If the waiver is the primary concern, then publisher is correct to go through insurance. But with a minor accident, and with a family that you know and who recently went through a similar event, a waiver is likely not be needed and probably not going to be given. Not sure how well a waiver would hold up if something major happened anyway.
A mid-20s young woman hit me not too long ago. We handled it oursevles with no issues. It honestly also seemed much easier than going through insurance for minor body work and then having to get the deductible from her anyway. I didn’t even think about asking her to pay for a rental car! We didn’t really need one.
As long as you realize you’re taking a risk by not reporting to your insurance company. I wouldn’t recommend it but it appears that many CCers make that choice.
I’ve done this twice. (Thanks D!) I paid the shop of their choice directly. I wouldn’t ask for a waiver, and I’m a lawyer. It seems kind of jerkish, particularly when they are doing you a favor by agreeing not to go through insurance. If someone asked me to do that, it would piss me off and I wouldn’t do it.
I’m with Suzy. Pay directly or just cut them a check.
But note, the expense could jump once they open the door.
For example, we’re in process of getting a “ding” fixed on our bumper. Original estimate was ~$1500, and with a deductible of $1k, it just made sense to pay ourselves and ignore the insurance company. But once they pulled the bumper, the total repair bill jumped to $11k-- a lot of electronics back there nowadays, as well as a hidden dent on the quarter panel.
I didn’t do this once, and I was sorry
My son had a low speed collision with another student, and the parents offered to not go through insurance.
We took our car in to a shop, and were told it may be up to $5K in damage. We filed the insurance claim, and our insurance went WAY up.
When my daughter was in high school, she took care of these things on her own - first was a parking lot ding and she worked it out directly with the car owner. Later she had an incident where she rolled into a car in front of her while momentarily distracted during stop & go traffic at an intersection – very low-speed impact and the total cost for repairs to the other car 's bumper was under $700-- but in that case the car owner refused to accept my daughter’s offer and insisted on reporting it to the insurance company --and our insurance rates skyrocketed. If I recall correctly, that little bump resulted in +$1800 a year in insurance annual insurance costs – it might have been a lot more – but it could have been even more. I was very relieved when my daughter went off to NYC for college and I could drop her from the policy. My daughter is a very good driver – always has been – but teens do lack the experience that older drivers have. We older folks have learned from experience to anticipate and be more cautious. (Or at least some of us have).
@alwaysamom what is the risk? As long as my insurance policy doesn’t have any language about accidents must be reported? Or do you mean the risk that they will sue us for something? I don’t see this happening, as I mentioned we know this family, plus there were no injuries and no police called, AND it was a couple of months ago now. I’m not sure how any lawsuit could actually go anywhere at this point, if it were to happen.
Ours does not. I even called them and asked, ‘if I have a small hit-and-run in a parking lot – car unattended – that is about the cost of the deductible, is there any reason to file with [insurance company]?’, and the answer was No.
OTOH, I believe State law requires a notification for damages exceeding a certain amount when a car is attended.
The main risk is 6 months later, the other teen claims they were injured and files a claim with your insurance. Your insurance denies coverage because you didn’t report the accident at the time. Now, you’re responsible for a lot more than $2500.
I have settled several cases with neither of us notifying insurer. I’ve never had a problem, but as others have indicated, without a release there’s always a possible problem if the person later claims an injury and insurer wasn’t notified.
I ask because we bought a car for one of our kids that had a very squeaky clean Carfax report…no accidents at all.
BUT when the kid got insurance, the insurance company knew about two claims and tried to increase our kid’s rate…no that didn’t happen…because our kid made it VERY clear that she didn’t own the car when these other claims happened.
BUT…it did make me wonder about who puts what on those Carfax reports.
“The main risk is 6 months later, the other teen claims they were injured and files a claim with your insurance. Your insurance denies coverage because you didn’t report the accident at the time. Now, you’re responsible for a lot more than $2500.”
In reality that risk is ridiculously low. Yes we can all walk around this world in a state of paranoia, but it’s very unlikely something like this is going to be happening in the OP’s circumstances. And I’m paid to advise how to avert risk. I’d let this one go.
@TS0104 I was speaking generally, not specifically. If an insurer isn’t notified and things blow up later, for any reason, then you’re out of luck. I put myself through grad school working in a claims department of a large insurer. Everyone thinks this is wise decision, but it doesn’t always turn out that way.
Info about damage & repair to vehicles is going to be picked up by mechanics & body shops. So in the case of do-it-yourself repairs, it wouldn’t get recorded --but the minute someone walks into a regular retail body shop, then it probably does get entered in and associated with the VIN number on the car.
Thanks everyone for the input. I wanted to get an idea of risks we weren’t thinking about, and I did! I think we would handle this differently if it was a stranger, but it wasn’t. But I’m grateful for all of the info and opinions. Thanks!
We have been in both situations. The first time, the old lady whose car we damaged got an estimate and we just gave her the check. The second time, the teen girl never told her parents and refused to answer texts or phone calls. I called her dad via the phone book (had her info, but didn’t want to be mean and report her) and the dad asked us to get an estimate and we gave it to him. He gave us a check. We didn’t use any release forms in either case.
On another occasion, I very lightly bumped someone once, who immediately went through insurance so there was no other option. She apparently told the adjuster that her neck “hurt,” but I suspect she was simply trying to cover all the bases. The damage was super cheap to fix and I never heard anything further about it, but I wish she had given me the option of paying for it. It was my fault though, so I have no right to complain.
