to an image of the damage to the van) so I’ll have to pay for the damage. I am a month away from my no claims bonus which would reduce my insurance from £700 to £400 approximately so obviously i would ideally not involve my insurers. If i inform my insurers but the value of the damage does not meet the excess does this still count as a claim? Do I have to go through my insurers if the other driver requests it?
I have never been in a collision before so any advice on this would be greatly appreciated
Link to image of the damage to the van : http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a.../vandamage.jpg
