[ebuddy]

Okay, here's the story;

I was driving my wife's minivan eastbound straight through an intersection. (green light, totally legit I swear)

Lady in car facing westbound wanting to turn left across the intersection, moves her car into the intersection directly in front of me, I only have time to just slam the brake and... BOOM!! T-boned her. A woman in the car right behind that lady saw the whole thing and waited with cars behind her to give me her contact info as a witness. I was very thankful. Myself and my kids are all fine with the exception of damage to my wife's vehicle. An officer came to the scene. I was not ticketed and as far as I know the other driver was ticketed for failure to yield.

On Friday, 12/5 I had the lady's insurance investigator come and assess the damages. His estimate was for $2,752.00 and from my own preliminary research this seemed very fair. He'd mentioned that because his client is a business, this is a commercial claim (the lady was in town on business and the insurance company handling the claim is her employer's insurer) and while normally they'd just cut me a check right there and be done with it, in this case they'd mail me the figure. Granted, this was only a couple of days ago so I'm not expecting anything this week.

However, when I got back inside the house after having spoken with the investigator, noticed a piece of mail on the table from that insurance company dated 12/2 and this is what it says;

We have carefully reviewed the facts surrounding this accident. Our investigation indicates:

70% on our insured vehicle and 30% on your insured for failing to reduce speed to avoid the accident.
After fully evaluating all available information, we have determined that this accident was not caused solely by our insured. As a result, we are prepared to offer you 30% of your damages as settlement. Please contact us by telephone at the number provided below or in writing at the address on our letterhead to confirm your acceptance of this offer. As soon as we receive your confirmation, we will send you the payment. If you have any information related to this claim that you believe might change our position, please contact us.

My questions are;
- Is this standard fare? Is this just a tactic or do they really have some means of denying the majority of my claim? *To be clear, there was absolutely nothing I could've physically done to avoid this accident. I not only tried to slow down, I slammed the brakes and even tried to turn the wheel. There was simply nothing else I could've done.

- I've not called them yet to challenge this letter because the investigator who explained how the payment arrangement worked said nothing of any of this. Should I wait a while to call or call immediately to challenge this?

- Nothing less than 100% coverage of my damages will be acceptable to me in this and believe me, I'm not just being silly here. This was as clear cut a fault accident on her part as you're ever going to have. What recourse do I have should they deny a portion of this claim?

[Spheric Harlot]

I've just had a very similar situation a few weeks ago, albeit in Germany - a guy failed to yield (didn't see me), pulled out onto the main road and smashed into my car (or rather, I smashed into him).

100% clear-cut; he was at fault.

His insurance company didn't mess with the fault argument, but they've been trying to lowball me on replacement cost (my car is totalled, financially) since then.

I am not an expert in these things, and do not intend to become one. And even though I had a pretty clear sense of what was going on, I really didn't feel like being intimidated.

So I consulted a lawyer and found that since the police officers considered it a 100% opponent-faulted situation, the opponent's insurance MUST cover my lawyer costs unless it goes to court.

So I handed the case over to an attorney who's specialized in vehicle law.


I *strongly* suggest you do the same immediately, since a single wrong answer on a standard questionnaire can lose you thousands of dollars if you're not *absolutely* clear on what your rights and privileges are, and what you don't have to accept.


(A friend recently told me of a case where an acquaintance of his got pushed over into the third lane by a truck driver to his right who'd swerved to avoid a door being opened on a parked car, jamming his van in between the truck and the car in the left lane. Court followed the insurance company's logic that simply BEING OUT DRIVING meant he was consciously taking a risk of accident, and thus could be held partially responsible for the damage to his car. Um.)

[auto_immune]

My father was an Insurance Adjuster, and IMO, this is pure bullshit negotiation tactics.
Contact your Insurance Company and inform them about what is going on - They are the best resource for the information you require.

(they may have one of their lawyers contact these scumbags.)

[Atheist]

I suppose this is one argument for no-fault insurance?

[ebuddy]

Spheric? Long time no write. I gotta get out of the PWL more often.
I'm sorry this happened to you and I appreciate the feedback. I hope the bastards make good on their obligation in the long run. I think your plan is officially, a very good plan B.

auto_immune; Thanks also for the feedback and I think this is a good place to start. I like posting here on some of these obscure issues because someone has always got a good, sober idea for dealing with these issues.

When I saw that letter, I was absolutely enraged at the audacity of the statement and I want to make sure that I'm fully prepared to be as professional as possible if I did call that insurer. I'm not sure I can, but I'd be willing to bet my insurer could be. I wanted to call them immediately and begin asking them what my speed was prior to impact and at impact and how the hell they managed to glean all this information from an accident in which their client was cited for fault according to the only witness available. I thought better of it, but man it just burns me up.

Thanks again you guys and good to hear from you Spheric.

[imitchellg5]

Insurance can make stupid assessments. About two years ago, I was rear ended at a stoplight buy a guy going 35-40 mph. The collision pushed my (dad's) car into the car in front of me. Therefore, I was 30% at fault. Utterly ridiculous.