What to Do About Dents and Dings in Your Car

Dents or dings are something that just about everyone who owns a car must face from time to time. Unless you've just driven your new car off the showroom floor, chances are that if you take a close look right now you'll find some damage in the form of a dent or a ding. These can be something like a body ding or chip in your windshield caused by a flying rock or pebble on the highway, damage in a door panel, the result of an errant shopping cart in a store parking lot, a dent caused by an overthrown baseball in the neighborhood or any of dozens of other types of accidental, minor damage.

Conventional wisdom says that one of the first things to do after being involved in an accident, even something minor, is to contact your insurer. As Greensboro Auto Insurance professionals, however, we teach our clients to consider situations where filing a claim might not be the correct course of action. Picking up a small dent or ding may be just such a situation. Making a claim against your Greensboro Auto Insurance policy to collect an amount that's the same or less than your deductible amount would be a losing proposition for a couple of reasons. Not only would you not come out ahead financially, but if your insurance rates increase because your insurer raises your premium amount, you could end up being penalized for years to come!

To File or Not to File

There are a few instances where it might make sense to not file an insurance accident claim, although filing an incident or police report is probably prudent, even if you won't be notifying your insurance company. Here are some considerations for not filing a claim:

• A single-car accident where you're either not injured or you can take care of your own medical costs.
• You're able to pay for your own vehicle repairs, especially if the costs are close to the amount of your deductible. There are many shops out there that can fix a dent or a ding for just a few hundred dollars, compared to a deductible amount on your policy that may be $500 or $1000.
• Little or no damage has occurred to a third party's vehicle or property.

Before filing a claim for minor damage, always get a repair estimate so you'll know what costs you could be facing.