If you have a teenager driver at home who backed into one of the other cars in the driveway with their own, you want to consult a collision repair expert before making a claim on your insurance. You want to know what the cost to fix the damages is before you pay a deductible, and before the insurance company raises the rates.
Since you have a driver on your policy involved in and accident and two vehicles to make claims on, the cost could increase greatly for your monthly coverage. Here are a few things you want to do right away.
Make a Police Report
You need to make a police report even though it happened on private property, and even though you may not file a claim. You do this in case you have to submit the claim, you'll have proof and documentation that the accident did happen at the time and in the place that you said it happened. The police will take pictures, and you should take your own pictures as proof.
Get Separate Estimates
Take the vehicles to a collision repair shop and get an estimate on each vehicle. Once the collision experts look at the internal and external damage, they can give you a quote for the repairs. It may be worth paying the deductible to make a claim on one of the vehicles because there is a lot of damage, but not on the other vehicle. You can determine what will make the most financial sense.
Get More Than One Quote
How busy the repair shop is, what type of parts they use, and how much overhead they have can determine how much you pay to get you vehicles repaired. Get quotes from more than one repair shop to see what the differences in cost are going to be, and to see what each shop diagnoses at the repairs needed to fix the car. You may find that the shops are saying you need different repairs.
Unfortunately, accidents happen when a teen is learning how to drive, or when they aren't paying attention while behind the wheel. If you have had an accident and you aren't sure how you want to handle it, see what the costs are for the repairs before you make a claim on your auto insurance policy, to see if you can avoid having to pay a deductible and having your insurance rates go up.
For collision auto body repair, contact a company such as Blue Ribbon Auto Body.
Share20 January 2016
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