I bet the reason he was so willing to not make a report is that he was breaking some driving law such as being uninsured or unlicensed or he even possibly had warrants out for his arrest. All the more reason to believe his repair bill is reasonable. He just wants his car fixed with no trouble or questions. People who have nothing to fear will almost always go through the insurance, what guarantee did he have that you would ever pay without dragging you through court.
From what you say about the damage it sounds like a reasonable amount to pay.
Yes, states decide what criteria insurance companies can and cannot rate on. And even within the same state, your zip code has a LOT to do with your insurance rates. If your area has a high crime rate, or gets a lot of snow in winter, or has a lot of young/inexperienced drivers, that corresponds to an expenditure of more insurance claim dollars.
And, if I may branch out a bit from your original question, credit rating is among the criteria that some states tell insurance companies they’re not allowed to discriminate on. But, the fewer criteria a state is allowed to rate on, the higher the rates will be for everyone in general. The insurance company will still get their money either way. If you’ve got a really good credit rating, but your state doesn’t allow your insurance company to rate your policy based on credit rating (whether good OR bad), then that’s a discount you can’t receive.
Take this hypothetical: If an insurance company was only allowed to rate based on age, for instance, then 16 year old males and females would (using some fake numbers here) both pay $1000 a month for their insurance. If the company was allowed to rate based on age and gender, then the female would pay $500 and the male would pay $1500. Of course, the second way is fairer, because males statistically cause many more dollars of damage in auto accidents than females. Either way, the insurance company is still getting their 2k a month.
People in high-risk categories (the very young, new drivers, males, people with poor credit) will benefit from an insurance company’s inability to rate insurance policies on those criteria, but only because they’re paying less than they should. Since that money has to come from somewhere, everybody else pays more.
For all we know the guy we hit was driving without a license or had a kilo of coke in his trunk and didn’t want a cop anywhere near him.
If I had a reason to avoid getting on a cop’s radar, I sure as hell would try to get the other driver to keep our insurance companies out of it and settle things privately.
Tell him to stuff his $365 bill. Let him take you to court, (he has to caugh up fees and what-not) where you bring up the possibility that he rolled backward into you! Tell him that if he ever so much as sees you on the street, you’ll beat his ass for GP reasons! (remember, this is the Asshole Version).
But **I **would say verify that the car was indeed fixed and pay the damn bill. Sounds reasonable and you kind of agreed to it.
$365 for damage? That’s chump change. I hit a deer not long ago and the bill was about $2000.
You should have gotten an estimate and contacted your insurance agent, and it wouldn’t hurt to contact your agent now and explain the situation. But, in any case, this is a minor amount for car repair and it’s extremely unlikely that things are shady.
If your deductible is less than $500, then you’re paying out the nose for coverage. The OP should be happy that the bill was only $365, pay it and go on.
I had a similar situation years ago and I had the guy send me his final repair bill, not his estimate.
Theoretically, if you want to be a dick about it, you could just say “fuck you” and not pay anything. Then his only recourse would be to file a small claims lawsuit against you.
Good l question. I wonder if it was because the other driver didn’t have insurance, and didn’t want any official or quasi-official attention paid to the incident.
Wait, what? I’ve been rear ended and paid what it would cost to fix the damages. What difference does it make whether I have the work done or just drive my now less than perfect car? (Done just that a few times)
Or possibly the guy was wanted by the cops for something. I mean, the last thing you want to do if the cops want you is to have them called to a fender bender so you have a report for the other guy’s insurance. It did seem strange that the person hit was so concerned about YOUR insurance rates.
$365 is completely reasonable. If you jerk him around, you might suddenly hear the words “neck pain.”. You could ask to have your body guy look at it, but you were at fault, so I’d just go ahead and pay it.