This concurs with my experience renting a car in Germany, and finding a ding on the exterior that appeared when it was parked. That proved to be expensive, because repairing panels is expensive. Insurance that came with the credit card used to rent the car ended up covering it.
If I had to guess… she was probably an excluded driver on the policy. Happens (frequently) in a household where there’s a driver with access to the vehicle but who has a terrible driving record. The policyholder swears to the carrier on a stack of bibles (metaphorically) that the other person will never drive it, and the carrier agrees they won’t rate on that persons driving record… but if they DO, for ANY reason, the coverage is null and void, like what happened in your case.
What happens after? Well, your carrier probably subrogated against the driver, but if they don’t have any assets, well… in most states, the good news is that your carrier has an obligation to repay you first of your DED before they pay their own costs, so if you never got it back, you can guess. Or it could have been something else.
If the sister didn’t report it stolen (or if it was sister’s boyfriend’s car for example from the registration), before or after the fact… someone probably got dropped HARD by their carrier, and depending on circumstances, may have a “gave falsified information to carrier / attempted to commit insurance fraud” in their history. Not a good experience. Especially if it was financed vehicle and the lienholder starts getting involved in why there’s suddenly no coverage.
What was funny to me those many years ago, and it’s come up in other threads (on dealership and crappy service) is how MUCH of those costs are labor. Twelvish years ago, when I was doing this, it was around $75 per hour or MORE even with partners. I’d bed at least half again that much now. The last time I personally was in an accident (not my fault) the college age kid just wanted to do it out of pocket, and the damage was indeed minor, but I explained that even a real minor repair was going to be one to two grand, not the few hundred he expected. So we documented, exchanged info, and I turned out to be spot on, especially when they couldn’t get a like quality (my car was older) bumper and had to do a newish one. And a rental for 3 days…
It all adds up so fast, and people rarely have an idea of what the costs are going to be when they start offering deals or person-to-person repairs.
Of course, if it’s your car (not a rental) and you don’t mind that your old car has a visible ding, you can repair it very cheaply with a spot of touch-up paint. I generally keep cars line enough that their sale value is based on “does it still run?”, not on how shiny the panels are.
Exactly! I don’t rent a car often because I only rent a car when I fly to a place where I’m going to need transportation, but I always get that added coverage because I don’t want headaches like that. It’s worth the thirty or forty dollars more for the peace of mind it gives.
I think the cut-off is whether you could expect a collision/comprehensive policy to cover it on your own car. Not whether it would be worth it to file a claim if that was the only damage but whether collision/comprehensive would cover the antenna if it was part of the damage when your parked car was hit by another car. Which is going to be pretty much any damage that isn’t caused by wear and tear or lack of maintenance.