<p>The reason you should have left your number is that the other party’s insurance could then contact your insurance. It would prove to their insurance that they weren’t lying and that they themselves didn’t cause the dent, ding or whatever it was. Monetarily, I believe the way it now sits, they, not you, will pay a deductible out of their own pockets, if and when they choose to repair the damage. “Insurance covers it” is true, but every repair still has a minimum portion that the car owner pays towards the repair. Sometimes a deductible is a few hundred dollars or $500. </p>
<p>If you can’t find the person whose car you damaged, and want to clear your conscience, you could consider making a charitable donation of a hundred dollars for a ding or scrape, or $500 if you really plowed into the car and you guess they’d need to replace a door or something.</p>
<p>Otherwise, yeah, you’ll think about this one when you’re 35 and it will still bother you. Try to right the balance that way, if you can’t find the person.
I’m a mom and that’s how I’d advise my own family.</p>
<p>Right now I have a van in my driveway with a huge, I mean huge impact collision. I know exactly when it happened: I was a grade school teacher and someone coming to the parent-teacher night plowed into my parked car. After a long day meeting parents, I thought about how someone could do that and not leave a note so I could approach their insurance company, not mine. It steamed me. Our family budget was tight and we didn’t have $500 to do the deductible, so the car is still dented, big time. The dent (basketball sized) was so high that it could only have been done by an SUV or jeep, so presumably they had resources and good insurance. If their own insurance was bad, they wouldn’t have left a number, but mostly I think someone insured was just arrogant and cheap. </p>
<p>If you give to charity as a kind of atonement, the person you hit won’t ever know but you might feel that much better. Think about it, anyway.</p>