Er…well. Insurance Guy has a checkbook, a telephone, letter writing capability and a lot of other things to do besides leave desperate pleas on your voicemail begging you to call him back. If you don’t return calls or answer mail–contacts intended as a good faith effort to address your loss–Insurance Guy can simply close your file and wait for you to get around to asking him for money. How does he know you’re not pursuing damages through your own insurance carrier?
Delay the claim at your own peril:
Your car was moved from the crash site to a tow yard or body shop. These places charge a daily **storage ** rate of around $15-$30 per day. Insurance Guy will be more than happy to take care of the initial recovery bill and a few days’ storage, but if you want to be smart and delay the claim, he is under no obligation to pay for more than a reasonable duration. Your crash was on Friday? I get around to calling you Tuesday & Thursday? I’m leaving you my name & number & instruction to call me by Friday so I can get your car moved to a free storage facility. If I don’t hear back from you by Friday, storage charges beyond that date will be deducted from your vehicle settlement–no sense in paying a shop or tow yard just to hold your car, that doesn’t do anyone any good. Plus, every day your car is in the pound is a day Bubba at the lot has to resist the temptation of yanking your Harmon Kardon. If it’s gone before Insurance Guy gets to the car, YOU are the one who’ll have to prove it was in there, and that YOU didn’t take it out after the accident. It’s hard enough to prove you don’t own Weapons of Mass Destruction–let’s not play games.
If you don’t give me an idea of the nature and extent of your injury soon after the accident, all I’ll have is your diary (fiction?) and medical records to tell me about how bad you were hurt. I won’t get an idea of any quality of life issues or intangibles and so I’ll have to guess. If you’ve been a pain in the ass, I’m likely to return the favor and make you prove to me that your lack of urgency translated directly into “I was too sore to talk on the phone.” I don’t think so–let’s not play games.
And if I draw upon my experience of having seen a few dozen 55mph rear-end impacts and make an estimate of how extensive and debilitating your injuries are, don’t be offended when I offer you a lump sum today for you to use against incoming medical bills. Just say, “I’d rather wait a bit” or, “Thanks, that sounds good, but how about an open settlement until I get a better idea of how bad this really is?”
June 2001. Around 2330, I awaken to a loud crash. A very drunk and very stoned person haspdriven through my living room and parked his truck in my dining room, nearly killing my wife and dog in the process.
An open and shut case regarding liability, as is the OP. Even the adjuster from Progressive admits this as he photographs the damage to my house the next day. So what do they do? Progressive offers me $1000 for my injuries even though I was asleep in the bedroom at the other end of the house. I was extremely unhurt.
If I had signed, I would have waived any further compensation for damage and injury, including the $20k in damage to my house. I told them to go pound sand, and they were to contact only my lawyer. I then went out and got one.
Morals of the story:
Despite the the ads for the law firm Badger, Bender & Cahoots plays on the boob tube, you ain’t gonna get rich out of this.
The lawyer is going to take 1/3 to 1/2 of the settlement. For that fee, they save you from doing a lot of BS paperwork and research, and they aren’t easily intimidated.
Even after you tell the other guy’s insurance company that you have a lawyer, a sufficiently slimy insurer like Allstate or Progressive is going to try their damnedest to weasel out of settling by catching you unaware.
If I had to relive the DD in my house, would I get a lawyer? Hell yes.
That’s nothing. Here in Austin there are traffic lights on roads with 60 and 65 mph speed limits. I couldn’t believe it when I moved here, and I still can’t.
OK, now I’m creeped out. Mr. Drive-like-an-idgit is now calling me on my home phone and cell phone, leaving hourly messages. I have turned off my home answering maching, but he can still get thru to my cell voice mail. He “just wants to know if I am all right”.
I’m hoping that my adjuster will handle this. Still no call from his insurance company. WTF am I supposed to be doing? I know things take time, but I feel like maybe I’m forgetting something.
He’s being a concerned human, not completely bereft of remorse.
Call him & let him know in vague terms (I’m really sore, but not in a body cast) that you yet draw breath & that you plan to have his insurance handle your injury.
DO NOT say, “I’m fine” or go into any detail about your injury. You are injured, to make statements to ANYONE that would seem to minimize that fact would not be prudent. No matter how much you might want to put him at ease, don’t.
DO NOT TELL HIM THAT YOU ARE “ALL RIGHT”. In fact, do not talk to him at all.
If you tell him that you are all right, he then has evidence to drag out that you are malingering. “But when I talked to her in April, she said she was fine!”
Do not return his messages. If he gets you on the phone, refer him to your insurance company and/or lawyer and hang up without waiting for a response.
one of these days I’ll think before I hit the post button…
His insurance company will customarily want to confirm the facts of the accident with HIM before making a commitment to you. If you do speak with him, confirm that he has in fact been in contact with his insurance people. Also, depending on workload in the claims office, it can sometimes take a few days for a new claim to get reviewed and all parties contacted.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Tramway Blvd. (technically a state highway) in Albuquerque has a 50 MPH limit with stoplights every half-mile to mile and a 3-way stop that I’ve almost blown through a couple times by accident, and I know it’s there. US-22 in Pennsylvania between Huntingdon and Altoona has a stoplight coming off a downhill curve in a 55 zone. It can be hard to see, so they even put a blinking white strobe light in with the red light. Several places have light-controlled on-ramps for the interstate, and I don’t mean at the top of the interchange. I mean down near where the on-ramp hits the highway.
Easier said than done in some cases. Doctors often don’t want to give a concrete diagnosis or declare an injury to be temporary/permenant for a long time. This is reasonable, of course. Everyone heals differently, and until different therapies have been tried and all possibilities exhausted, a good doctor doesn’t want to make a solid judgement.
I went through physical therapy three times (at six grand a pop!) various drug therapies, massage therapy and chiropractic care, but it wasn’t until two years had passed that my doctor said my injuries were likely permenant.
Update - Mr. Asshat is uninsured. I was waiting for his adjuster to call, no call yet so I got the phone # of “his” insurance company. According to them, the policy was cancelled as of April 11th due to non-payment. Accident was on the 22 nd.
Now my adjuster has been very bitchy to me on the phone, maybe she’s just being professional, but I don’t have a good feeling about her. I haven’t notified her of this latest development. Still no news on the car appraisal. I’m off work until at least next week, when I see my MD again. The FMV of my car is about $16,000 and my medical bills have to be close to $5,000 so far. The other driver actually called today and left a message about paying me directly so that the insurance company would not be involved. Yeah, I just fell off the turnip truck, go ahead and pay me a few thousand. This guy probably can’t even cover my lost wages up to now, let alone the car and medical bills.
I need a lawyer, right? I understood earlier about the yes lawyer/no lawyer opinions, but now things have changed. Do I call the sheriff back and report this guy as uninsured?
I was in a somewhat similar situation in 2001. I was rear-ended by someone who thought he was insured, but whose insurance had actually lapsed. I wasn’t injured, though, and from the sound of it I had a lot less damage to my car.
You will have to report the guy to the DMV for driving without insurance, and soon. You will also have to fill out a form reporting the accident to the DMV within 10 days of the accident. Your insurance agent should send you these forms; if not, they might be available at the California DMV website.
If you have uninsured motorist coverage, your insurance company should pay for the damages and not raise your rates. Make sure, after you are paid, that the insurance company has on file that the money was paid out of uninsured motorist coverage, not collision coverage. My insurance company messed this up, with the result that, when I switched insurance companies, I was paying more than I should have been for a while. And yes, how my insurance company handled my claim in the accident had a lot to do with my switching insurance companies.
Stay in touch with your insurance co and put them to work paying those elements of your claim that you’ve bought coverage for. If you feel like they’re not treating you like a valued policyholder scream at your agent if you have one and let him know about it. If you still fail to achieve some measure of satisfaction you can file a complaint with the California Department of Insurance.
…yyyyyyyyyyeeah, Ok. And chat with a legal professional.
I don’t know about California insurance regs, but there is usually a period of time between when the policy cancels for nonpayment and when the policy is out of force. See, in a lot of cases if you miss your payment and your policy cancels, there is a grace period of like 2 weeks (the duration varies depending on your state) where you can make a payment and coverage will be reinstated effective the date of cancellation (you get back-dated coverage).
The Perp might be in this window, or he might be out of force. It’s his problem, but it would be best for you if he has coverage because if he has no assets, he might be able to slip out of any judgements you win against him. The judge can say, “You owe $16k for property damage, $23k for medical expenses and $8k for other junk.” But if dude doesn’t have the means to pay it, you don’t get a dime. Maybe. Depends on how things are done in Cali. Lawyer-city baby.
God luck. If I was a prayin’ man I’d invoke the spirits on your behalf.
Sorry to keep beating a dead Subaru, but (drum roll please) - the car is a total loss. And my adjuster must be paid to speak the least number of words possible, because I still don’t understand what happens next.
I have uninsured driver coverage. I have a certain amount for bodily damage and medical bills. Do I get a check for the FMV of the car sometime in the near future?
My medical adjuster is great, really on the ball, so I am less worried about those bills, although I know they will be substantial.
BTW, it was the first car I ever bought with a single check. Paid in full. Crap. Just curious what happens if you have a serious collision and they total a car that you are still making payments on???