Must I report minor fender bender to insurance company?

June 29, 2009 7:39 PM

In a minor fender bender. Do I have to report the accident to my insurance company?

In rainy weather I slid into a car stopped at a light. It was basically a tap. Her car had a small scrape on her bumper. My car had the same, just a little paint missing.

The policeman at the scene wrote up the accident report and gave me the accident number to give my insurance agency.

With only a little paint missing, the damage is below my deductible, so if/when I get it fixed it will be on my own. Do I still have to report this to my insurance agency? Sorry for the question; first accident.

posted by anonymous to work & money (4 comments total)

When she reports that "tap" as whiplash and sues, you'll be glad you did.

It happened to me: the spare tire on the back of my SUV collided with her car. I couldn't even see the damage. She sued, won $6700 in damages.
posted by foooooogasm at 7:59 PM on June 29

Check your policy. Many of them include language that says that if you fail to disclose anything that could reasonably have a bearing on your insurer's ability to assess your level of risk accurately, that they can use that to deny a claim or even terminate your policy at any time. So if they find out about this from her insurer, and they haven't heard it from you, and you need to make a claim for some completely unrelated incident later on, they might wriggle out of paying you.

Most insurers will have something like a "report only" option on their claim forms that you can use to make it clear that you're not asking for payment, merely reporting an incident.
posted by flabdablet at 1:01 AM on June 30

Must you? No.

Should you? Yes.

See above for the two best reasons.
posted by jefficator at 6:43 AM on June 30

Report is and say there is no damage to your car. You can then pay out of pocket for your own paint touch-up but will be covered if the other driver says her car exploded 5 hours later as a result of the collision.

Seriously, the other driver and/or your insurance company could milk you dry if you seem like you're trying to hide it from insurance.
posted by WeekendJen at 9:54 AM on June 30