Minor fender-bender. What do I do?

[sunshine873]

I was in a parking lot yesterday. The truck was running, but I was sitting in the passenger seat feeding DD. A minivan backed into us. It was very light (everyone's fine.) The minivan got a pretty good dent in the bumper, but my truck only seems to have some paint chipped off, etc. Still...I think it should be repaired (especially since it wasn't my fault & I don't want rust to set in, etc.)

The other driver gave me all of her info, but now I'm stumped about where to go from here. Something tells me I shouldn't/don't have to call my insurance company. My rates might go up based on higher risk, etc, right?

Can I just take it to a shop to get looked at and then file with her company? Or will my company get involved anyway? I'm just not sure about what's the right thing to do, process, etc.

Suggestions? BTDT?

[LMPC]

The same this happened to DH about 3 months ago. He was in the dry cleaners and a woman backed into his car. They swapped information. Her insurance co talked to our insurance co. Her insurance co paid for everything and DH's insurance did not go up. Because there was no claim on the insurance and it wasn't at all his fault. HTH!

[justincase]

Same thing happened to us a couple of months ago, too. I was sitting in the back of the parked car with 2 week old DD! I called my ins co to ask what to do. They said if we wanted them to pursue the woman's ins co for us, we'd have to file a claim and pay our deductible up front, and then get it back when everything was settled. This irritated me and I found out (from BillK here!) that although this is "standard practice", some ins co's will go beyond and do the legwork for you without your having to file a claim and pay the deductible. We ended up dealing directly with the woman's ins co and everything worked out fine, but what a hassle it was, and I got a lot of advice after the fact that it wasn't the wisest idea for us to be talking to her ins co despite what ours told us to do. I guess in hindsight we should have paid for our ins co to take care of it? Call yours and see what they advise. GL and sorry you have this hassle.

[sunshine873]

Thanks for the advice! I'll call my insurance company and see what they advise. I guess that's what they're there for! I'll let you know what happened.