Hope they weren’t self insured. A FedEx truck backed into my car right in my driveway. Took a lot of yelling and threats to get compensated. Another time a truck backed into my car in NYC. They did pay off quickly though.
It took my insurance company, State Farm, about 5 years to recover my money from an uninsured motorist.
I’m in year 7 and still waiting.
Oh good.
That’s not true. They are required to carry liability insurance, just like you are. They may have a very large deductible, so they effectively pay the claims. They may even have set up a captive insurance company to pay the claims. But there is some entity, regulated like an insurance company, that’s responsible to see the claim gets paid. It might be a shitty company, though, especially if it’s a captive. Still, the state insurance dept has some influence.
Progressive does have skin in this game, though, because they recover what they already paid to fix your car at the same time they recover your deductible. So they probably aren’t scamming you. They are incompetent, or they are legitimately having trouble extracting the money from the responsible party.
Also, like many others, i don’t believe that your having an outstanding claim due to you (not against you) is any impediment to getting a new policy with a new insurance company. Shop around. Consider either buying directly or getting a new agent.
Try telling your interlocutor “Please elaborate. Walk me through what needs to be done, by whom, and what reasons are being given for the holdups.”
If they say you’re not entitled to be privy to that information, push back (and make sure you document the exchange, in case you need it for inclusion in a complaint to regulators).
This sounds shitty. IMO, the insurance company should pay you promptly, and then THEY take about 5 years to recover THEIR money from the uninsured motorist.
I mean, you have assigned them the responsibility to collect. You can’t sue the underinsured motorist. It should be THEIR legal problem, not yours.
Not necessarily - in NYS a company/person is eligible to self-insure if they have at least 25 vehicles. ( I’m sure other states allow it as well) But it is regulated.
§ 316. Self-insurers. The commissioner, in his discretion, may upon the application of a person having registered in his name in this state more than twenty-five motor vehicles, issue a certificate of self-insurance when he is reasonably satisfied that such person is possessed and will continue to be possessed of financial ability to respond to judgments obtained against such person, arising out of the ownership, maintenance, use or operation of any such person’s motor vehicles. Upon due notice and hearing, the commissioner may, in his discretion and upon reasonable grounds, cancel a certificate of self-insurance.
Your own insurance company is never going to pay you the deductible. They have no obligation to - that’s what they don’t cover if your car is damaged and they pay for repairs under collision/comprehensive. Doesn’t matter why it’s damaged - you drive into a wall, insurance doesn’t pay deductible . Tree falls on it, insurance doesn’t pay deductible. You get rear ended- insurance doesn’t pay deductible. Although in that last case, they will try to get get money back along with their own.
OK. Then why is the OP waiting to get his deductible back from the insurance company?
I guess because he’s waiting for the insurance company to sue the company who was responsible for the accident. His policy may assign this legal action to the insurance company, so he does not have to do this. This means he cannot sue the responsible party himself. So his insurance company bears all of the responsibility to collect this money as soon as possible.
They may indeed be doing this. But they are not communicating their actions very effectively to their actual customer.
For what it’s worth, the accident occurred in New York. But the truck that struck me was registered in New Jersey. And company that the truck belongs to has its headquarters in California.
It’s a good sized company. They have twenty-six offices around North America (including one in New York which I’ve been told may be an issue).
Because this is that last case, where the insurance company is trying to get his money back along with their own. And they aren’t obligated to give it to him until/unless they have gotten it back from the responsible party. Is the insurance company incompetent? maybe. Are they uncommunicative ? I’d say so.
I understand that Progressive does not owe me the thousand dollars I paid as my deductible. But my understanding is that they are supposedly acting as my agent in recovering the money from the other company; both the thousand dollars which I paid and the approximately fourteen thousand dollars they paid.
I have also been told that if I initiate any legal action of my own against the other company in a direct attempt to recover my thousand dollars then Progressive is no longer obligated to act as my agent in their attempt to recover that money.
So I have to weigh my options. Do I feel I have a better chance of getting the money on my own? Or do I have a better chance of getting my money by letting Progressive continue to do whatever it is they might be doing? This decision is why I’d like to have more information on what exactly it is that Progressive is doing.
Absolutely. And as their paying customer, and as they are acting as your agent, you have every right to up to date information on exactly what they are doing.
If I had to guess, I’d say this was a common business practice; Just stall the customer long enough that they just say “forget it”. The cynic in me even supposes that they already got the thousand bucks from the other party, and just plan on keeping it.
It may cost you more than $1000 to recover that money, if you even succeed. The insurance company has a lot more leverage, and has lawyers on staff. It’s almost always better to have them subrogate. Sucks that it’s taking them so long, though.
Self insurance in this case is regulated similarly to insurance.
That’s probably good, because it means they can pay.
Flo money, Flo problems…
I doubt they’ve just pocketed my money. That would be outright theft. And I feel Progressive isn’t going to break the law for the same reason I don’t feel they are putting much effort into this claim; it’s not a large enough sum from their perspective.
But going back to my OP, I have evidence that this open claim is keeping me locked in as a Progressive customer. If I want to be cynical, I can see that as a reason for them to handle this claim as slowly as possible.
I’ll only file my own claim if I can verify that I can add any additional expenses I incur by doing so on top of the thousand dollars I’m already owed.
How good is that evidence? I mean, is it actual written documentation from an insurance company that declined you as a customer due to this open claim? Opposed to a letter from an agent that just might be a moron? If it’s something like the former, that is the document you should be sending to the State regulators.
I’m not a lawyer, but that strikes me as very unlikely.
Yeah. I wonder if you have a claim against your agent.
Really? Because I’ve heard it’s relatively common to be awarded your legal expenses on top of your regular claim.