A kerfluffle, a dent and what to do now?

So, a friend whom is also a crack mason is doing some work on my house. His stone supplier is delivering some stone. His super cool giant fork truck breaks down in my yard. The service company for the fork truck sends a guy to repair the fork truck... and he forgets to put the lift gate up when he's attempting back out of my berkeleying driveway.

I put this sweet, almost mint implement of Chevrolet diesel hauling prowess on CL not 45 goddamn minutes before this happened and now it's a tad more complicated a sale...

Do I call my insurance, his company with an estimate or ... what? This guy was the contracted service company for the stone delivery comapny my mason bought the stone from. It was parked and he hit it in front of 5 witnesses screaming "Stop!". In my yard. Where I moved it off the driveway to make sure it was out of the way. Like some kind of dent seeking savant... he hit it anyway. My worry is that my insurance will attempt to take it out of my friend's hide because he was the start of the financial chain. That would be somewhat uncool for what I think is probably a $1k bill at the end of the day. He is a stand up guy, with 2 kids, one on the way and taking a chance at starting his own deal... and I'm his first customer. I don't really want to be his last. Do I need to eat this? Will a killing spree make me feel better? Maybe a burlap sack full of kittens and a pond? The dude driving the truck was an shiny happy person right up until he bent stuff then all "Oh man... I'm so fired". I would like it to come out of his pocket.

I was selling the truck to pay for the construction work.

My day was actually worse than this - this was the cake topper when I got back from taking my jazz pianist singer son for an x-ray for a shattered elbow the day before his audition. He can't use his right arm. So much for scholarships. berkeleying basketball courts are unyielding.

I should get drunk.

The truck that hit you is the responsible party. Their insurance needs to be involved and make you whole. It should never affect your friend. This isn't a construction incident, this is a vehicle incident. Trips to the AFB, Bosch and Boeing is why my vehicle insurance is so high. If I hit a $200M plane, it's my problem, not my customer's.

It should be as simple as "guy backs into truck, guy's company pays" but I'm not sure how to get that started if I don't just initiate a claim with my insurance company. And they will chase $ wherever they can squeeze them. Including my premium. My friend's insurance (which may not exist) or whatever. They were relentless to exhaustion with a previous claim where I was T-Boned and not at fault.

Can I do this old boy network style and just call the truck repair company and work it out or is that inviting a whole can of whoop-ass I don't know anything about?

I've got the driver's name, picture, supervisor's name, pic of the financial responsibility card with phone numbers, pics of the damage to both vehicles, 5 witnesses, and a bent truck. Whom do I call first tomorrow? When the hangover fades.

As long as driver admits it was his fault then no big deal.

If you are in reverse and the other car is stationary, it is open and shut case.

the insurance covering the truck that hit you is on the hook. i would call your insurance company with their info and let them have at it.

Why are you even thinking about this? You used to have a not dented truck. Some dimwit drove into it, and now its dented. The dimwits insurance will cover it. Make the claim.

Make the claim. Don't mention your friend or the delivery company. None of it is relevant.

Yeah this is an a-b accident. C that your friend is nowhere nesr the proceedings. He has no reason to be. Rake the shiny happy person til you have a nice truck, and a refilk of booze.

OK, wow. Let's not make a mountain out of a mole hill. Some guy hit your parked and unoccupied truck. It's as simple as it gets. Get the name and policy number of the insurance company for the truck that hit you and set up a claim with them. Your friend has absolutely zero to do with it, and the trucks' insurance carrier won't even consider your friend. Their vehicle hit a parked car. From an insurance claim perspective, this one is as much of a slam dunk as they come. Rest easy.

+1 on going directly to the insurance of the truck that hit yours. As Klayfish said, no need to do anything else.

Oh man, that truck looks totaled to me. I'll give you $1k for it, I can be there today

In reply to ¯_(ツ)_/¯:

Toss another $14k in and it's yours. I'll even wash it!

What is a "crack mason"?

In reply to OHSCrifle:

A right proper chap.

Yea, I definitely had different ideas (several of them) when I heard that term lol.

You forgot to mention that your son was in the truck when it happened and his arm was badly injured.

I would probably get an estimate and call the drivers company, a lot of times they would rather pay out of pocket than risk getting the insurance jacked up on their entire fleet. If they give you ANY grief or resistance then I would turn it over to your insurance and let them have at them. Of course this only a courtesy thing, not required at all.

Tell the service company that hit your truck that it was for sale at $XX,XXX price and they can make it right or buy it from you as-is. That way you aren't out any value (people trying to offer you less because it's "repaired".

You have time stamps from a third party that show pretty explicitly what the truck looked like (you took a photo of that side of the truck, right?) and what the truck was valued at.