I watched a guy tonight on the TLC hit 24 cars before the police got him to a stop. Two of the cars were near totaled. Who pays for those cars?
It depends on who hit them. If it was the fleeing felon, his insurance company (yeah, sure he’s insured)or the owners uninsured motorist policy. If it was squad cars, the police department is liable for damages.
[Insurance Broker Hat On}
If the vehicles are hit by an uninsured driver, the insured’s policy will respond to cover the resultant damage up to the liability limits of the insured’s policy.
If the vehicles are hit-and-run, the insured’s policy will cover the damage, subject to the deductible.
In the unlikely event that the driver being chased is actually in his own car (ie not stolen), the driver’s policy will ultimately cover damage - provided there is no clause excluding coverage. I don’t remember a clause excluding damage in the event of a car chase.
I say ‘ultimately’ because unless you’re in Ontario, BC, or Manitoba (provinces with DCPD rules and/or government insurance) your insurance company will cover the damage, and then subrogate (sue) the other guy’s company to recover the amount they paid out for damages.
[These rules will only apply in Canada, specifically. But the principles and practices of Insurance are basically the same throughout the world]
In the most of the cities around me, the police won’t engage in pursuit unless its a know its a violent felon fleeing. This was due to some lawsuits over bystander injuries and property damage that occured during chases. The cities got stuck with huge bills even on things they didn’t do the actual damage on.
Ginger, please, give us some closure!
[/Insurance Broker Hat On]
24 cars aha? Hmmmm. I think we need some more insurance guys to answer this.
First of all, 24 cars would be a huge amount of money & I don’t think many people have that much coverage.
Second, a lot of people don’t have uninsured coverage, me for one, being I have to pay my insurance soon.
So I think we need better answers.
Handy you better include that unisured motorist. I don’t know the particulars but I think things could get pretty ugly without it in the right circumstance.
Maybe our insurance broker Ginger will help us with that?
I don’t know if this is still the case or not, but in the past cops here were not responsible for property damage that resulted from a pursuit.
It became an issue once several years ago when a cruiser went out of control during a chase and demolished a fruit stand. It put the guy out of business and the city was not liable for a cent. The cops themselves finally organized a donation drive to get the guy going again.
Don’t worry about it, iamthewalrus(:3=… vB automatically closes any open tags at the end of a post. Good thing, too, or there’d be an awful lot of threads out there with Moderator Watch (or hat, for those other mods) still set to “on”.
Unless you are driving a $500 beater and God has assured you that you will not be hurt in an auto accident, it is simply tempting fate not to carry uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on top of your automobile liability insurance. There are just too many deadbeats on the road to take the chance that the guy who hits you has adequate insurance. Becoming collateral damage in a police chase is just one thing that could happen. U.I.M. coverage is relatively cheap. In the rural Midwest the cost for $500,000 U.I.M. is $40 per year per vehicle for uninsured coverage and an additional $36 per year per vehicle for underinsured coverage. That $76 per year will look pretty cheap when some irresponsible bozo comes down the wrong side of the interstate and puts you in the hospital for 60 days and totals your car.
My father drove fire trucks for a living for damn near 26 years. One of the nuggets of advice he taught me when I first started driving was this: “Any time an emergency vehicle’s coming, pull over. If you can’t pull over, stop. They’ll either get around you, or the city’ll buy you a new car or pay you for the damages to yours.” That is (and I can’t stress this aspect enough), ***there is always an investigation into an accident. If it turns out that it IS the city’s fault, then they ARE liable for any damages. If, however, the accident occurred because you ran a red light, then you’re screwed. The city is not going to pay you for sucking as a driver. If circumstances are such that the driver of the emergency vehicle could not avoid the collision, and it was in fact his fault, then it IS the city’s responsibility. ***My dad personally had to drive trucks to blazing fires over sheets of solid ice. Over 26 years, he did ding a few cars. Also, another point to remember is that the city would only pay reasonable cost of repair. Don’t expect, if you’re driving a ragged-out 82 Escort, for them to buy you a brand new Lexus. It’s not gonna happen.
Anything excluding coverage when damage is deliberate as opposed to just negligent?
If so, would knowingly driving in a car chase in which damage would be likely constitute deliberation and therefore trigger an exclusion?
I don’t have a clue.
You’ve got me there, Muffin. Insurance as a rule does not cover any negligent activity. Negligence defined by Black’s as (paraphrasing): the failure to do or not to do what a reasonable and prudent man would do in a similar situation. (That’s the second time today I’ve used that. I’m sounding like a broken record).
I was thinking about this earlier today, but was so busy I didn’t have time to post it.
A ‘car chase’ is akin to a speed test. Therefore, the coverage would be excluded. I think that tomorrow I will ask one of my best technically knowledgeable underwriters that question.
I am using the instance where the ‘fleeing criminal’ is the one causing damage, not the police. If the police cause damage, that’s up to their insurer to handle. In a lot of cases, city police forces are self-insured, and an insurance company is never involved. (Please understand again that this is a Canadian instance I am using).
In Alberta, NWT, Yukon - those provinces whose Insurance laws I am most familiar with - SEF 44 (Family Protection Endorsement - Uninsured motorist coverage) is approximately $25 per year. Of course, this depends on your limit of coverage; this amount is at $1,000,000 TPL.
FWIW, the minimum Third Party Liability anyone in Alberta must carry is $200,000.00. Quebec’s minimum is $50,000.00. Because of this discrepancy, I never, ever sell anything less than a million. I have clients sign to decline the SEF 44 coverage. It’s my job to ensure that people are adequately insured. And no, I don’t work on commission; nor am I a slimy life agent with a gold pinky ring and greased back hair.
And iamthewalrus(:3=, my Insurance Broker Hat is always on. That could be why I spend so much time on here. 
“Handy you better include that unisured motorist.”
I thought it was included but I was looking at my policy cause its time to pay it & I see its not on it. I don’t know how much it costs. This is California, not Canada.
An update:
If the owner of the vehicle is involved in fleeing from police, the liability limit of their policy is covered, but only to the statutory minimum in their home province.
Thus, in Alberta, the maximum payout will be $200,000.
In Quebec, the maximum payout would be a low-end BMW.