First Accident/Rear Ending - What do I do?

[JordanB]

Hey everyone! I hope you are well.
Super sad, had my beautiful 320d for about 4 months and now shes at the inspection yard. All I can say is Im happy I bought BMW, my car was far better off than his.

At about 7pm last night I was badly rear ended at a light. Other Driver admitted complete fault to myself, the officer on scene taking statements and the towing company. I made sure my car sat until I called Naked Insurance, I told them I was rear ended and my car needed to be towed, they approved the tow and gave authorization for the towing company on scene to tow my car. I emptied it out and they towed it. I then went home.

Today what do I do? Do I need to submit a claim with my insurer or wait for his insurer? I know I need to go to the police station to get a case number since the officer on scene yesterday didnt give me one.

There were also items in the car that have been damaged, namely a computer monitor I had in my car, as well as my sunglasses. How do I claim for these since its his fault? I also dont know what to do to make sure my car is fully taken care of, Im worried something like the gearbox has taken damage since I slid forward quite a lot, also the accident happened on my exhaust so worried it cracked somewhere.

I got the other drivers ID and licence disk as a photo.

 

[MR_Y]

Sorry to hear.

My feedback is based on my experience:

In 2012, a truck reversed into my A4.
I did not log a claim with my insurance, since I assumed I could get the truck's company insurance to pay me.
What followed was a lot of shit slinging.
I was taken from pillar to post and the company and their insurance just didn't give a damn. The owner of the company was abusive to me on the phone a week later, after first staying that his driver was at fault.

Anyway, I called my insurance and logged a claim. They fixed my car and fought the insurance case with the truck company. They won the case and refunded me my excess. However, my accident history (claims history) remained for that incident, even though they won the case and paid me back my excess. However, given that it was back in 2012, it no longer reflects on my current history that is disclosed for last X years.

My advice - claim from your insurance.

Regarding Naked Insurance, they will give you a choice of panelbeaters. You can specify that you would prefer a BMW approved panelbeater that is on their approved list.

 

[momo1]

Eish sorry man, Don't think you'll win with the sunglasses and monitor.
If the other party is at fault your insurance will claim damages from his insurance or if he isn't insured they will sue him.
You need to get a case number and submit a claim form to your insurance but communicate the incident to them before hand.

 

[TurboLlew]

1. You pay your insurance company to sort this out. Don't stress: They will deal with everyone involved including the other insurance company and any direct comms with the other party.
2. DO NOT communicate with the other party and especially don't make any deals with them on the side to repair privately
3. Log this on eNatis (nobody died so you can do this online). The platform is a little bit iffy but persevere and just save your responses. Take screenshots as you're going to avoid the frustration if the system is acting up. Use Chrome from the get-go. Draw a little diagram in powerpoint (in this case super easy) that you can upload. This gives you a place to officially log your info, their info and your story. You will get your case number/incident number as well without having to go into the station

 

[TBP88]

You'll claim from your insurance and have to pay your excess. You can probably go after him in small claims court for that excess if he's actively admitted fault. but realistically speaking the hassle thereof outweighs the size of your excess.

I had almost the EXACT same thing happen. Just contact insurance. They'll sort it out and you'll likely pay the excess direct to the repair centre (so say the repair costs R10k, your excess is R2k, you'll pay R2k when you collect your fixed car).
My best advise is take a friend with, and schedule collection for early on a Saturday or on some other time when closing time of the shop is far and when you have 30-45mins to view the car on your own. Bring a microfibre cloth with too just to wipe away yourself in case it's just dirt. And THOROUGHLY inspect the work. It's far easier to go with a mate, have a proper look, and say "we are happy" and drive off than it is to go, pick it up, get home and have a look and realize it looks shit then have to go back etc. etc.

ITO sunnies and computer screen, sadly the odds of you managing to claim that back are essentially nil, just have to take it on the chin.

GL and let us know how things go!

 

[TurboLlew]

My broker has always returned my excess when other parties were at fault. This does take some time (6-8 months) but it does happen in my case anyway. You may not necessarily have to take them to court yourself. Either way not worth the effort unless you have a very big excess for some reason.

Depending on your household/out and about cover you may win with the sunglasses... I know I am covered for this in some clause/product somewhere. With the monitor it's doubtful.

Your car really doesn't look that bad TBH. It's likely going to be just non-structural damage. My wife had a far bigger double shunt while stationary and her gearbox etc was fine. Any ARC will check out the car thoroughly including checking the gearbox, measuring specific points on the chassis and things like that. You should be provided a report at the end but go and check in and speak to the techs while the car is being repaired as well. You may spot things that they can correct easily in terms of alignment, parts that look worse for wear and should be replaced (they can request authorisation from the assessor and insurance) and by the end you are also not overwhelmed trying to take delivery and then looking at a million different things (while perhaps also not really knowing what to look for). If you are not happy, you don't sign off and take the car back until you are. Your insurer will have your back on this.

 

[MR_Y]

Any updates on the Naked insurance claim so far?

 

[individj]

side note...is this car auto...as mentioned above ...make sure the gearbox is checked...had a friend go through a nightmare with gearbox after rear ending in gear.

 

[jayaynikkal]

I had to claim recently from Naked Insurance. These are steps I had to follow:

1) Called Naked Insurance straight after the incident.
2) They sent a tow truck and the car was taken to an inspection yard where a report was compiled.
3) Within 24 hours, I had to open a "Damage Report", probably a "Police Report" in your case, at the local police station assigned to the area at which the accident took place.
4) Submit a claim via the app - was required to submit the official report, any supporting documentation and a video recording of myself explaining what had happened.
5) Shortly after, you will be contacted by a Naked representative and an assessor on the way forward.

Note - I couldn't choose which panel beater I wanted as they said they factor in the distance from your house to the panel beater but they did assign me a reputable shop and the repairs I needed to get done was minimal.

Both my assessor and Naked representative were extremely help especially the rep. If you have any particular questions or requests, it's best to speak to the Naked rep directly - i.e in my case where I wanted to buy back the damaged part from Naked.

 

[JordanB]

Sorry for disappearing and not giving updates, been dealing with this and work. Thank you to everyone for their advice and support!

Updates so far:

• Naked took about 3/4 days to go inspect the vehicle, a further 2 days for part sourcing to be complete (they did this over the weekend which was surprising)
• Naked will not cover the items in my car, but the other driver who was at fault is putting my items through on his claim on 3rd party.
• Naked is transporting my vehicle to the panel beater I believe today to have the repairs done

Need help with this, if anyone knows of, or is a "professional" in regards to these things, Naked is giving me hassles about doing a gearbox inspection, they said the damage was minor and my gearbox should be fine. But the thing is, I was in park when my car was hit and slid forward. I want to have a professional CC'd in on the email to say that they believe it should be inspected. Not sure who can help with this.

 

[TBP88]

Sorry for disappearing and not giving updates, been dealing with this and work. Thank you to everyone for their advice and support!

Updates so far:

• Naked took about 3/4 days to go inspect the vehicle, a further 2 days for part sourcing to be complete (they did this over the weekend which was surprising)
• Naked will not cover the items in my car, but the other driver who was at fault is putting my items through on his claim on 3rd party.
• Naked is transporting my vehicle to the panel beater I believe today to have the repairs done

Need help with this, if anyone knows of, or is a "professional" in regards to these things, Naked is giving me hassles about doing a gearbox inspection, they said the damage was minor and my gearbox should be fine. But the thing is, I was in park when my car was hit and slid forward. I want to have a professional CC'd in on the email to say that they believe it should be inspected. Not sure who can help with this.

I assume it's being repaired at an ARC? If so they should be able to get it to a workshop to read codes at the very least?

 

[JordanB]

I assume it's being repaired at an ARC? If so they should be able to get it to a workshop to read codes at the very least?

It's being taken to JCF Auto Collision Repairs. Im worried there was damage or it accelerated wear on the gearbox.

 

[TBP88]

It's being taken to JCF Auto Collision Repairs. Im worried there was damage or it accelerated wear on the gearbox.

It's entirely possible that it accelerated damage, but you can't really claim anything like that, sadly. It'd have to be physically inspected for any impact damage, i.e. is the casing damaged at all, if that's fine I doubt it took a massive hit from the pictures you sent. generally unless the driveshafts are pushed in, or the rear impact is massive, it's hugely unlikely anything on the drivetrain will get busted.

 

[MR_Y]

Say that the gearbox is making a funny noise and it started after the accident.

 

[MR_Y]

Sorry for disappearing and not giving updates, been dealing with this and work. Thank you to everyone for their advice and support!

Updates so far:

• Naked took about 3/4 days to go inspect the vehicle, a further 2 days for part sourcing to be complete (they did this over the weekend which was surprising)
• Naked will not cover the items in my car, but the other driver who was at fault is putting my items through on his claim on 3rd party.
• Naked is transporting my vehicle to the panel beater I believe today to have the repairs done

Need help with this, if anyone knows of, or is a "professional" in regards to these things, Naked is giving me hassles about doing a gearbox inspection, they said the damage was minor and my gearbox should be fine. But the thing is, I was in park when my car was hit and slid forward. I want to have a professional CC'd in on the email to say that they believe it should be inspected. Not sure who can help with this.

@JordanB any update?

 

[JordanB]

@JordanB any update?

Got my car back yesterday. Almost 6 weeks after the incident. Spoke to the repairer at length about why it took so long. Kind of let them off the hook given their reasons made logical business sense. Annoying but fair. Still super unhappy with Naked though, given a lot of the waiting ( around 2-3 weeks) came from them and their mistakes and trying to avoid costs.

In the end the gearbox was inspected. BMW said its fine, Naked paid for it as they should have (for context they messaged me and tried to tell me if there was no damage I would have to pay for the inspection which I refused to do). They didnt end up getting back to me regarding my complaint so I plan on going to post about them again.

 

[TurboLlew]

Got my car back yesterday. Almost 6 weeks after the incident. Spoke to the repairer at length about why it took so long. Kind of let them off the hook given their reasons made logical business sense. Annoying but fair. Still super unhappy with Naked though, given a lot of the waiting ( around 2-3 weeks) came from them and their mistakes and trying to avoid costs.

In the end the gearbox was inspected. BMW said its fine, Naked paid for it as they should have (for context they messaged me and tried to tell me if there was no damage I would have to pay for the inspection which I refused to do). They didnt end up getting back to me regarding my complaint so I plan on going to post about them again.

I feel like insurers have gotten MUCH worse the past few months in terms of trying to avoid paying as well as how they are trying to have sub-standard repairs done. Also had another mate underwritten by dotsure (the broker changed underwriters from hollard for some bizarre reason and he didn't pay much attention to it at the time). They literally didn't know what they were doing and were not even listening to the logic presented by the broker. 3 assessors and many ombudsman threats later, they admitted that they had messed up and STARTED repairs months later... not before making him somehow pay a portion of the excess upfront. I would not have believed it if I didn't see the mail trail. It would have been a nightmare if he didn't have other cars.

If anyone is underwritten by Dotsure for vehicle insurance they should IMMEDIATELY switch IMHO. Let them stick to pet medical aid.

 

[JordanB]

I feel like insurers have gotten MUCH worse the past few months in terms of trying to avoid paying as well as how they are trying to have sub-standard repairs done. Also had another mate underwritten by dotsure (the broker changed underwriters from hollard for some bizarre reason and he didn't pay much attention to it at the time). They literally didn't know what they were doing and were not even listening to the logic presented by the broker. 3 assessors and many ombudsman threats later, they admitted that they had messed up and STARTED repairs months later... not before making him somehow pay a portion of the excess upfront. I would not have believed it if I didn't see the mail trail. It would have been a nightmare if he didn't have other cars.

If anyone is underwritten by Dotsure for vehicle insurance they should IMMEDIATELY switch IMHO. Let them stick to pet medical aid.

Thats crazy, I totally agree, lots of subpar customer service lately.

 

[Kyle]

I feel like insurers have gotten MUCH worse the past few months in terms of trying to avoid paying as well as how they are trying to have sub-standard repairs done. Also had another mate underwritten by dotsure (the broker changed underwriters from hollard for some bizarre reason and he didn't pay much attention to it at the time). They literally didn't know what they were doing and were not even listening to the logic presented by the broker. 3 assessors and many ombudsman threats later, they admitted that they had messed up and STARTED repairs months later... not before making him somehow pay a portion of the excess upfront. I would not have believed it if I didn't see the mail trail. It would have been a nightmare if he didn't have other cars.

If anyone is underwritten by Dotsure for vehicle insurance they should IMMEDIATELY switch IMHO. Let them stick to pet medical aid.

It's all about getting the lowest premium these days, people don't think further than that...

 

[TurboLlew]

It's all about getting the lowest premium these days, people don't think further than that...

Yes - and brokers are probably stuck between clients leaving because of premium hikes or offering lower premiums but then being underwritten by junk-grade companies. Having (from a distance) seen this exchange, it turns into a lot of work for the broker.

Imagine paying that low premium and when the time comes to claim you're stuck without a car for 3 months (or worse, they find a reason not to repair) 🙃