Minor Accident What would you do?

[virtual]

After working in the insurance world as an adjuster/broker/claims for some time.. I don't care how nice someone is. Report it to their insurance, every time. I've dealt with way too many horror stories of 'nice' people wanting to work it out on the side. Watch your own back and contact your insurance and theirs immediately.

-Doug

I think the above post makes perfect sense, and I definitely took more of a risk than I should have in trusting that the guy would pay up. Having said that, the guy showed up at my door today and gave me cash for the middle price of the 3 quotes I got on the accident damage. In retrospect I should have probably just called the insurance company right away, and not have had the worry of whether he would be as good as his word. But it seems to have worked out (at least so far, since the damage is only cosmetic, and all of the 3 estimates were confident there would not be any hidden damage).

I hedged my bets a little on this and didn't completely just trust him, but even so it could have still gone south very easily and that's why being a nice guy just isn't probably worth the risk. FWIW What I did was that I immediately got quotes the next morning to see what $$ we were talking about (which were a lot more than I expected), and then I phoned him with the news using the contact information he gave me at the accident. I told him on the phone, and followed up with an email saying that unless he sent me a reply that contained all of his pertinent information and saying that he had agree to pay for repairing my car right away, I'd just call the insurance company and let them deal with it. I'm not a lawyer, and don't know if that would have been legally binding, but he complied with this, and I received an email from him that said he agreed to pay for repairing my car. So at that point I at least had something in writing.

The circumstances of this accident were IMO (because I was actually there) pretty clear cut even if he tried to deny it. So in theory I had nothing to lose from just reporting it. But with no decent witnesses you can never tell, and there's lots of ways people can spin something like this. And if you were not there and/or as in the case of his insurance company you have something to lose if you don't explain it in some certain way things can get twisted around, especially since I'm the one who hit him.

I actually had my worst accident ever a few years ago, when another idiot driver suddenly realized he was about to miss the exit he wanted and stopped on the highway so he could try and sneak in and take it. Yup.. stopped in the highway! Unfortunately there was a van between me and him so I didn't even see him until the van in front of me took the exit that he wanted to take. Because another car and the van took the exit, they were in his way from exiting and that was probably why he stopped, rather than just swerving over to take the exit. And, by the time I saw him it was too late. BOOM!

Guess what.. in the end that accident WAS considered my fault, since you shouldn't rear end the car in front of you no matter what stupid thing he does. The policeman who showed up on that scene agreed that it looked like the other driver was the cause, and he got a ticket. But the insurance company ended up assigning the fault to me. By the laws of logic I'm not sure what I might have done there to avoid it, and then to add insult to injury the jerk tried to sue me. I think my insurance company paid him some nominal amount to make him go away :ack: But it still made me sick, that that's how they dealt with it!

I guess in this case I seem to have been fairly lucky that the guy has paid up, but I'm not sure it was worth the stress.

 

[ltdjp]

Glad to read it worked out for you.

 

[soulpatch]

Guess what.. in the end that accident WAS considered my fault, since you shouldn't rear end the car in front of you no matter what stupid thing he does. The policeman who showed up on that scene agreed that it looked like the other driver was the cause, and he got a ticket. But the insurance company ended up assigning the fault to me. By the laws of logic I'm not sure what I might have done there to avoid it, and then to add insult to injury the jerk tried to sue me. I think my insurance company paid him some nominal amount to make him go away :ack: But it still made me sick, that that's how they dealt with it!

Years ago when I had the SVT focus I was driving down a highway through a construction zone. My car suddenly spun out and put me into a cement barrier at 60MPH or so. I had a police report with a state trooper who was behind me stating I was not speeding, did not swerve, or make any more that would have caused the accident. Insurance company assigned blame on me nonetheless even after I sent sworn statements saying it was not my fault.

The onus was on me to get the deductible back from Ford or the township for the road/my traction control misfiring. It would not have saved me from a premium increase though with the insurance company as they assigned fault to me. In their words, they have to assign fault to someone and they can not say a marked construction zone is at fault... PITA

 

[Ryan327]

Years ago when I had the SVT focus I was driving down a highway through a construction zone. My car suddenly spun out and put me into a cement barrier at 60MPH or so. I had a police report with a state trooper who was behind me stating I was not speeding, did not swerve, or make any more that would have caused the accident. Insurance company assigned blame on me nonetheless even after I sent sworn statements saying it was not my fault.

The onus was on me to get the deductible back from Ford or the township for the road/my traction control misfiring. It would not have saved me from a premium increase though with the insurance company as they assigned fault to me. In their words, they have to assign fault to someone and they can not say a marked construction zone is at fault... PITA

Unless you could show some kind of mechanical failure, they are always going to say failure to maintain control of the vehicle.

 

[soulpatch]

Unless you could show some kind of mechanical failure, they are always going to say failure to maintain control of the vehicle.

Exactly. It is a no win. Even with a sworn statement that the trooper behind me saw the car basically brake without brake lights coming on which would indicate the traction control.

Not suprising though since the road was littered with plates and holes with the construction. not worth fighting for a $500 deductible and minimal increase in premium.

 

[steve04KU]

I got rear ended last week. Luckily it was very minor. An F150 hit me, but I heard his brakes and left off of mine so I was rolling when he gave me a pretty solid love tap.

I was expecting the worst, but luckily my hidden hitch saved me. The ONLY damage was the hidden hitch cover piece was cracked.

I reported it to his insurance anyway, especially since I'm in a lease. I stopped by the local Ford dealer and picked up a new cover piece for 78 bucks.... Still waiting on my insurance check, and hoping it's more!