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sowens44
Guest
What is the name of your state? What is the name of your state? Oregon
Pulling out of a school parking lot, we bumped a car behind us. We left name and notification info, although no damage was noticed. My wife returned to take a photo of the car, met the driver ( a student), explained what happened, both looked at the car and saw what appeared to be a small (quarter size) indention on trunk of car. Car also had other scrapes, dents and scratches that were unrelated to this accident. Received call from vehicle owner (student's father) offering to take $250 and call it good. He had an estimate of $537 from a body shop. We've never settled an accident by ourselves, so we told him we'd talk about it. We called the insurance company (not agent), they told us that if we filed a claim, our rates would probably not increase, and they would handle it. We informed the owner of our decision to use insurance, and he flipped. We contacted our agent the next day to inform him of a possible claim by the other party, and he told us that while it probably wouldn't raise our rates, he couldn't guarantee it, since the underwriters look at past driving records, accidents, etc. We have a teenage driver who has had tickets and filed a claim in the past two years for an at fault accident. The agent also told us that we could settle this and request in writing a document stating full relief of futher liability. We called the owner, now he wants the full $537, stating the initial offer was declined. We told him to take a day to think about the $250, we wouldn't go any higher. Now he has us in the "right and wrong" position, and I'm not inclined to make this easy for him.
Do we have to settle through the insurance company? Can I request that he get more estimates, have the work done, and pay the body shop? At this point, I believe he's trying to extort more than the damage is worth. Do I have any recourse, or should I just bite the bullet? We dispute the amount of damage.
Pulling out of a school parking lot, we bumped a car behind us. We left name and notification info, although no damage was noticed. My wife returned to take a photo of the car, met the driver ( a student), explained what happened, both looked at the car and saw what appeared to be a small (quarter size) indention on trunk of car. Car also had other scrapes, dents and scratches that were unrelated to this accident. Received call from vehicle owner (student's father) offering to take $250 and call it good. He had an estimate of $537 from a body shop. We've never settled an accident by ourselves, so we told him we'd talk about it. We called the insurance company (not agent), they told us that if we filed a claim, our rates would probably not increase, and they would handle it. We informed the owner of our decision to use insurance, and he flipped. We contacted our agent the next day to inform him of a possible claim by the other party, and he told us that while it probably wouldn't raise our rates, he couldn't guarantee it, since the underwriters look at past driving records, accidents, etc. We have a teenage driver who has had tickets and filed a claim in the past two years for an at fault accident. The agent also told us that we could settle this and request in writing a document stating full relief of futher liability. We called the owner, now he wants the full $537, stating the initial offer was declined. We told him to take a day to think about the $250, we wouldn't go any higher. Now he has us in the "right and wrong" position, and I'm not inclined to make this easy for him.
Do we have to settle through the insurance company? Can I request that he get more estimates, have the work done, and pay the body shop? At this point, I believe he's trying to extort more than the damage is worth. Do I have any recourse, or should I just bite the bullet? We dispute the amount of damage.
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