I’m in TX and was recently in a minor car accident. No injuries and car not totaled. The other vehicle was a truck and I was in a compact car. It happened while I was turning left on the inside lane of a dual left turn lane configuration and the truck was in the outside lane. I moved to the left a bit to avoid a flatbed trailer veering into my lane a bit, then when I moved a bit right again, intending to move to the center of my lane, my car and the truck behind the flatbed trailer collided.
We pulled over and a policeman finally came. No citations were given and he didn’t actually file a report because it’s not required if the damage appears to be under $1000 and no injuries have occurred.
Now my estimate has come in for around $1600 that my insurance co. will pay and I will pay my $500 deductible. Also, there is this message when I log into the claims page of my account:
Your Claim is Complete. We’re reviewing claims from others that were involved and will contact you if additional information is needed. You will not see other parties’ details below.
So does that mean I’ve been determined to be at fault and the other driver (or owner of the truck, I guess, as it was a rental) has filed a claim against my insurance? If so, that is kind of creepy. Number one, I don’t feel like my insurance company is explaining anything, and number two - I wasn’t trying to change lanes, I wasn’t talking on the phone, wasn’t texting, wasn’t listening to music or a podcast or doing anything but driving. I didn’t fall asleep and wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or any other substances.
So I just drifted into the truck without intending to do so or even knowing that I was doing that and without any contributing factors? No bad weather, slippery roads, or poor visibility.
I spent 2 years as a claims adjuster, and from what you said -
If you said this or the equivalent to the adjuster, you admitted fault. You left your lane. Now, what I told my customers when discussing this sort of claim is “this is why it’s called an accident, not an ‘on-purpose’”. You didn’t intend for it to happen (which by the way, if you deliberately cause an accident in most states [ the laws are state specific btw]) that’s grounds to deny a claim) - but your actions are the proximate cause.
As for your insurance company not explaining, they likely believed it wasn’t needed, as if they shared my interpretation, they felt you were admitting fault. They were just letting you know that they’re checking the claims of the other party to make sure they’re in line with the accident reported, and will settle, so you don’t have too. Which, is why you carry insurance after all.
As for them making a claim against your insurance, Rental car companies tend to be rather aggressive about that. After all, time where the car isn’t repaired is time they aren’t renting it, and not making money.
Lastly, most of the issues you mention are mitigating factors for tickets, rather than for insurance. Insurance doesn’t (in general) care why an accident happened, only if it share responsibility with anyone else. Drinking, tickets, texting, sleeping - those all contribute to things like Reckless Driving tickets, while bad weather, slippery roads, and poor visibility to careless.
But to insurance? Nope. Which is why excluding collisions with animals (comprehensive claims), pretty much 100% of single car accidents are treated as ‘at-fault’ for the owner/driver of the vehicle - the weather for example may be the ‘why’ but whoever was driving made the choice to take the car out.
The most painful example of such a claim that I had personal experience with had the owner of a small hatchback parked on a hill in a wooded area. The brakes failed, and it rolled down the hill and smashed into a tree at speed. Thankfully no one was hurt, no claim was made for the tree damage (as there wasn’t any), but the car was a total loss. And yes, that was an at-fault accident for the owner - car safety is the owners responsibility as well.
[ it didn’t affect her rates, though, as she didn’t carry collision damage, so nothing was paid out, and in Colorado, At fault accidents resulting in under $500 in claims do not affect rates]
No, I didn’t say that to the adjuster, as I didn’t believe it to be true (that I just drifted into the lane next to me and thus into the truck). It just feels like that’s what the adjuster has concluded since I wasn’t doing anything on purpose (like just ramming into the truck on purpose for no reason) and there were no other factors that could have led to my being negligent, such as being under the influence, distracted, or trying to cut off another driver or speeding or whatever. To me it very much felt like the truck was coming toward me (maybe as if to try to get around the flatbed or just change lanes) and they didn’t see me, though they started out behind me and ended up slightly ahead of me.
But if I know I wasn’t being negligent yet they are assigning fault to me, then I think I must have some kind of problem I don’t even realize I have! I mean, I’m really just perplexed.
Then your best bet is to talk to the adjuster, they may still be attempting to contact the third party to get a statement from them as well which would be due diligence prior to making a determination if there is disputed fault.
Just the accident as described here specifically “I moved to the right a bit again, --intending-- to move to the center of my line” [emphasis mine] " would ring alarm bells in an agents mind. Now that doesn’t mean they and I are coming to the correct conclusion, but you are saying you were in the middle of 2 quick corrections (for your own safety). This isn’t exactly a red flag, but it does indicate you were moving aggressively immediately prior to the collision.
Talk to your claims agent. Be certain. Because if they have a claim where their customer says “I veered left to avoid the truck ahead of me and then back to the right to get into my lane and I’m almost positive I was in the center of my lane.” and the other party says “I was turning left and then this other guy swerved into my rear quarter” - well, again, it sounds bad.
You may well be right, and if he was ahead of you and turning left, you could well have been in his blind spot - but in these sort of cases, you’re often going to end up with word vs word as to responsibility, and if so you’re going to want to make sure the adjuster has a written and/or recorded statement in which you are clear that you believe you were in your lane the whole time.
I once read my insurance policy, out of boredom, I suppose. It contained the beautiful expression “phantom land motor vehicle”, which is, I guess, a non-airplane or non-boat that contributed to an accident, but left the scene without any palpable evidence. The OP mentioned a wide-turning flat-bed, a “phantom land motor vehicle” that may have been partly at fault, but cannot be held responsible for monetary damages. Phantom land motor vehicle –
i love it.
I’m not in your jurisdiction, but you (probably fairly) feel aggrieved for being called at fault when you feel the accident wasn’t avoidable or down to your own negligence.
Thing is, that’s not how insurance claims work. You can be ‘at fault’ even if you didn’t do anything wrong. In simplistic terms, and without any additional evidence as to whether the other driver may be at fault, if you hit another vehicle, then you are at fault. Insurance companies want to establish who is at fault so they can decide which insurance company should pay out. It isn’t a reflection of your driving ability, and I wouldn’t take it to heart. It isn’t personal. It’s just how they conduct business.
Yes, I do feel upset that I might be assigned fault when I was doing everything I can think of to be a reasonable driver. Plus I guess I would feel better if I could figure out something I did “wrong” or incorrectly or could have done better to prevent such incidents in the future. At least I could learn something, even if it came the hard way and I’d rather it hadn’t ever happened. But I can’t figure it out.
I would like to take a defensive driving class just voluntarily to see if I can learn anything that would apply to this situation and just as a refresher and to learn anything else that could improve my driving in general. Not sure how much that costs in my area; will have to check into it. Plus there’s COVID…
I’ve been working at home exclusively for the better part of a year but now must drive to work a few days a week and it is terrifying me ever since this happened.
Well, you could live in Michigan, the only state that tried “no-fault”’ insurance and hasn’t abandoned it as a stupid idea. All damage to your car is automatically 100% your own fault, so you have to carry collision forever. Yet, liability rates remain among the highest in the nation.
Well, that’s something different - it is upsetting when you have a collision, and natural that you’d feel shaken and wonder what you could have done differently.
I wouldn’t fixate on the insurance though, that’s like blaming an apple that falls from a tree and hits another apple - the first apple is ‘at fault’ from an insurance perspective, but that apple didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a paperwork issue. Your nervousness about avoiding a collision in the future is something else, and additional driver training never hurts if it will help restore your driving confidence.