If your initial post was accurate and the 'driver' cut accross the front of you giving you nowhere to go, it is not your fault.

My wife was put in a similar position a few years ago, a young driver in an CRX cut in front of her and braked hard - she braked, but still mashed into the back of the CRX rather hard (in her Jeep Grand Cherokee).

The two insurance companies duked it out for a while and eventually agreed that the CRX driver was at fault and refunded our $250 excess.

There is way too much 'ill informed protecting' going on here.

Get the 14yo off the road - he needs to learn a lesson if nothing else.

Get your Mini fixed correctly - front end Mini crunches are very expoensive.

If you where at fault, step up and admit it, be an adult over the whole matter.

 

I don't think it was misleading. I was talking more in terms of legal action, rather than insurance claims. I think its a good idea to call the cops. He didn't state if the 14 y/o driver had insurance or not, or what kind of coverage he's got. Now, as you already know, I'm no expert in insurance matters. But I'm sure there are situations that can lead someone to be forced to take legal action. If he has to take his case to court, a police report in his favor would be crucial to the outcome of his case. I'm not saying he cant win without it, but without it the case is based on hearsay. So I still think that not having the testimony of a police officer does limit your ability to be made whole again.

No, I don't think claims adjusters are bad...some of my best friends are claims adjusters.

 

Mental note to self....never ask for legal advice on NAM....nobody seems to know what they're talking about.

 

But the accident isn't a legal matter. It's an insurance matter.

The other kid driving with no licence, THAT is a legal matter.

---------

Crashton: Thank you.

 

So are you saying if he didn't get satisfaction from the insurance company, he couldn't go after the driver in court with a police report in hand?

 

i love debates. it's fun reading them. i learn so much.

Green Goblin you gotta tell us how it ends.

 

Why would he want to do that ? He pays insurance premiums so his insurance company goes to battle for him. If the other insurance company doesn't accept liability, his insurance company can file arbitration.

And if, in a very rare instance, an accident does end up in court, the insurance company attorneys represent you. So it's still an insurance matter.

Now... could he file a suit in civil court ? Yeah, he could. But if his own insurance company didn't rule in his favor, don't you think it would be pretty foolish to try to take it to court ? I think the defense attorney would love that case.

 

I would agree that that's probably the most telling thing that happened...except that he was an underage driver and that probably has more to do with why he ran than whose fault it was. At 14, he probably has no clue about fault, etc...all he thought was "Oh my god I'm going to get caught driving my dad's car!"

Awww, I love my insurance guys. I am a girl with 6 accidents under my belt, NONE my fault (seriously...sometimes I think I just have a target on my car!...people just love to hit me) and I have had great claims managers, adjusters, and my local agent is awesome. Don't hate on the insurance guys!

 

Thanks for the love, Mel !

May I ask who you're insured with ? Just call it professional curiosity of our competition. And if you told me before, sorry that I forgot.

And by the way... word of caution: Try not to be an accident magnet. Most insurance companies are going to computer scoring models that use not-at-fault accidents as a negative factor in computing your premiums.

 

I don't know though...in civil court they do the whole "but for..." thing. So "but for" the 14-year-old driving w/o a license, the accident wouldn't have happened...

Not saying I KNOW, like I'm an expert or anything...but just based on civil case rulings I've seen with various stuff (a lot of medical malpractice, mostly), it makes me wonder, at least.

 

Well, I won't claim (no pun intended) to be a lawyer or an expert on civil law, either.

But pretty much the only auto accidents that end up in civil court are ones that involve very serious injury or death. Certainly not the kind we're talking about in this thread. And if an accident does involve those types of injuries, there most certainly will be a police report.

 

I have Allstate. Before that, I had American Family. Both have been fantastic. I would probably have stayed with American Family but they're not really "nationwide"...no local agents, so it was easier to go with who my husband has his policies through when we got married.

And believe me, I try. Some of the accidents I was just full-on blindsided. Some I saw coming and there was nothing I could do to avoid them without causing a more serious collision. The worst sound in the WORLD to me is crunching metal...I have nightmares about accidents, literally.

The very first was an 86-year-old woman who made a left turn in front of me in an intersection on an expressway. I was going about 35 because the light had just been red, and then turned green, so I had slowed and then accelerated...otherwise, at full speed I would have been going 55+. She had no seatbelt on and I thought I'd killed her. When the officer wrote her the ticket in the hospital, she pulled off the oxygen and walked out...she was faking for the insurance. In the meantime, I was getting my knee stitched back together.

That accident was the worst of all of them, actually. The rest were all either inexperienced teenage drivers swerving into my lane at slow speeds, or a lady that backed into me at a stoplight (oy. moron...), a guy who tried to pass me on the left while I was turning left (with my turn signal on...again, moron...) into a driveway....etc.

ANYWAY. Not to thread hijack, but I really try. I am probably the most defensive driver out there now.

 

Thread hijack ? This thread has taken so many twists and turns, it only WISHES it could be hijacked !

Yeah, sometimes accidents are unavoidable, I certainly understand that as well as anyone.

So, be careful out there and keep an eye out for potential danger the best you can. You can't eliminate the risk involved in driving a motor vehicle, you can only minimize it.

Allstate. Well... I still like you even though you made it tougher.

 

It's hubby's fault, I swear

 

Yeah, we men take the blame for EVERYthing !

Just kidding about the Allstate thing. They're claim-handling is almost as good as ours. As long as you're not with GEICO. As much as I love their marketing (cavemen, gecko... those ad guys are smart), their claim handling is awful. I hate having to call them to discuss a liability decision with them.

 

Which makes youuuu....State Farm!

(guessing)

 

Yep. I thought you knew that already. Obviously not, so how did you deduce that ? I could be employed with any one of 50 other companies. Even if you narrow it down to the larger companies.... 20 others.

 

Not so. Insurance companies rule and persue in their own best interests first. If their costs out weigh the benefits, you wont get far. If an insurance company ruled against me, and I had a police report that cited the other driver was at fault you can be sure I'd be filing a civil case. I'm sure the defense attorney would love having an insurance ruling, but you can bet the plaintif's attorney would be even more happy having a police report in his favor. Insurance companies dont define legal liability. The police officer's testimony would surely carry more weight than a report written by a company with an eye on the bottom line.

No offense but I'd just as soon call the police and keep all my options instead of hanging my hat on what the insurance company will decide.

 

Interesting about GEICO, can you elaborate on that? Do they not like to cooperate or something? I don't have GEICO but they do sure make themselves look good with their marketing.

What do you know about the other discount companies like AIG and Progressive?

 

Gonzo, you could not be more mislead about insurance companies.

I'm trained to rule objectively on my liability decisions, regardless if that means we pay out to the claimant.

Why, you ask ? Because if my decision is wrong, the claimant (and possibly his/her attorney) may well decide to take the case to court. And if it does, it costs my company a whooooooooooole lot of money to fight it and we stand to lose even more money by the courts decision to award a larger amount to the claimant.

In civil court, all the evidence is going to be considered. That includes the police report, of course. But it also includes both driver's versions of the accidents, any witness accounts, the testimony of scene investigators, photos of the vehicles, and maybe expert witnesses in the form of doctors, engineers, etc.

Oh yeah... that's the same evidence we look at !

So... get a police report after an accident, of course. It can't hurt. But don't go around telling people that if they don't, they have little recourse. That's simply not true.

Now, the one time you better have a police report: If your car is stolen and later involved in a hit-and-run accident. You better have that stolen vehicle report to prove it wasn't you driving.

 

GEICO is a pain for me to deal with because they tend to drag their feet on investigations. Even in cases where the liability seems obvious (i.e. car A strikes car B in the rear at stop sign).

Progressive I would rate middle-of-the-road for their claim handling. And I don't have enough personal experience with AIG to judge them one way or the other.

 

Right, and if you just went on a handshake, you wont have a police report, probably no scene investigators, you may or may not have witnesses, you will have photos, possibly of both cars..these may show damage to both vehicles or not.

I would say that not calling the police would limit your recourse. This is probably just semantics though.

 

Maybe GEICO doesn't train their agents as well as State Farm does.

Are they slow over all or just when they are liable? Sounds like a company I worked for when it came to pay corrections. If they paid you too much, it comes out before you know it. When they underpaid you, you could wait up to 30 days for your money. :P

Sounds like if you're going to be in an accident, you hope its with someone covered by a reputable company.

 

just glad you're ok. hope everything works out in the end, and you don't get screwed.

 

This comment is directed at CR&PW&JB (btw our situation is SB&PW with DS gone)... and getting back to the middle of this thread where what ifs and 2nd hand info was discussed... my daughter was involved in a wreck on the freeway here in SoCal. As bad as the accident sounds, shes was perfectly fine afterward though her 6 month old Scion TC was totaled. Tiffany swerved back into her original lane (5, trying to go to 4) to avoid a car that changed quickly into the lane she was crossing into from the opposite side (from 3 to 4). In the process of doing this, she was clipped by a car that had accelerated into what was supposed to be her vacant spot in lane 5 and sent spinning eventually to the right shoulder. She struck the right side guard rail and bounced back out into traffic where she collected a green car before coming to a rest on the right shoulder again.

Though there were witnesses and a police report, nobody could identify the car that intiated the wreck (that person did not stop) though there was white paint left on her car. The driver of the green car was cited by the CHP for driving with a suspended license and Allstate (our insurance co.) denied their claim based upon this fact. The CHP report did not mention the instigator and my daughter was found by the CHP to be 100% responsible for the accident.

When the car went to the adjuster, he noted the white marks but since there was no information from the witnesses nor the CHP about this car, she was deemed to be at fault by Allstate.

The point of this rambling is that GG has a legitimate claim that since the 14yo driver was driving without a license and should not have been in that place, the insurance company should pay for GG's car, NO MATTER the relative position of the cars or who re-ended who. Were he insured by Allstate, they would have persued this as an unisured motorist claim.

Thoughts?