This morning my wife made an emergency stop in her car to avoid hitting an animal on the road, which she did successfully. However she did collide with the kerb but no apparent damage from that.
However, it activated a safety feature which fires the bonnet up 6" at the windscreen end to protect pedestrians on impact. A feature we didn’t know we had. The car is about 10 years old. A call to a couple of garages: several new parts and probably a new bonnet. £3K+ ??
Does anyone have a view whether we could make an insurance claim?
Not her car pix as she is still in the hands of the AA.
I’m no expert, but isn’t it the case that the bonnet only pops up if there is an actual impact? Surely it shouldn’t pop up with an emergency stop, with no impact, which can happen for all sorts of reasons.
I’d speak to the manufacturer’s customer service. It may be that the mechanism was somehow faulty and that it should be a free fix.
Designed to improve pedestrian safety. I imagine it should only be activated in an impact, but it may be hard to prove that wasn’t the case. I cannot imagine the manufacturer admitting it was faulty and taking responsibility but worth a try. Some designs use an explosive mechanism hence the replacement cost.
I hit a piece of debris on the road that was kicked up by a lorry in some roadworks. In the claim it was recorded as my fault, which seemed harsh, but nobody ese to claim from so that is how it will be recorded for you too I imagine.
Why does one have car insurance? Surely an instance of this type should be covered. I would closely check my policy and contact my insurance company asap.
Intrigued by your post I googled to find a lot of cars have the same or similar systems and others have had it go off. I’ve also got the impression that it could trigger in anticipation but maybe hitting the kerb was also enough.
I wasn’t even aware that this is ‘a thing’ but the general tone of the posts is that it costs ‘000s to fix.
As others have mentioned, I’d check with the insurance.
You could claim for hitting the kerb but Colly says there is no apparent damage. Bast to get a garage to check though.
@Collywobbles
The moment you speak to the insurers and mention ‘claim’ you will then have a fault claim whether they pay out or not. You will have to declare this ‘fault claim’ for the next five years for any vehicle you insure or are a named driver on.
I understand what you’re saying but surely, if the damage will cost at least £3k to make good, then you would make a claim. The alternative would be to pay for it yourself and put up with the 5-year hassle of having a fault claim against your name.
That’s the stupid thing with insurance in many ways that if you tell them about something it’s cheaper to fix yourself they’ll just up the premiums - many of such incidents are probably fluke events that you’d never predict and aren’t actually upping your likelihood of a claim demographically.
My wife scraped her passenger door and rear wheel arch on a fast-moving gate post a couple of years ago! The car was a 6 year old Mini (value £12kish at the time). We should have got estimates for a private repair but chose the ‘easy’ way and made a claim without knowing the repair cost, although I’m guessing it might have added up to about £2k. To cut a long story short, the car was picked up quickly and returned to us a week later in pristine condition. And what’s more it seems to have little effect on her renewal premium. Perhaps she was lucky with her insurer and that she had never before made a claim in decades of motoring. If she now chose to move to another insurer perhaps the ‘fault’ claim she made would count against her?
Insurers don’t just base their premium hikes on who was at ‘fault’. If you have claims (or damage for which you choose not to claim) you become, in their eyes, a higher risk.
Obviously a single incident is statistically insignificant in assessing the likelihood that you will claim in future, but try telling that to an insurance broker! Still, I suspect age and claims history in this case kept you below the threshold for serious hikes, although I’ve come across cases where premiums have been hiked massively for several years.
The other point I didn’t mention was that my wife and I are both retired and would prefer to take an ‘easy’ route to problem solving, even if it does cost a bit more. My car insurance has been with NFU Mutual for several years now and the service I have had from them has been very good indeed. A major selling point is that in dealing with them you always get through to a real person after just a few rings, no hanging on for 20 minutes or more. I presume their premiums remain competitive but they have increased significantly in the past couple of years.
My experience of NFU is that they are not cheap, and if you search around for the best price they will never be on your radar. Yes, you get good service - I guess that’s a big part of what you are paying for. Whether they are ‘competitive’ depends on what you are looking for.
I would second that. I didn’t find the premium really competitive but when we needed to claim on it they were excellent - supportive, flexible, contactable and prompt.
I would go to the dealer in person and talk to them about what they are prepared to do. If it’s a newish car under warranty I would see if they can do it that way.
This will cost less and even if they don’t admit it as a warranty claim they may be able to work something out.
Failing that £3000 vs insurance claim, then insurance claim it is.
