Auto Insurance Claims: Accused, insurance excess, repair estimate

Question
Hi Richard

I hope you can help with this. I'm sort of in a different position. I recently received a call to meet with a person as my car door apparently dented their fender. Shocked at the accusation I decided to meet this person. I was told that when reversing out of a parking at a friends home my passenger had his door open, which dented their car. Neither my passenger or I recall such a thing happening. There was no bang and there was certainly no evidence of any such incident, i.e. scratched paint etc. on my car. The person insisted that witnesses saw this happen and has since been nagging me to pay their insurance excess. Surely the insurance company should contact me but no such thing has happened. What should I do? Not sure if this person is a fraudster...

Answer
Hi Leigh,

You should tell this person that as far as you know that this incident never occured and that you will not be shaken down for money. Tell him that you will not pay him anything but that if his insurance company did pay anything that he should have them contact you and provide proof that it was your car that hit his.

Then you should have no further conversation with this person. If his insurance company does call you, you will ask them to provide proof such as photos of the damage, a copy of any statement provided by the witness, a copy of the repair estimate, etc. If after reviewing the informat you feel this may have actually happened you can either reimburse the insurance company or turn the whole thing over to your insurance company to handle.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh