Okay so you guys are saying why involve insurance if there's only few chips on the body.
How about this scenario? (this happened to me about a month ago or so)
I'm driving toward this red light, and there is another driver driving behind me about 250 ft away. As I approach the red light, I come to a complete stop and wait for the light to turn green. This goes on for 2-3 minutes (i was at the intersection notoriously known for its red lights where they don't turn green for a long time), then the driver behind me begins to arrive at the red light behind me. However, the driver starts to slow down as the driver approaches my vehicle and I saw the driver slowing down. I did notice the fact that the driver was being mildy aggressive in terms of moving the car every inch in hopes of trying to 'trip' the sensor to have the light change to green. I was hoping to god the driver wasn't going to bump into me (my eyes were locked on the rear mirror + drivers side mirror where I monitored the situation), and I realized the driver was really trying to tail gate me trying to force me to move a little bit forward to force the light to turn green. Few moments later, the driver bumped into me. It's a very mild case of a fender bender, but nonetheless damages occurred and the offender must be held accountable. I walked to the back of my truck, and I saw a slight dent. Despite the fact that it is a dent that is not very noticeable, the driver still caused damages to my truck and the driver must be punished accordingly. I was upset with the driver, and her husband who was in front of my car (I guess they were driving in separate cars) got out of his truck and walked toward me in an aggressive manner because he was defending his wife. I told him to back off, and I would talk to his wife alone because she was the one who caused damages & that he had no business being there other than for moral support (I don't care if they're married, he can sit his punk ass down on the curb and let the parties involved in the incident discuss things). Turns out he wouldn't listen to me, and he started making contact with me in terms of pushing, shoving, etc. When that happened, I wouldn't have anymore of this. I wasn't trying to fight a 60 years old man, so I told him to step away and that I would be calling the police. The lady was trying to avoid insurance, and the man was trying to intimidate me by defending his wife saying it's a freaking dent, grow up kid. Police came & they cited the lady with a DUI & following too close & I told the officers I wouldn't press charges against the husband for making contact with me (could be considered as simple assault) but I did tell the husband to learn better next time, and not to be aggressive toward me. Dent's fixed, the lady has a cute DUI charge on her record (did I mention she was 45?), and as for the husband...I could care any less about what's poppin' with him.
The only reason why the cops charged the lady with following too closely is to make sure she paid for the damages to my truck and the ticket would be dropped at the day of court if she produced evidence of a repair invoice to my truck. I think it's important to include insurance on anything to make sure you're not getting ripped off.
Back in Nov., I got into an accident where I hit a brick-layered mailbox + a light pole. The homeowner was a retired judge in PA & VA, and he told me we could avoid insurance if we pay out of pockets. Guess what? We already filed a claim with insurance, and turns out he was going to overcharge us by $2,000. Insurance stated that the judge was being very difficult with them because he wanted to be reimbursed for yard damages (only a patch of grass was impacted due to the tires), 6 hours of cleaning up the mess (that night, the officers cleared most of the mess that spilled onto the neighborhood street), and he wanted to be reimbursed for the mailbox I destroyed. He didn't wait for insurance to come out and take pictures of the mailbox, he had the mailbox replaced ASAP with a fancy slate attached to it. When the Judge didn't have success with insurance, he started calling me letting me know insurance wasn't doing their job and he started throwing the word 'lawsuit' around. I requested for him to stop calling me, and that he had to deal with insurance not me. I got my family lawyer involved eventually and ever since then, he stopped calling. When I drove by his house and saw the new mailbox, I saw the slate and I realized why insurance was having a hard time with the owner because he committed betterment and he was attempting to hustle insurance since he couldn't hustle us. I informed insurance about the betterment & I took pictures of the new mailbox and went to maps.google.com to get a screenshot of his old mailbox then I sent it to my insurance agent where she forwarded it to claims department.
Here are the before/after pictures of the mailbox in question
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I'm sure you guys can see the difference between the before picture with the old mailbox + the after picture with the new mailbox.
To make this long story short, if I hadn't filed a claim that night of the accident and paid out of pockets with the judge, I would have paid over $2,000. Luckily for me though, insurance found the damages to be in excess of $961.51 and the rest was betterment. Basically the judge paid $2,000 out of his own pockets to add more bricks & a slate to it.
To this day, I still smile & wave to the judge (I don't like the judge anymore, not after what he tried to pull on me so I'm basically saying F you by waving and smiling to him). Too bad for him though, in order to leave the neighborhood he would have to drive by my house! I love how he drives by looking at me (probably thinking 'dammnit i got caught') every day, but it's all good. Everything's handled so we both carried on with our lives.
Get insurance involved, no matter what. You will never know if you're getting ripped off by the individual who's holding you by the balls because you were the one who caused the damages.
