Hi while cycling my son hit a parked car and now I am looking for a garage preferably not very far from Pfaffikon SZ, I will appreciate it very much if you could give some advices.

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Take it the owner is aware? They may have fully comp insurance that covers parking scratches etc. If so just pay the excess if agreed upon.

Thank you, good option, I will need to discuss it with him, owner is aware and he is currently on holidays. But I am afraid he may not agree to have claim recorded, so I would need to have at least one more option.

The old cycling vignette used to cover third party liability such as this, but since it's been phased out, cyclists were recommended to make sure existing policies/or take out afresh, their own for such instances.

Do you have coverage that may used, here?

Unfortunately we don't have such insurance.

Hi, Continuation of the story:
1) The car is registered in SZ for a Limited Company.
2) However as we were told the car is in Kosovo.
3) We were told that the car repair in BMW garage in Kosovo will cost 1100Euro, but "it is fine if we just pay them 1000CHF".
4) We contacted BMW garage in Kosovo and they gave use repair cost of 250EURO.
5) We contacted BMW garage in Zurich - they asked for 600CHF. ( If CH is the second expensive country in the world, it looks like Kosovo is the First one )
6) We offered the 350CHF and waiting for their feedback.

What could be the possible worst case of continuation of this story ?

If the owner is dealing directly with you and not his insurance you should tell him to get at least a written quote (would it be cheeky to ask for three for comparison?). Expecting you to take his word on the details of the costs is unacceptable. Who's to say he's not using the EUR 1100 for the petrol and a night's hotel accommodation in Kosovo while he gets it repaired?

TiMow mentioned personal insurance further up the thread - I second this. You should sort your family out with coverage which includes legal. It doesn't cost very much per year and will cover you for incidents like this.

...which, according to Murphy's Law, never happen when you are fully insured...

Pay according to the lowest quote.

Tom

Hi, the latest update is that on our offer he said : "Ok, give me 500CHF, the car will be here in August". He is already openly for more than it cost. I guess he already repaired the car and just want to get money out of I tried to be honest with him, but his is not, so I am going to offer him the cost of the increased premium, which should be 100CHF.

Ask him for the invoice of the actual repair.

Ask to see the original garage receipt for the repair (an photocopy would be easily 'altered').... then agree that you'll pay that plus the rise in the owners insurance premiums for this year (if any).

I quite understand that you don't want to be ripped off, and it does sound like he's being rather cheeky; but your son did cause the damage and it's not fair that you now seem to expect the car owner to pay for the repair just because he's been a little ecomomic with the truth.

Sounds like blatant attempt to defraud the OP. I don't see that he has been 'economical with the truth', which would imply something was missed out, rather than just made up, unless of course he had other work done at the garage still the same time.

Quite possibly he has.... but two wrongs don't make a right, bad example to son, etc.

The OP should at the very least pay what the damage repair actually costs, the car owners insurance risks goes up for one thing, and we all know how you feel about insurance!

As we will never know the true cost of the repair, the person is clearly not trustworthy so I would wait for them to start legal proceedings.

I don't see how the car owners insurance goes up, he is unlikely to claim & his excess will probably cover the claim. I doubt the insurance will have any knowledge of the incident, they probably don't even cover parking insurance, which is an extra above full insurance. I only ever have 3rd party insurance & self insure all losses & have done so for 35 years,

Are you sure that have no liability insurance? It is almost always a condition of renting and many landlords will ask for proof.

Liability insurance would cover the costs of the repair.

Post #9, the OP say's they're just going to offer the car owner 100chf to cover the cost of his increased premium.

I have no idea why they would make such an offer.

Salving their consciences offering a token sum as they're not prepared to pay the €350 the garage in Kosovo told them the repair was really costing?
Which is a pretty small amount really (especially compared to what the owner was trying to get out of them originally, but he must have told them which garage he was using!).

Personally I just think that the OPs son has damaged an innocent party's property and the least they should do is cover the by now established real cost of the repair (€350).
I know I've been in a couple of similar situations over the years and my sons have learnt valuable life lessons about respecting other peoples belongings, and I've tried my best to ensure that if our property is similarly damaged it's paid for by the person responsible.

Had the car owners been honest I think they should be paid in full & without delay, however after an attempt at fraud I think its best to do nothing further at this point. I suspect such fraud is a criminal matter,

Falsifying documents is up to 5 years in prison iirc, that would include emails.

I don't disagree with you about the slightly dodgy behaviour on the part of the car's owner, but you'll often find that even the most normally honest of people will try to 'round-up' a figure, especially if it's not going through the official route.
But that does not alter the fact that the OP is responsible for the damage (as the parent of the offender), and is now seemly trying to get out of paying up.

Unless there's a physical paper trail, there's no proof of fraud; the car owner could always say it was a simple misunderstanding due to language problems on the part of both parties, and reading back through the thread there is no mention at all of there being anything in writing, it's just 'he said, I said'.
Which won't stand up in court.
And I guess it's still possible that the car owner could sue for costs as the OP has admitted that his son being responsible.... but there again it's the same scenario, unless there is something in writing it's going to be difficult to prove: for both sides.

It all comes down to morals in the end; can you justify (and live with the thought of) not paying for damage you're responsible for just because the other party isn't a saint?