Minor damage - report it or not

by Guest » Wed Feb 13, 2008 04:02 am
Guest

It was a minor accident on an icy day. In fact, the guy who started the whole thing left before the police arrived. It was written up as no one at fault. With a high deductible does the insurance company even need to know about it?

Total Comments: 13

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 04:25 am Post Subject:

Yes. The guy who left the scene may concoct a story six months from now (or less) faking a neck injury. Best to be safe and contact your insurer.

This scenario has occurred may times.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 06:12 am Post Subject:

Yes. The guy who left the scene may concoct a story six months from now (or less) faking a neck injury. Best to be safe and contact your insurer.



May be but once you report the incident to your insurer, they'll treat it as a claim. This may even result in a premium increase at the next renewal. If possible get a copy of the police report. This may protect you from the fake claims, if any arise in the future.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 06:44 am Post Subject:

Hi Sofraj, lemme explain the scenario before you.....you may wish to inform your insurer if the volume of the damage exceeds the threshold of the deductibles. If it doesn't then it would be wise to repair the damages yourself, because anyway you are required to pay the deductibles. The other poster is right, the insurer may register it in his book and may look upon it whenever required.

You may get an estimate form a body shop and decide accordingly. I'm assuming that there was no exchange of insurance information and also no photographs were taken of the damaged vehicles, in such scenario, the police report may be a worthy document to have.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:59 am Post Subject:

Did you damage anyone elses vehicle or bodies? If your vehicle is the ONLY one with damage, and your vehicle IMPACTED with no other vehicle...You're fine, if however, your vehicle struck another vehicle...you need to turn this in...what the police report says,

''It was written up as no one at fault

unfortunately isn't correct....in claims there is always someone at fault now there are occassions when it's 50/50, but depending on your states neglience rules, this could still result in payments....the police reports especially on ice many times will say the fault lies in road/weather conditions...NEVER in an insurance claim.

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 06:05 pm Post Subject:

Correct. There is no such thing as no fault - that's simply the police stating that no tickets will be issued, no charges filed. "No fault" has nothing to do with your insurance company.

In states like mine there's contributory negligence which means if you're even partially at fault you could be sued or have a claim filed.

The answer to this question is call your agent - and hopefully you actually have an agent and not a toll free number. Your agent will be able to help.

If you don't have an agent just call your carrier and pose it as a "what if" question.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:44 pm Post Subject:

Thanks everyone.

The truck spun out on an icy bridge, did a 180 (would have been more) and hit my daughter's car. While she was calling police, he left. Since he wasn't there anymore the cop said he wrote it up as no fault. Maybe that's not possible but that's what he said.

It looked minor to me but 2 estimaes put it at about $2800. There is one area that is welded that I can't remove and replace and will need a frame machine. It's really not that bad but more than I can do. If it wasn't for that I'd just fix it myself. My concern was to keep the claim off her insurance to keep them from possibly increasing her rates. The deductible is $1000.

In the end she did put in a claim. It's a 2002 and has plenty of life in it. Might as well get it fixed by pros. I'm OK at that sort of stuff but don't have the specialty equipment.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 01:06 pm Post Subject:

Sorry, wasn't logged in. Thanks again.

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:23 am Post Subject:

Ok then the truck was at fault...when we say no fault isn't possible we don't mean that the officers can't write whatever they want, just from an insurance claims aspect...if the police report shows your daughter was struck by and out of control vehicle (no matter why they were out of control) and that vehicle left the scene it 'should' be non=chargeable and i would certainly follow up on that and make sure that adjuster had a copy of the police report before they coded that claim...in other words she should not have a rate increase from this loss.

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:48 pm Post Subject:

Thanks. That sounds reasonable. The insurance company has been great since the call. With the hit and run we were concerned.

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 08:06 pm Post Subject:

What I heard previously was that if an accident occurs in bad weather conditions,the report will claim you were driving to fast for weather conditions. Thats what i read somewhere on here.I remember as I was surprised to hear that.

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