Hit and Run - Having Problems Filing Police Report for Insurance

Hi folks, Thanks for reading, a bit long story, need help with what can be done.

My car was hit an run at a parking lot of a shop when I was inside the shop. Thankfully no one was in the car, however the entire boot of the car is damaged. My car has comprehensive car insurance. Raised a claim, took the car to the repairer who quoted nearly four grand in repairs.

My car insurance asked me to file a police report through which they will get the relevant third party details. Went to the police station to file the report. The cop (let's say Cop1) plainly told us that they could not file the report as the third party was unknown.

We then reached out to the shop owner to check if there was any video footage of the incident. They found the footage of another car backing into ours and then making the run. However, the old cameras couldnt capture the rego details. We went to the police station again with this update. This time, there was another constable (Cop2) on the counter desk. He mentioned that he will follow up with the shop to get the footage details and sent an email to the shop after another few days. The shop sent the footage through to Cop2.

In meanwhile, we checked another shop on the same street to see if the same car specs were captured during similar time and to our relief they had the footage of the other car including the rego details. They were happy to share the details with the cops too.

Went to the police station the third time. Cop 3 at the counter. Took the details of the second shop and the previous 2 constables who were involved. He sent an email to the second shop for the footage with the rego, but told us that Cop1 can only take this further as we spoke to him the first.

Few days later received a call from Cop1 (who was back from absence) and asked what the updates were.

Now,
Cop1 mentioned he does not have any footage details as those were sent to Cop2.
Cop 2 is on leave or training and can't access his emails and in possession of footage with the incident happening.
Cop 3 sent an email to the store for rego details and footage, but we dont know if those were received as it involved submitting a web-form.

Not one of the cops are willing to file a report without the full details. Car insurance says, they can only retrieve the third party details from the cops. If we cant provide the police report then we will have to pay the excess.

Where do I go from here?

TL:DR
Hit and run, multiple cops have small pieces of evidences. We did the investigation on cops` behalf and still they are not filing the report required for by my car insurance company.

Thanks

Comments

  • +11

    I'd like to report a regicide

    Do you know the name of the king or queen being murdered?

    No?

    Sorry I can't file a report.

    • +7

      If you are being murdered or are calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line

      • +3

        More like:

        Please hang up and call ***** your local neighbourhood watch

      • For a second I thought that was L.A.M.C. lyrics…

        If you are calling from a princess phone, please press 6

        • +1

          i had assumed deme was referencing simpsons (the episode where bart thinks he witnesses ned murder his wife) but now im not so sure lol

          • +1

            @Jimothy Wongingtons: If you are calling from a car fax, please press 7

          • +6

            @Jimothy Wongingtons: You're not crazy.

            If you know the name of the felony being committed, press one.
            To choose from a list of felonies, press two.
            If you are being murdered or calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line.
            <beep boop boop beep>
            You have selected 'regicide'. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAsIx3oPY-8

  • +2

    What drama.

    You have to wait until cop2 returns from leave/training to access the email?

    • +2

      Thanks, yes can do .. not sure if I can get my car repaired until then though without me having to pay excess…

    • +12

      Welcome to Policing in 2024.
      Its no wonder they are getting fewer and fewer convictions
      And insurnace costs are rapidly increasing too

      Ive got a similar problem with a case of "Road rage"

      Bloody ridiculous!

      • +2

        Given how bad some cops are at their jobs, that's not always a bad thing. My friend nearly got a damn conviction because he never showed up to the police station to get his fingerprints done since he never received the paper for it. A week later he got a text message saying he needs to attend The police station or he could be arrested. When he went in the next day, he was told he was being charged for contravening his requirements. Luckily he was able to plead guilty with no conviction but it's just crazy to me that you can be charged for not following requirements on a piece of paper without at least signing off on it to confirm that you received it.

  • +27

    Cop 2 is on leave or training

    This is a standard excuse from cops if they can't be f'd dealing with you.

    Not one of the cops are willing to file a report without the full details.

    It's a bit like that sometimes. Some are just plain lazy. Take both sets of footage you have and try another police station.

    • +3

      I was told that the footage can only be given to the cops for Privacy reasons

    • -3

      Thanks, not sure if this will further jeopardise my Insurance situation.

  • +4

    Look at these cops making this very complicated.

    • +20

      Just looks like classic buck passing to me.

      Cop 1 didn't want to deal with it and tried to dismiss OP.
      Cop 2 knew they would be on leave soon and DGAF knowing someone else would have to deal with it.
      Cop 3 always knew they were going to handball it back to Cop 1.
      Cop 1 still doesn't want to deal with this so is now playing the "my hands are tied, I can't access their systems" in the hope OP will just go away.

      • +8

        Spot on, classic hand-balling by the coppers trying to duck and weave their way out of taking a report.

  • -2

    Get the shop's to send footage , both , to insurance company ! Bypass the police altogether since theyre not interested in serving the public anymore .

  • +15

    Cops are fkin useless in these scenarios

  • +7

    Explain to your insurance company and let them know the report will be forthcoming pending police logistics, see if they can't get repair process started in leiu of the report.

    • +2

      Thanks, trying this out now.. The insurance has already asked me to send the car for repairs. Now need to followup to see if they can handover the car without the police report being lodged and without me having to fork out the excess.

  • +5

    VicPol online reporting -

    https://www.police.vic.gov.au/police-assistance-line-and-onl…

    Select the option for damage to your property.

    Otherwise:

    'I'd like to make a report for the purposes of an insurance claim' - in otherwise, just tick boxes and give me the damn case number.

    • +9

      Are you reporting damage to a vehicle that was caused by another vehicle (i.e. a vehicle collision)?
      You cannot report damage to a vehicle that was caused by another vehicle online. To complete a vehicle collision report, please contact your local police station.

  • +2

    Ask shops to give you the footage on USB stick.

    You can't trust kids to do an adult's job these days.

    • +1

      Are you saying the cops are the kids? Sadly, a lot have been rude in my experience but I guess that comes with dealing with the public 24/7.

      • +5

        They sure act like kids. Can't even coordinate building sand castle in the sand pit.

        I am not sure what people get when signing up to a job these days but I can say a lot of people either haven't read the job description or have problem with long term memory formation.

    • -2

      Cant retrieve the footage due to privacy reasons, shops can only handover the footage to the police

      • +1

        That is rubbish. A shop handed over my footage. I mean seriously you are in a public place. It isn't like they stuck a camera over someone else's backyard and witnessed a crime.

        • +2

          Nope happens all the time. Most stores policies are that they will only give footage to police these days. Has happened to me when I had someone scratch my car at the servo.

      • Footage of the public car park? I could understand if it was an in-store camera.

      • Surveillance footage of a carpark is not subject to privacy.

  • +31

    i'm sure they are too busy catching real criminals (revenue raising via speed cameras)

    • +2

      say it once more for those in the back

      • +24

        i'm sure they are too busy catching real criminals (revenue raising via speed cameras)

        • +3

          Yeah and meanwhile taxpayers are shivering in their own houses wondering when the kids will attack them next.

        • +3

          excuse me, it's safety cameras. We didn't spend/waste millions of dollars to replace every sign in the state for nothing.

    • And they don't even need to do anything for that, the cameras do all the work.

  • +9

    What a joke, you've already done the hard work for them.

    • +3

      Exactly! I even mentioned this to one of cops … As time was of essence- the footage would have got deleted after a fortnight at both the places, I had to do the work getting those footage sent to them. Still the reluctance for filing the report.

      • +2

        Think about this - if the rego was visible in the footage then you don't need the cops at all. You could just give the rego to the insurer.

        The cops will need to investigate and find the rego if the report was filed in your case. And that's something they don't want to do. They don't want to do ANY work, whatsoever. Absolute arseholes.

        It's like they won't file a crime report if they don't know who the actual criminal is. Oh, you didn't know who exactly hacked all these 30 people to death? Sorry, can't file a report. I wonder what their job is at all.

        • @Newbie aussie This is your answer. Ask your insurer how they can take a video from shop2, get shop2 to upload it. Let the insurer deal with the cops. Buy something from shop2 as a thank you.

        • Unless I'm mistaken, the insurer needs a name and address as well? Someone opened their door into my car and I captured his rego on Sentry mode, but RACV wanted his name and address (which I was able to get from police, who looked up his number and called him).

      • I don't have advice, but I am sorry to hear of the situation.

        I've been putting off installing front and rear dash cams on my new car, and have been internally panicking in case something like this happens.

        It is shitty that the cops can't spare a few shits for stuff like this. If they can cause $4k of damage trying to park, they are either unfit to drive or are driving under the influence. Today it was your car, tomorrow it could be a kid. I'm guessing it was bad enough to need to replace a bumper, light, and hood/boot, as opposed to some denting and scuffs.

        Out of interest, was it a ute/heavy vehicle, or a Suzuki Swift?

  • +1

    Have you tried inferring that your dad is a senior political advisor who can swing votes and is pals with the Premier?

    • Essential to pair this with a freemason handshake and slip a Sizzler gift card into their top pocket.

    • -1

      only if they were your favourite Lib

  • +2

    Go to a different police station with the video footage.

    • +4

      I agree with this. If no report has been filed yet just take all the records to another station and get it filed there. Similar happened to me in WA, couldn't get police to disclose owner details of other vehicle to my insurer until they had completed an 'investigation', which took police 6 months. Pay your excess, get the repairs done, give your insurer the police report number, and tell insurer to keep the file open. Contact police for update every 8 weeks until they have provided the other driver details to your insurer, and lodge a complaint if they havent done it by 6 months. Though it is annoying, if you see it through your insurer will refund your excess and you won't have it on your insurance record as your fault claim.

    • +2

      I could do that….the shops have already sent the footage to this police station multiple times and the shop managers might get frustrated having to resend this multiple times… but yes, worth a try. Maybe I could wait a few more days before doing this.

  • Insurance can go through CITEC or whatever your state equivalent is. It’s them being lazy.

    • Insurance mentioned, they can only retrieve it via the case number from the police.

  • +8

    Standard COP BS where they do not want to do their work as it does not help with their individual KPI's.

    Be vary careful not to piss of the local cops….

    Ask COP1 what would they do if they were in your situation and wait for the answer and take it from there.

  • -2

    Given that the police have failed you should goto the bikies!

  • +3

    If you pay the excess now, just to get the repairs started, will your insurer refund it to you once the police report is (eventually) forthcoming?

    • Thanks, will check on this

    • Yeah this is what I was thinking. Just pay the excess, get it sorted, insurer will refund excess once they have the third party to chase.

      If you can't afford to pay the excess, why are you bothering to pay for insurance?

  • +2

    Once this is all sorted, may i suggest getting a 2ch dashcam with parking mode?

    • -2

      Still won't give you other driver's ID

      • +1

        True. But you'll have the footage with rego details and can be sent to 500 cops in a matter of seconds as opposed to playing he said she said between 2 cops on a "holiday"

    • Yep, the first thing on my to-do list once the car is back

  • +1

    I'm confused.

    In QLD, for property damage you file a police report online and get a number from that. Going to the station multiple times and being told no doesn't make any sense to me.
    If you don't have the driver details, you'll be up for the excess, but thems the breaks.

    • VIC property damage does not include car collision reporting

  • +1

    Ask cop1 to go back to the businesses and resend video, or ask businesses to resend directly to cop1.

  • +9

    I had a similar issue and it took me about a year to learn how the system works.

    1. You need to go to the police station and just report the incident and they will give you an incident ID number. You just tell them what happened and they will create a police report.
    2. Police will add the CCTV to the incident and do their investigations to record the driver identity in the report. It will be up to them if they charge them or not (not really relevant for you).
    3. You lodge a claim with your insurance company and give them the police incident ID then get the car fixed.
    4. Depending on timing you may need to pay the excess when you pick up the car once it is fixed if the police haven't finished identifying the driver.
    5. Once the police report is finalised and has the at-fault driver details then the insurance company lodges an FOI (freedom of information) request to the police and gets a copy of the report.
    6. They will then refund your excess paid (because you named the at-fault driver via the report) and they will go after the at-fault driver to recover the money for the damage.

    I'm in NSW and the police took literally around 6 months to record the at fault drivers details in the report. My insurer just kept checking. Your risk is if you need to fix the car now (because the damage can't wait) they will make you pay the excess as if you were at fault and you will only get refunded if they get the at-fault drivers details.

    Good luck

    • Thanks for the most valuable comment yet.
      Just called the insurance, they mentioned very similar sequence. They didnt mention Incident ID number - neither did the police mention this any time. Everyone kept referring to the Report number.
      Like you said, I might have to pay the excess, get the car repaired and then wait for police to do their thing. The insurance company asked me to provide them the third party details (without which, even with the footage showing otherwise, this would be considered as my fault claim and excess refund wont be issued)

      • Sorry - I may have been mistaken about what the ID is called - it is whatever number the police give you as a reference number for your report. Looking online I think it is a Report Number or Incident Number.

        Until the insurance company has the at-fault party's identity it will be on you as an at-fault claim. There's no limitation period on how long and my understanding is you can be reimbursed even if you aren't a customer of the insurance company by the time the claim is sorted out.

        The insurance company should do the heavy lifting. I wasted a lot of my time chasing up stuff - in hindsight, once you have the claim open and have reported the police ID number just leave it up to them to sort it out. I was with NRMA and they are pretty good at following up and chasing.

    • This is exactly what happens. Pay the excess and once the insurance people identify the culprit, you’ll get the excess back.

    • Out of curiousity, if you paid the excess,
      and the time comes to renew the insurance,
      how much does that "history" affect the price ?

      Does it increase by $200? $400?

      How long does that "at fault, claim" stay on the record,
      before it's wiped clean ?

      • +1

        My claim was resolved before the renewal. However, looking at the policy renewal, I had the one not-at-fault claim during the 2022 year and my premium did go up - I didn't think much of it given all the bad weather. I'm not sure if it affected anything. I assume if there was an at-fault claim open they may account for it when assessing the risk - unless they can't account for it unless it is a finalised claim (maybe?)

        2021 = $1,220
        2022 = $1,360
        incident happened during this period
        2023 = $1,635
        2024 = $1,930

        Hard to know if it had an impact on the price. Looking at this now, my car insurance seems really expensive - might need to look into that

        • I appreciate your reply.
          Thanks.

    • I had a similar experience, except I supplied my own dashcam footage and I waited for the case to conclude before lodging a claim.
      The investigation took about 6 months. In my case that includes the police taking the other party to court and charged them over the incident. I was told this when the cop rang me the final time, but wasn't involved in the process. They gave me Case number (different from the original Event number), Registered owner name and address as well as the driver's name.
      The cop rang me a few times during that six months to asked for more info (photo of damage to my car), provided update and each time apologize for taking so long.

  • -7

    A hit and run is when a person is hit by a car. In this case when you do a police report it would be failure to provide information.
    Source: same thing happened to me (but the footage showed the number plate)

    • can't a hit and run be when a car hits a car?

      • +1

        Just did a quick Google search and it appears that a hit and run is when an accident happens and one driver does not stop.

        A person being hit by a car is just one example of a hit and run - but it is not the only example. Car car is another example. As are when other vehicles are involved.

        • -1

          I know that

          Just saying it's not just people

  • +3

    Go back to the police station but this time with a box of donuts

  • +5

    I got hit a couple of years ago, and the driver drove off. I did have a forward Dashcam of his license plate driving off. I took the video to the police station, and they said that they’ll tell the driver there’s footage of him crashing into a car and driving off

    I called my insurance, and had to pay excess but a few days later, the police told me they had his name, address. My excess was refunded

    Interestingly, I googled the guys name, and one of the results was his whole family tree, including names/address/contact numbers

  • What a cop out

  • -1

    I believe you can do an online incident report at victoria police website

  • +1

    Went to the police station to file the report. The cop (let's say Cop1) plainly told us that they could not file the report as the third party was unknown.

    Tell them its their f***ing job to find the unknown person!

  • +3

    Respectfully, f*** the police!

    • -1

      Indeed, with all due respect (which would be none in this case).

  • +2

    The best thing happened to my Tesla so far is the sentry mode caught the car who hit and run and so I managed to file a police report and they also told me they are gonna fine that guy for hit and run, justice served

  • -1

    A complaint about the NSW Police Force or its employees can be made to the Commissioner of Police or the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC). To lodge a formal complaint with the Commissioner of Police you must do so in writing.

    https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/online_services/providing_feed….

  • Try lodging the complaint online OP,

  • +1

    Why is this the case with police everywhere in the world, doesnt matter if its a developed country or a developing country. Their purpose is to serve and protect but they do literally the opposite i.e. make sure they are being extremely unhelpful and are the ones who attack!

    • +1

      Police are there to protect the ideology not the people.

  • Why are the police requesting the footage to be emailed to an individual’s email address? They should have a common email address for receiving correspondence from the public. Most other organizations, including those dealing with sensitive information like banks and hospitals do this. This ensures accountability and prevents emails getting lost when someone goes on leave etc..

    @OP: If the police is not giving you a common email address where everyone in that department has access, then use their public one. If you are in Melbourne (as your profile indicate) then go to Victoria police website search for your police station and get the email address from their contact section. For most Victorian police stations it’s the <name_of_the_suburb>[email protected]. Use that for sending the footage, Ask the sender to include the police officer’s name or the rego of your car in the title so they can easily find it. That way they can't give any excuses of not receiving or having access to the files.

  • Gone through similar BS with police last year and some of this year, but had dashcam of the person\vehicle involved.

    Given the run around a few times with two cops and after nothing being done had the sh!ts one day and I called and asked for the Duty Sargents name and to speak with them.
    Spoke with them and let fly about cop 1 & 2 i'd been dealing with that were preventing insurance from moving ahead, they were very unhappy with them about it.
    Suddenly I got an event number etc and stuff I could provide to insurance.

    As I couldn't NAME the person it was still seen as an "at fault" and I'm still out of pocket the excess while insurance now battle it out with police over the police report and request the particulars of the registered owner etc.

    Unsure if I will see my excess refunded which sh!ts me, tip for those playing at home, if your hit and run is a motorbike, do your best to run them over if they look like they're complying but want to move elsewhere, that way you will eventually get their details ;) some POS on a bike who did the hit and run, couple grand of damage.

    • Have you needed to renew your insurance policy since this "at fault" incident?

      I'm wondering by how much does the insurance renewal cost increase by?

      • +1

        Yes, 3 vehicles on the on policy, policy increase was 7.1% overall but specifically for that vehicle went up around $100 (a few dollars off) and the agreed value dropped $1k but that's not a surprise as that happens with newer vehicles as they age.
        Two other vehicle premiums were both <$100 increase.
        I suspect that's just the general increase amount this year, however the year before they had stung me for like 37% more than the year before that but were still the cheapest with the options and coverage required.

        We badly need more competition in Aus or the USA style where you buy a policy that covers whatever you're driving or X amount of vehicles etc, we're getting screwed as usual in Australia. Especially once you add in home and contents + health insurance or any other insurance you have we're all paying too much.

        What doesn't help is the surge in car thefts in VIC in the last year.

        • Thanks for replying back.

  • I chased down and caught the people who did a hit and run on me, Cops werent interested.

    My house got burgled, Insurance company and first cop said inside job and we all knew who the main suspect was (a certain tradie who was the only one who had been in there and …long story there were some other facts that pointed to him), Cops werent interested in more details or never got back to us .

    But hey if theres a fine they can issue then they are super keen.

  • No idea why but I've had two different outcomes with hit and run incidents. My car was parked in both incidents and both incidents were captured on dashcam clearly. I filed a traffic incident report and insurance claim for both. The claim with NRMA stalled as they were just waiting on the police report and in fact i just gave up as the door ding was hardly visible and i couldn't be bothered anymore.

    The other claim was with Australia post insurance and their internal team took the rego details and found the other party's details on their own without the police involvement. They emailed me confirming that excess won't apply to my claim.

  • F**k tha police, comin' straight from the underground…

  • Lesson learned get multiple contacts. The cops should have a shared mailbox for these kinds of things if they don't get a second email like the guys supervisor. Then you go to the shop and ask them to send the footage over.

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