A friend rear-ended the car in front of her. No injuries, but her car was pretty crunched-up. The other party’s insurance company has asked her to call them. I’ve never heard of this. Why would they seek contact, and should she?
She should have talked to the police and her insurance company, but in NJ at least you shouldn’t need to talk to the other persons insurance company. (and shouldn’t)
IANAL but have heard it is not advisable to talk to them over the phone rather than let your own insurance do it for you in writing.
~Max
Thanks, both of you. She won’t be contacting them.
Speaking as a former insurance agent and adjuster, I can think of many reasons, but they all depend upon the rear-ended parties coverage and your friend’s coverage. But let me answer the second half first - “Not if she doesn’t want to.”
Okay, back to the first part. Why would they want to contact her? Well, first, you didn’t mention if your friend had insurance, and if so, if she shared that information with the other party. Second, you didn’t mention if your friend reported it to her insurance company yet.
If the answer to any of these is no, then the rear-ended party and/or their carrier may be in a bind. For example, if they didn’t carry collision coverage, their policy can’t cover any damage to their car, so they would need to have their damages covered by your friends policy.
Second, if your friend hasn’t contacted their carrier, said carrier will likely NOT accept responsibility for the loss until they have a statement confirming the facts from your friend - because they only have from their POV a third party statement of responsbility.
So, IMHO, I would have your friend confirm that she’s spoken to her carrier and admitted fault, then request her carrier handle the rest if she isn’t comfortable speaking to the other carrier. If she’s admitting fault, it’s not really going to make much if any difference in terms of liability (she’s getting an At Fault Accident on her record) but if she’s intending to fight that or is trying to fight a related ticket for example, she might not want to have a recorded statement on file with the other person’s insurance.
But the ‘we want to talk with you’ is normally due diligence, a coverage issue, or a disputed accident rather than anything nefarious.
In my case I did choose to speak with the other driver’s insurance. I recorded a statement with them. To my mind the other driver was clearly, 100% at fault.
I ended up talking with the other driver’s insurance much more than with mine. After a couple of days the other insurance said that it was not possible to affix blame so they were going to rule that we were both equally at fault.
That just totally sucked. The other driver must have lied through her teeth.
I then was finally able to upload the video that I took to YouTube. I didn’t get a video of the accident, but as soon as the accident occurred I started my video as I checked on the other driver and her occupants.
I contacted the other driver’s insurance agent and pointed them to my video. Within the hour they called back and said they will assume 100% responsibility and they would cover a rental for me.
If it hadn’t been for that video I would’ve been screwed.
Yes I spoke with the other driver’s insurance much more than I did with mine.
Here is the video I took immediately after the accident.
I recommend doing this after an accident, although my filming wasn’t that good it did capture the cars’ positions before we moved them to exchange information.
Yeah, the insurance adjuster generally wants to know what actually happened, rather than being adversarial in defense of their customer. And if they can’t determine for sure what happened, they want to negotiate with the other insurance company to reach an agreement and get the claim taken care of. Insurance adjusters deal with multi-car accidents all the time, and if they don’t assign blame exactly right this time, it will balance out next time, from their perspective. Especially in a simple property damage claim (no bodily injury) they mostly just want to get it settled.
If your friend has insurance and has admitted fault, i doubt it matters who she talks to.
Yeah, I’d say that’s conclusive! I hope you got in the line “Just one more thing…” when you sent them the video.
In the UK, I would not speak to a third-party insurer. The usual rule is to pass any communication from the third party or their insurer to your own insurer.
Does the “friend” have insurance? If not, then she is the responsible party, and it is reasonable for the other party’s insurance to wish to speak to her as a matter of subrogation. If she is insured, then I would hope that she notified her own insurance company regarding the accident, and she should refer the other party’s insurance company to her own insurance company.
Yes, she is insured.