Ok, so the wife was hit on the side of her brand new Santa Fe a few weeks ago. After filing her claim with the person that hit her’s insurance company, and waiting a week or two, she recieved the expected denial letter from the company. Of course the other driver denied the accident was her fault, and stated that my wife was to blame.
Since this is a load of B.S., I want to know the best way to sue either the person, or her insurance company. Can you sue an insurance company without expensive lawyers? I’m thinking that small claims court is the way to go here. As the damage isn’t really that bad. If I do sue the other driver, do I do it in the city it took place in? The city I live in? Once I’ve filed the paperwork, can I ask her insurance agency for a copy of her exact statement? What about the officer that came to the scene? What do I need to have him make a statement about what he saw? And make that admissable in court? Before anyone asks, there was no police report filed. Virgina has a policy that if the damage is under 1000 dollars, no report is required, and my wife was too upset to make him do one at the scene. So it’s basically one person’s word against the other. Except that it’s not possible for the cars to have physically been in the position they were in if it had been my wife’s fault. Unless she had hit the lady, and then backed up in front of her.
Any general, or specific advice is welcome. While I have taken someone to small claims court in the past, it was a long time ago, and in another city. Basically all I did there was file the paperwork at City Hall, and show up and tell the judge my story. Since the other party never showed up, I won by default.
The venue can be either your county of residence, the other party’s county of residence, or (I think) the county in which the accident occurred.
Before you retain a lawyer for a claim under $1,000 try this: file the claim with your own insurance company. They will be more willing to get all the facts and build a case against the other driver. Why? Because if you have collision coverage on your policy, they are obliged to pay your damages if they exceed your collision deductible. They don’t like to do that if they don’t have to. So they build a good case FOR you and present their evidence to the other company in the glorious process of SUBROGATION! Be thankful you do not do this for a living.
Lots of companies routinely deny your type of claim initially and will do so until you get them cornered with facts. Let your insurer do this work for you. Granted, “he said/she said” claims can make it difficult to assign fault. But if what you are saying is true with regard to positioning, a good claim rep should be able to get the other company to accept liability and reimburse your deductible for you (if they accept liability but don’t give you your deductible, your insurer will collect it from them and give it to you). And this will cost you NOTHING because you’ve already paid them to do the legwork (insurance premium).
Don’t waste your time with the cops at this point. Police reports are frequently dismissed when determining liability. Just because someone runs a red light, for instance, doesn’t give you the right to broadside them if you can avoid it. Sure, the other guy gets the Failure to Yield ticket, but you will get hammered for not exercising your last clear chance to avoid the accident.
Get the claim moving as soon as possible on your end so any damage to the other car can be documented by your company.