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Private Car

Damage to your own car, and what you owe somebody else when it is involved in an accident.

Also calledMotor Own Damage · Private Car Package Policy · Motor OD

File/Claims library/Personal motor/A vehicle accident

First thing, todayTell the insurer and, where anybody is hurt or a third party is involved, the police, before the car is moved to a garage.

Three deadlines
  • Tell the insurer now, not after the assessment.
  • The police the same day if anybody was hurt or the vehicle is gone.
  • Every document within the time the insurer asks for it.
A car at the roadside with its front wing stove in
A car at the roadside with its front wing stove in. An illustration.

When you would claim

  • An accident, whoever was at fault
  • Theft of the car, or of parts from it
  • Fire, flood or a tree coming down on it
  • Damage to somebody else's vehicle, property or person
  • Glass alone, where the cover extends to it

What insurers most often rely on

  • Driving licence not valid for the class of vehicle, which is the commonest single ground on this cover
  • Depreciation on plastic and rubber parts, which is a deduction rather than a refusal unless the cover says otherwise
  • Driving under the influence, or the vehicle used for hire when it is insured for private use
  • Consequential damage, where the engine was run after water got into it
  • Delay in reporting a theft to the police or to the insurer

Most are answered by a document that existed on the day of the accident and is far harder to obtain a month afterwards.

The documents

before the workshop, not after

10 items, and the order matters more than the length. Almost all of it has to exist before the car goes into a workshop.

  • Claim form, policy schedule and the full wording
  • Registration certificate and the driving licence of the person driving
  • FIR, where there is theft, injury or a third party
  • Photographs of the damage before any repair is started
  • The garage estimate, and the final invoice with parts listed
  • Fitness certificate and permit, where the vehicle needs one
  • Both sets of keys, on a theft claim
  • Cancelled cheque and bank details in the insured's name, for the NEFT payment
  • Details of any other insurance covering the same vehicle
  • The garage estimate before the repair, and the final invoice with its payment receipt after it
Survey, then repairThree dates decide it: when you told the insurer, when the surveyor came, and when the car went into the workshop. In that order, a claim is straightforward. In any other order, it is an argument.

Next

Commercial Vehicle Claim: What to Do

Commercial motor claims are refused on paperwork far more often than on the facts of the collision: the licence, the permit, the fitness, the load.

Most often lost by: Authorising repairs before the survey, and discovering afterwards that the driver's licence was not valid for that class of vehicle.

Read the declared value

There is no average clause here. What caps the claim is the IDV on your schedule, and on a total loss or a theft that figure is the entire settlement. An IDV pushed down to hold the premium down is a discount you pay back once, at the worst moment.

Filed under: Personal motor · A vehicle accident

Claims that sit next to this one

the same policy, or the person in it

Two-Wheeler

the same policy, on two wheels

Motor Third-Party Liability

the statutory half of it

Personal Accident

injury to the person driving

Vehicle damaged and the surveyor still not been to the garage? Report a loss or call 92514 56334.