Tonight our long time babysitter ( she picks up our kids daily and sits for 2.5 hours) scraped our fender on another mom’s car’s fender at daycare pickup and scratched the paint pretty badly on both cars (just one piece of the car for each). She feels terrible and told me a couple times that she’d pay for it out of pocket because it was her fault. She said her neighbor scratched HER car recently and the estimate to fix it was $600, gah. So, I feel awful for her to pay for that on *two* cars. But, nor do I want to be out of pocket $1300 or have our insurance get fucked because she was a little careless backing out. How does this work? What’s our responsibility as her off-the-books employer and as the owner of the vehicle that caused the damage? Whose insurance would it go through if we used insurance? Helllp ! FWIW we never discussed what would happen in this case beforehand.
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Hmm. Our sitter has her own insurance but is also on our policy because she drives our car all the time. I guess I would call my insurance broker first and ask what the implications before deciding how to proceed. For what it’s worth, I recently backed into a parked car pulling out of my driveway - there was no damage to my car, but my insurance paid the damage to the other car (not terrible - probably the same as what you are describing) and it didn’t have any impact on my rates.
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First off, I'd check with insurance if and how it will effect your rates. With our insurance (Metlife) anything claimed (moving violation, accident) is points and increases rates for no less than 7 *years* until a perfect score again - guaranteed to be more than $1300... and they'd only pay out a few hundred after the deducible.
So if not going through insurance... honestly, I'd be inclined to let her pay since it was her fault... but if you feel really badly about it, maybe split it? -
I would NOT report to insurance. Get estimates first.
I was driving DH's MUCH bigger car and scraped a car in 2012 or 2013, reported to insurance, they took care of it, about $300 of damage?? No chance in insurance premiums, BUT....
Then, I had a minor fender bender in 2015, about $500 of just-paint damage, didn't even take it to the autoshop. However, that ALSO got reported to insurance because the other lady was pissed.My rates went from $70 to $400 per month. WTF. I tried to call and negotiate, no chance. I got a point for the first incident, 1-2 points for the 2nd incident, and 1-2 points for having two incidents close together, tipping me from low risk to moderate risk. I then got quotes from other places, called to cancel, they offered to change my rate back AND give me 6 months free to keep the policy.
Anyway, my take is influenced by the fact that I don't care *at all* about scratched paint. To me, cars are functional, not pretty. I'd have her pay for the other car immediately and do like, a payment plan for your part.
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Insurance usually follows the car not the person. My dad got into an accident while driving my brother's car and had to go through my brother's insurance vs my dad's.
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If she was using the car while working for you and wasn't being especially reckless, I kind of feel like you're on the hook for this, at least to the damage on your car. If she wants to chip in towards the other car, let her.
Something similar happened to me in college, and the company I was working for took care of the whole thing, no questions asked.
I'm also guessing she has a different socioeconomic status from you, which I'd keep in mind. -
@litebrite: totally agree
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@Litebrite: agree. If going through insurance didn’t want sense, I would pay also.
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@DesertDreams88: I totally agree with you. I'd make her pay for the other car and either do a really long term payment plan or delay her payment on good will or something. Our family van def has dings/scratches on and I can care less haha!
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I'd probably pay or go through insurance (if she is otherwise responsible) for this first offense. If this happens again, I'd have her pay or contribute. I'm guessing it would take her a fair amount of time to pay that off and it sounds like she feels an appropriate amount of remorse. This is also coming from a person who had my first scrape in my husband's work car recently (first time I've done anything like that since I was 16) and I was mortified and felt awful about it.
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There are laws about employees paying for damage. You can’t drop people’s wage below minimum wage to compensate you for damage. Prob worth getting estimates and then just paying at least most of it out of your own pocket.
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I'd go through ins and I would take responsibility bc I let her use our car.
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I agree with @litebrite. As her employer, I think you’re unfortunately responsible for both cars. I wouldn’t go through ins because of what others said about how it can really hurt your rates. At most, you could let her contribute toward the other person’s car. But, I wouldn’t have her pay toward yours. Plus, I imagine you value her as an employee and want to maintain a good relationship.
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I'm so sorry this happened! What a hassle all around. I'd probably go through insurance and handle both cars. I'd only use insurance because I probably wouldn't have the funds available to cover both repairs. And I'd cover both because my nanny surely doesn't have any money to cover the repairs and I wouldn't want to hurt the relationship with the nanny.
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Thanks for the responses, everyone. Talked with my husband and looked into it and like several of you said, we are responsible because she’s our employee (however informal) and it was our car. My husband looked into insurance ($500 deductible plus our rates would have gone up) and we just decided to pay out of pocket for the other woman’s car, which was a Lexus and it’s $600. Our car is a 1-year-old forester which was in perfect shape, I don’t know if we’ll pay to fix it.
Turns out our very trustworthy daycare director witnessed the whole thing, was standing right there—she said our babysitter had an enormous amount of clearance (like 7 feet between cars), pulled out really fast, and that it was wreckless and careless. The way our sitter presented it to me, she made it sound like it was super tight and she was trying to be careful. So, I’m fucking pissed. Yesterday before this happened I actually gave notice to leave my job to go freelance and our babysitter was going to go to another family at end of September anyway, so our relationship with her was winding down. I wish I could fire her today for being disingenuous and careless, but I can’t because we really need the help before I leave my job. So, we’re out $600 with a scuffed up car or $1200 with everything fixed.
I’m thinking about confronting her about the wrecklessness and asking her to contribute a couple hundred dollars if she thinks it’s the right thing to do, mostly because im angry to be lied to, I wouldn’t ask that if she was careful and it was an honest mistake. I think my husband is leaning towards telling her we know what happened, using her for September and then just being done with her. If anyone has any WWYD thoughts I’d love to hear
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@Litebrite: her socioeconomic status is that she’s a rich kid who is on hiatus from college and living comfortably at home with her parents. So, she’s poor because she’s young but not because she’s actually poor. I marinated on this last night and really settled on, “shit happens, she’s young, honest mistake and we just have to pay.” But then this morning our director told us the real deal and I got very mad. Like some people have said, though—I can’t compel her to pay anything at all and I truly need the help for another four weeks.
@DesertDreams88: that fucking sucks. I hate car bullshit so much. Anyway, we’re not dealing with insuranceI wonder if like Allstate’s accident forgiveness program is any good.. it’s so annoying to pay for it and be scared to actually use it.
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@LCTBQE: Whoa. The kids were in the car?!?! I would be pissed. I would bring it up to her. She needs to learn the lesson that just because she is in a car doesn't mean she's autonomous. I wouldn't have a game plan per se (or a planned "out"), but I would just tell her that the daycare director approached you and said that the sitter was driving recklessly and see what she says. I wouldn't ask for her to chip in, but would open the discussion. She needs to own up to what she did and be reminded that she is carting around people's babies.
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We’ve had this happen twice, once w a nanny, once w au pair. Both times we just sucked it up - didn’t ask for them to pay for anything. It blows but they are driving your kids around, not like they are using your car for pleasure.
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I know several people who've had a similar experience. It sucks but I think the norm is that it's your responsibility, even if they're being reckless. The part that would upset me the most is being reckless in a daycare parking lot - that could have been a kid she hit and not just a car! I would bring up what the daycare provider told you and reiterate how absolutely imperative it is to be super, super cautious in a place where small children may be playing!
That's super exciting to be going freelance - you must be soooo happy to ditch the commute!!!
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Depending on whether it was scrape vs impact, you may need to replace your carseats/boosters.
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@LCTBQE: did you end up confronting her?? Update us on what you decided to do!
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@lilyofthewest: nah it was a little surface scratch on the paint only, not even the minorest of dents. If I had to replace two fllo’s one of which is two weeks old on top of this I would have pulled my hair out.
@ChitownRo: @periwinklebee: you know what, it made me feel so much better just to hear other people have dealt with it. I calmed down after a couple days, it does suck but I guess it’s just the price of doing business
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@crazydoglady: @starlitsky: I did confront her, although I waited until Tuesday night after the holiday to do it in person, I just find it a lot easier and less charged than texting. I think I was pretty calm and empathetic but very firm, it actually went really well. I told her that our relationship with her and how great she was with the kids was more important to us than the car, and the kids safety was what really mattered to us, and that mistakes happen and we could deal with it even though it was a lot of money out of pocket. Then I said what really upset me was hearing from sandy and the other mom that she pulled out fast and had a lot of clearance and I told her our director used the word wreckless, and I told her in a daycare parking lot that was very scary to me. She took full responsibility and told me she did have a lot of clearance and that she wanted to pay us back in full, she was really adamant about it and felt really bad. She said she didn’t want to get into a he said she said with our director but she said in her opinion it was sloppy but not wreckless. So, I kind of get what she’s saying. I just urged her to be incredibly careful and go slowly and use our backup camera. She seemed really like she got it and was not even 1% in denial or trying to avoid blame. I think we might have her slowly work off a couple hundred dollars and then eat the rest, and honestly mostly on principle. We really like her but I feel slightly like I have a teenager.
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@starlitsky: also last night our neighbors told me their au pair backed into their gate and fucked up it and the car, as well as a parking lot scratch. I guess a lot of it is just that 20-year-olds are inexperienced crappy drivers.
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@periwinklebee: I’ll write you soon!! I haven’t even said congrats on your baby girl!!
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@LCTBQE: ahh thanks for the update! I’m glad you talked to her and that it went well. I agree that in situations like this it’s better to talk in person vs texting. I’m sure after this incident she will be way more careful and cautious about driving your kids around!
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@LCTBQE: So, so glad talking to her went well. I have been meaning to write you too, will do soon!!!
In case more examples of dumb backing make you feel better, this is what a sub-contractor we had working on some renovations to our house did earlier this week when he backed into our lamp post
Thankfully he's unambiguously responsible and owned it, and it wasn't some hit and run random stranger turning around in our driveway.
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I just added our part time nanny to my girl's preschool pick up list.
I'm so nervous about all of this car parking lot drama happening to me now!
Thankfully he's unambiguously responsible and owned it, and it wasn't some hit and run random stranger turning around in our driveway.
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