If the quote comes to more than your Insurance excess, lodge a claim for consideration nominating the cafe as the party at fault. Then let the insurance companies worry about who is legally liable. If they are going to reduce your No Claim Bonus you can generally cancel the claim and pay yourself.
Presumably the local council allows the cafe to use the public footpath under a permit, which would require insurance. The type of insurance is only something council could confirm, eg is it public liability only or property+liability. If the cafe has no permit then thats a whole different problem. Generally you would make a claim with your insurer and provide details of who caused it. They then pursue the other party’s insurer, which could of course also be your insurer.
No, they put them away each afternoon. I've seen other cafes have these little vinyl sand bags that prevent it from falling over. I've suggested that to the cafe owner.
Is this always the case? Someone crashed into me earlier this year, I went through my own insurance as the non-at-fault party. My premium for next year actually went down...
There is a very neat little camlock system for footpaths that shows nothing but a small metal disk when not in use. They hold umbrella’s very effectively. Sandbags are cheaper though.
Different insurer. Maybe I did get lucky
Possibly because the two insurance companies have a Knock for Knock agreement. Under a Knock for Knock agreement each insurance company pays for their own clients damage and costs, regardless of the at fault party.Different insurer. Maybe I did get lucky
I didn't have rental car option on my policy. My insurer suggested I ask the other guy's insurer about it (even though I'm claiming with my own insurer... weird), so I did, and they suggested I organise one with one of these accident rental car companies and send them the bill. That all worked out fine, but I'm surprised they'd suggest this themselves, as I understand these companies charge substantially higher rates than a normal car rental.
The insurance companies we deal with are generally all brokers making themselves look like insurers. For example IAG operate under the brands NRMA, CGU, swann, and SGIC to name a few. The others in the big 3 are suncorp (ammi, gio, shannons plus many more) and QBE. Hence in many cases its the same insurer for both cases, just a different retail broker.
Wouldn't this make it _more_ likely for them to increase my premium at renewal time though?
It was CommInsure vs Allianz, which don't seem to be owned by the same company.
The idea behind Knock for Knock is to reduce the need for Insurance companies to sue each other over incidents involving their clients. Inevitably there will be an accident where the CommInsure client is at fault and vice versa. By insurance companies agreeing to cover the loss of their clients reduces the overall administrative burden that a bunch of law suits would generate. For most of the leading insurers your premium should not go up as a direct result of of this incident. However if claim patterns or cost change in your area, or the people who drive the same type of car, or are about your age then you will see a change in premium.
Both of those are owned by companies overseas. To further complicate matters, the big listed insurers take out threshold insurers to overseas insurers.....such as allianz and private insurance investors. This caps their liability. So when we have a major bushfire, the exposure is restricted. Its all in the annual asx reports.It was CommInsure vs Allianz, which don't seem to be owned by the same company.
Oh well, another one of life's mysteries I guess
