After a Minor Knock in France: What an Irish Driver Should Do

After a minor knock on a French road, a visitor should make the car safe, move out of the traffic if it can be moved, photograph the scene and both cars, swap names and addresses with the other driver, and then call the insurer or the rental company before arranging any repair. The order matters more than the speed. Pictures taken in the first ten minutes, before the cars move, are the ones an insurer finds easiest to use, and the repair price can wait until the claim position is clear.

What should you do in the first ten minutes?

Safety comes first. Switch on the hazard lights, put on a high visibility vest if the car carries one, and step out on the side away from the traffic. If anyone is hurt or the other driver disputes what happened, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) advises calling the police, and the same page tells renters to contact the rental company straight away. Those steps hold for a private car as well: with a dispute or an injury, the police are the right call, and a minor scrape with no argument can be handled between the drivers.

Next, photograph before anything moves. Take a wide picture that shows both cars and the road markings, then each damaged area close up, then the other car's number plate and the road sign or junction that places the scene. Phone pictures carry a date and a place in their file data, which later answers questions about when and where. Note the other driver's name, address, insurer and policy number, and write down the time. The French form that both drivers sign to record a collision on common ground is known as a constat amiable, and it is worth knowing the name because a hire car company or an insurer may ask whether one was completed.

How does Irish car insurance treat a knock abroad?

That depends on the policy, so read it before the trip rather than at the roadside. The CCPC explains that comprehensive cover pays for damage to your own car whoever caused the accident, while third party cover does not. It also explains the excess, the first part of any claim that the driver pays, usually up to a few hundred euro. If the repair costs only a little more than the excess, the insurer would pay very little, so a claim may not be worth making, and a written repair quote is the way to find that out.

The same CCPC page says that some policies include a replacement or hire car for a short period while the insured car is off the road. A driver who is abroad should ask the insurer whether that benefit applies in France, how many days it covers and what proof it needs. Keep the insurer's helpline number in the phone, because a long call from a French lay-by is easier when the policy number is at hand.

For a rental car the position differs. The CCPC notes that the basic third party cover offered with a rental quote does not pay for damage to the rental car, and that the excess on a rental car is often high. In that case the first call is to the rental company, which may give instructions about repairs and may not allow the driver to arrange them alone.

Who can quote the repair if you are staying near Marseille?

A visitor staying in the northern suburbs of Marseille, with a private car that is still drivable, has a practical option that avoids a morning spent calling garages. The photographs taken at the scene double as the first set of images for a repair estimate.

Drivers staying around Plan-de-Cuques, Allauch or the north of Marseille can send those photos to a body shop in Plan-de-Cuques, which gives a free quote from photos, calls the driver back, and leaves the choice of repairer with the car's owner.

Photographs also help in choosing who repairs the car. The question of the repairer belongs to the car's owner and the insurer together, and an insurer's recommended garage is a suggestion, not an obligation. A written quote from a body shop, based on the same pictures, gives the insurer's loss adjuster a figure to check and gives the owner something to compare with the excess. The pictures that work best are three or four in number: the whole side of the car, a close shot of the damage taken out of direct sun, and a low raking shot that shows a dent in the panel.

What mistakes make a small claim harder?

The first is moving the cars before taking pictures. The second is accepting a verbal arrangement with the other driver, then finding later that the other insurer has no record of it. A third is letting the rental desk rely on memory: ask for the incident to be written into the file at once, with the time and place, and keep a copy. A fourth is repairing the car before the insurer has seen the damage, which can leave the owner unable to prove what the damage was.

It is also a mistake to drive on with damage that affects safety. A cracked light unit, a bumper hanging on one fixing, or a wheel arch pressed against a tyre should be dealt with before the next long drive. Local garages see this every day, and a short call is better than a failure on a motorway.

What should you keep when you get home?

Keep every picture, the exchange of details, the name of the person you spoke to at the insurer, the claim reference, and any quote. If the other party was at fault, the claim may be settled between the insurers, but the owner's record is still the starting point. If you paid anything on the spot, such as a tow or a taxi, keep the receipts too.

Time matters too. Write the account of what happened the same evening, while the sequence is fresh: where each car was, which direction it was travelling, what the road looked like and what each driver said. A short note in a phone takes five minutes and is much more reliable than memory three weeks later, when a claims handler asks a question that nobody thought to answer at the roadside. Add the name of the hotel or the rented house, because a quote or a letter may need a local address.

A good record has three parts: what the scene looked like, who the other driver was, and what the damage looked like before anyone touched it. With those, a knock that costs a few hundred euro does not turn into a long dispute.