<prompt> Human: I was at a red light behind a relatively new car. The light turned green and I slowly started to accelerate since I had some distance between me and the car ahead of me. I zoned out and kept focus on the green light instead of the road. The car ahead was moving particularly slow. I was probably going 10mph when I struck her driver was female.We pulled over and there seemed to be no damage at all from first glance. Then I noticed the bumper had been pushed down a few inches. It wasnt hanging off but it was definitely displaced. There wasnt any dents or scratches aside from two half inch scrapes from the impact of my license plate. She called the local police department to come take a look at everything and make sure her kids in the back seat werent hurt, everyone was fine. The police lady was extremely helpful and said that not every accident needs to be reported to insurance, and that some accidents are cheaper to take care of directly. Upon her advice, I talked it over with the lady I hit over email and she got a quote from a body shop. The charge was going to be around 1,100 and I was expecting something like 400-500 since the damage was so minimal. This kinda sent me in a panic since I had saved up a little over 1000 over summer Im 19, college student, work part time. So I live with my parents, and there was visibly no damage to my car. I managed to keep the accident a secret and didnt tell my parents because I was a part of another big car accident less than a year ago. My father pays my car insurance so I have no idea how much higher my monthly payment t would be if I report the accident and have my insurance handle her bumper costs.Thanks for reading, Id really appreciate any sort of advice you guys got!  <response>: Consider reporting it to insurance. At the very least, grow up and stop hiding it from your parents. What happens if she calls your insurance company demanding money from them? If your policy is in your parents name with you as a named driver, what happens if she claims injury from the accident and sues your parents for the cost of her medical bills? Your insurance premium will likely increase by about the amount of the damage, but over the course of a few years. In the end, the cost will be about the same as covering the damages yourself, but the immediate cost to you will be more manageable. If you pay 100 out-of-pocket now, you will deplete your emergency fund to do so and having no emergency fund is not a good position to be in.As for the estimate exceeding what you expected - its quite possible the underlying crash structure was damaged as well. I got rear-ended last week in a car Id had for a month and the damage to my car sounds fairly similar to that done in your accident. The cop initially refused to do an accident report, claiming the damage couldnt possibly be more than 1500 but Im not an expert in body shop work. Much to his displeasure, I insisted, and was not at all surprised when the estimate for the work was 3k.Im not going to lecture you, but please pay more attention when youre driving. Inattention can have deadly consequences for yourself and others. Dont treat it so casually. 