The Life of Mr. Average Insurance Claim

.. or, why you probably shouldn't bother getting auto insurance...

This should be fun (for everyone but me):

Let's follow the lifespan of your average insurance claim and see what happens! Here's the story so far:

On Monday morning, ~ 11:50 A.M. I was traveling on Cumberland Parkway to work. I had just pulled out of a Burger King parking lot, and, less than 100 ft. from there, I was perpendicular to a Sheetz driveway. As my car squared up with this driveway, I noticed a huge gray car moving up the driveway that obviously had no intention of stopping at the top. I slammed on my gas and swerved left, but it was too late. BAM - a direct hit on the passenger side. The door and front wheel well's covering were crushed. It's a coupe, so the back of the passenger side also sustained some damage. No one was hurt, and, we pulled back to the Sheetz parking lot to begin our grim task.

Here's where it starts getting ugly - while we were trying to get out of the way of traffic / customers, all the witnesses left! Unfortunately, at the time I did not think to call the police. We traded information and left.

At about 2:00 p.m. that same day I contacted my insurance company and entered the claim. The girl that took the information was obviously incompetent or frazzled or whatever, because she totally screwed up my report initially...

Move to Tuesday, 12/10. Nothing happened. I received no contact from either of the insurance carriers.

Wednsday finds use in an ice storm. I got to work and contacted my insurance carrier. The rep assigned to my claim had left (presumably because of the storm), but I DID get her name, a claim number, and I managed to get the story straight that the other person had messed up.

Now, today, Thursday, 12/12. I receive a call at 8:30 A.M. from my rep. She is looking to verify some information and to get the name of the other person's carrier. I tell her I'll have to call her back in a few minutes. I do, give her the name, then discover that in the meantime she had called the other party and their insurance rep to get a claim number. I am instructed to contact them. I do this, and they take a recorded deposition. At the end, they inform me that we now have conflicting stories (if you could see exactly where all the damage is on my car you'd be hard pressed to think of what the heck she could've told them other than "I clean right out drove into his side I did"...). I'm thinking she may be trying to say it occurred IN the sheetz parking lot, which it certainly did not.

That is where we stand now. My insurance company has not come to look at the car and they have not gone to look at the scene. The other party will not talk to my carrier. I will be going out tonight about midnight with a flash camera to take pictures of the debris that is still around where my car was struck which clearly shows it all on the road, nowhere on the driveway.

I think it'll be sort of amusing to keep a running record of how this plays out. Unless she just made a mistake, or, her insurance company is trying to intimidate me, she obviously is lying about what happened (17 year old kid - maybe afraid of parental retaliation? ... or, perhaps, it's her parents who cooked up the story). Let's see who wins this (actually... if I lose with the insurance companies I'll file a civil suit [which I originally had NO intentions of doing whatsoever] and seek damages as well since I've tried to be as honest as possible - even when it could have been detrimental to me [I was not wearing a seat belt for example] - and she's trying to lie her way out of it)....

Haha. Insurance company screwed you? No sh*t.
See, the thing is that I'm extremely lucky dude who had dozen of accidents in company's cars but not a single one in my personal car. As a matter of fact I wouldn't have a clue what to do if I someone were to crash into me tonight. But whoever I'd call, I'd expect some co operation for my money, so I feel you frustration Ctb.
There's one quote I don't get though:
>> I am instructed to contact them.
My reply would be along "Erm. And how 'bout you kiss my ***?" lines.. Unfortunately I have short patience, and don't know helleva lot about insurance. But again, I'd expect my company to deal with other girl's company without me wasting my time. Have you tried usual "let me talk to your supervisor" approach?

Sorry crap like that happened to you m8

I had to contact the other company to tell them my side of the story. The other party won't tell their side to my carrier though, so that makes them look bad.

I'm going to call them (my company) tomorrow morning and tell them they'll be out to look at it that afternoon and they'll inspect the accident site as well by the end of the day - end of story.

Maybe six or seven years ago I got into an accident. It was legally my fault of course, since I hit the person behind. Why did I do so? Well, I wasn't expecting the person in front of me to slam on their brakes on a bridge that was iced over in January so that they can get over to the exit they were about to miss. I wasn't dozing or anything, there was just no way for me to match the stopping power of her car (which had abs).

No big deal, I accept fault, since despite her stupidity, it was my fault.

The accident was rather unique though, I hit her going maybe 50 km/h, and she was going at least 45 km/h. It was a very gentle tap, and neither of us lost control of our cars, everything was fine. Absolutely no damage to either vehicle. Not even a scratch, there was seriously no way you could tell there was an accident.

Then she filed the medical claim. The violent collision apparently left her bed-ridden for over a week and cost her more than that time in lost wages from her employer.

*cough*

Right. So, I lost all my merit points, causing a 33% increase in license and insurance fees.

Finally, three years later, the claim was finally settled and thrown out as crap. I got my merit points back, but not after paying a few grand in extra fees, which of course, I don't get back.

*sigh*

I feel for you man. I have had a few accidents myself, but I have never had any problems with my insurance company. The one big difference is that a state trooper filed an accident report at each of mine. That is the one critical thing that must not be forgotten in an accident because they conclude who was the guilty party on site so the insurance company has nothing to argue about.

Words of wisdom to live by that I learned about a day too late

I figure you're best bet in this sort of thing:

Make sure no one is injured.

Note the time.

Keep anyone from leaving the scene who may have seen anything (get name / number / license plate - that way they can be contact later by the police).

Call the cops.

While waiting for the cops, gather information from other party - names, phone numbers, addresses of all drivers and passengers should be collected.

Coop fully with the police - I know someone who's very.. erm... "outspoken" and screwed himself over by getting nasty with the cop on the scene.

Look around. Are there security cameras running that might have caught the accident? What about mirrors that could've given people a view of it from around corners, inside buildings, etc.

Inspect the other person's car! This is a big one! What if they're missing a headlight and it was at night? Are all their mirrors clear (no ice, mud, etc. blocking them)?

Also, if the cars aren't obstructing traffic in any way (blocking lanes, driveways, views, lobby elevators , etc.) DON'T MOVE THEM.

Don't waste your time with photos. No one cares.

File the insurance claim ASAP and call the other persons carrier within 24 hours.

DO NOT give a deposition to the other person's carrier right away. When they ask, tell them you'll call back in about 20 minutes. Collect your thoughts and make sure you have a clear picture of what happened - who was traveling in what direction, road conditions, speed limits, seatbelts. Write the whole thing down so you can read it if needbe. You'd be surprised what you can forget or screw up on the spot. I accidentally said "driver's side" once instead of "passenger's side". I immediately corrected it, but they were recording it. It wouldn't be a big step for them to selectively "edit" the tape.


All lessons I learned the hard way. At any rate, an appraiser is finally on the way from my company and I'm going to go call them to tell them about the "conflicting stories"... fun fun fun stuff!

Well thought out and all very good points to follow.

Thanks everyone for the show of support and the similar stories (well... similar except Al, who it would seem has it in for the company vehicle(s) ). I'll post back how it all turns out, but I'm not holdin' my breath.

Any updates? Or do we have to wait for the sequel...?

---John Holmes...

That's the sad part... I STILL haven't gotten a reasonable response from either insurance company. There was some meaningless babble and confrontational argumentation with my company on Monday, but the other company isn't even returning my calls . I keep getting the person's voice mail.. so help me.. when I get HER instead of the voice mail it's really going to hit the fan.

An appraiser did come out on Friday, but apparently they never told my insurance company what their estimate was on the damages I wish I got paid to be this incompetent...

Unfortunately many insurance company's and agents operate this way, and because of this attorney's have to be involved. I doubt your claim would be worth much, but you might present this to an attorney and they could write a letter that might speed things along.

It is amazing how fast things can start happening once an attorney gets involved.

thedude -

Seriously considering it on the grounds that niether company is making a show of good faith to get this settled. I left a message on the other company's rep's voice mail stating that if I didn't get a response to this call within 24 hours the next contact would come from a lawyer - which it will. If this isn't resolved by next Monday (2 full and business weeks from the date of the accident), I'm going to go talk to the lawyer to see what sort of options I have to press them to get this done.

I'm also going to considering bringing a suit against the owner's of the Sheetz where it occurred if they don't do something about the driveway. The girl had not stop or yield sign, and the driveway has been cut away at such a horribly strange angle (on a corner, less than 150 feet from the burger king exit I had just pulled out of.. although the BK has a stop sign thankfully) that a lot of people don't know WHERE to stop and don't stop until they're out in the road. I've had several other close calls with that damn driveway and people trying to barrell out of it, and, coming home from a hospital visit last night, my gf almost got T-boned on the side by some idiot in a truck that wasn't going to stop at the end of the driveway. She made it around him and he stopped about a foot from me in the passenger's seat. This is all common occurence though. I'm going to be in contact with the Sheetz owners by the end of the week to push a stop or yield sign to go up, and, failing that, I may bring suit against them to do it (and try to seek damages so I can cover the cost of the suit too... can't afford to foot a lawyer bill, so I'd have to try and get just enough in damages to cover it).