by LookingForAnswers » Sat Mar 22, 2008 09:19 pm
Right after our son moved from Tucson, Arizona, to Washington state he was rear-ended by a hit & run street racer at 70-75 miles an hour. Both cars were totaled. The racer and two buddies jumped out of their car and fled the scene. Luckily, my son had only minor injuries. Since the accident, the police agencies are doing nothing but bouncing our son around from the Washington State Patrol to the Pierce County Sheriff's to the Puyallup Police Department. (I am married to a retired police officer and expected much more from them than that.) My son can't even get the insurance information from the owner of the car that hit him. The owner won't answer his phone or answer the door at his residence. Is there any other way to find out if this car is insured?...and if so, who it is insured by? The owner of the car told the police the car was stolen. Right! There is NO stolen car report filed. At this point, this hit & run driver, who could have seriously injured or even killed my son is getting away with it. I don't like this! Our son's insurance company took care of his medical bills through his uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage, but you can't get uninsured motorist coverage in Arizona (he still had his Arizona coverage), which would have covered his totaled car. I can't express how difficult it is to get a hit and run claim settled. The guy driving this car needs to be held responsible for his actions. Any kind of help or advice about ANY of this would be greatly appreciated.
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:24 pm Post Subject:
Your hit and run claim story made me laugh MBtexas. Its good to see some dishonest people do pay.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 04:53 am Post Subject:
Lets say the vehicle was stolen and the vehicle's owner made the report shortly after the accident…. Fishy yes. Possible also yes.
It sounds as if 3 possible agencies arrived at the scene….but who actually conducted the investigation? You never mentioned how injured your son was, but it sounds as if it was not bad. So to be honest, these are not always on the high priority list for any police agency. Either they have too many other more important crimes to investigate or it is a smaller agency that does not have the man power to investigate. If they have no leads as to who was driving the vehicle (as they ran)… there is really not much they can do. I really don't see them going all CSI looking for DNA and prints in the car. Another possible angle for the police is that they have an ongoing investigation and do not want to release any information that may hurt their investigation. (I've had this happen on a number of fatalities) Basically they don't want you or your insurance company hounding someone that they are getting prepared to arrest.
As for no stolen vehicle report, if their story is correct and it was stolen and they called it in around the time of the accident the vehicle owner may have dropped the issue/ didn't want to waste time going to the police station to file a report when the vehicle was already recovered. You read all the time (on this forum) of people not filing police reports for various reasons ( there is really no good reason, but it happens all the time). Their carrier may have been sloppy and accepted the same vehicle accident report for your son's accident and did not require an actual stolen vehicle report and just took their insured's word.
As for Allstate's hit and run claim investigation… I really can't see anymore they could do. The vehicle's owner does not have any duty to cooperate with Allstate and could have just told them the vehicle was stolen period. It's not like they could use water boarding to make him give a statement.
Tcope:
Although I do agree that a good adjuster would ask the questions that you posted, but not to their own insured. In this case so far, there is no proof that the vehicle's owner was involved. Now this may come from my background in (large exposure) truck claims and less in personal auto, but you never ask a question that you don't want answered or more so you already know the answer ( unless there is no way around asking it and you need it for the record). These would however be great questions for the OP son's carrier to ask the other vehicle's owner… but I never see that statement happening. As for the police asking these questions… see above.
Does this suck… sure. And it really doesn't pass the smell test. There is small claims court or getting an attorney, but without any proof that the vehicle was not stolen it is a difficult route. Also, I did not fully understand the part about moving from one state to the next and the son's comp and coll being taken off the policy. E&O could be a route, because although your son signed the paperwork when he switched agents/states, I would think that the agent should have been questioning why he was dropping these coverages (unless I missed something). I do believe that people should be responsible for what they sign, but I've seen this fly before.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 06:17 am Post Subject:
It seems to me that the primary problem is the lack of performance from the investigating agency. They need to confirm who the owner of the vehicle has insurance with and add it to the report. It does not matter who was diving or if the vehicle was stolen, it still has insurance and that information needs to be recorded. It's then up to that carrier to pay or deny the hit and run claim.
An adjuster has a _duty_ to investigate the loss and determine if the claim is owed... even if it means they find out their insured is lying (or even probably lying) and they need to pay the hit and run claim. I ask questions _all the time_ knowing that it might obligate me to paying the claim. Quite frankly, I don't care. It's not my money but it is my job.
Commercial accounts are even worse! Commercial drivers tend to be less then truthful all the time. They don't want their employer to find out about the bonehead move they made as they may get fired. What do they care if they lie to the insurance company... it's not their policy.
Work a few weeks with non-standard policy holders and you will see that they would lie just as soon as breath. Not to get off topic but I once had an insured report her car stolen. She told me she had "heard around the neighborhood" who had stolen it but only knew his nick name. I sent SIU out to investigate. One of the people who was in the house with the insured told us that the insured was inside smoking crack and her boyfriend asked to use the car. The insured said no... until the boyfriend told her he'd buy some more crack and bring it back. So she let her boyfriend take the car and he never came back. She confessed later to the police once they presented this information that SIU found out.
This is referring the the "stolen" vehicle owner's insurance carrier.
I also disagree and think the police dropped the ball. It does not matter how busy they are... they still have a duty and responsiblity to investigate crimes. THAT is their job after all... and they are paid by the tax payers to do their job. They also have to answer to those people when they can't do their jobs. As far as not being able to do anything... sure they can! They simply need to assign the felony hit and run to a detective who will ask the owner of the vehicle to come in for questioning. The detective knows how to conduct an interview and see if the owners story of the stolen vehicle does not add up. This might not lead anywhere but it still needs to be done.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 09:47 am Post Subject:
I agree both agencys have blown it here...It's really not that hard to find out (for the cops) if that vehicle was insured...If the owner reported it to their carrier as stolen, thus a comp loss you can bet your bootie that their carrier will require a stolen vehicle report before a hit and run claim....hmmmmmmmm, but on the other hand if junior took the car out and caused this damage, mom and dad are somehow reluctant to report it stolen if there is any chance jr. is gonna get caught...so maybe it was reported to their carrier as a single vehicle accident...and if so...bingo bango the OP has them!
I cannot count the times over the years I have gotten a stolen vehicle report, when I knew without question that jr, or some other permissive driver had the vehicle....some times can get the owner to fess up, some times not.
I personally cannot believe that allstate simply jumped on this UM claim without more proof that the vehicle was stolen....and maybe they did have more proof, like a denial from the owners carrier saying it was stolen...and the OP just doesn't know that...i've never had a boss that would've let that fly....
I personally think both the carrier and certainly the police dept need answer for their lack of service to this insured/citizen...I don't care how many 'big' crimes there are going on in the city this young man lives in....if you have a car 'thief' running around stealing vehicles, slamming into an innocent at 75 mph, you'd think they should atleast look into it for pete's sake...as to an on going investigation that they don't want to tip off the offender, i don't buy it...they could simply tell these people they are investigating it..and they (from what I understand) are not....
I still say climb the cop ladder...
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 09:15 pm Post Subject:
I didn't say the police actions were correct, I was just pointing out that it is what it is. I don't know how many times I would get a police report without insurance information, or it would just have an agents last name with no actual agency name. Phone numbers were always wrong, even if listed. I once had a fatality where the diagram from the report showed that the accident happend a mile away from where it actually happened. It was real nice trying to take scene photos. Like it or not, right or wrong.... a lot of times crimes like this are not investigated in the manner that they should be. I used to have break-ins/thefts at inner city shop and robs all of the time. The police would ask one question to the owner... do you have insurance.... then call them and case closed.
I agree tcope that these questions should be asked, and it is not me as a person that does not want to ask them... it is the carrier that does not want them asked. It is the same for a questionable accident with no witnesses, a lot of carriers are going to believe their insured when it is in their best interest (money). I would say that only about 5% of the time would I even get a statement from a truck driver. It was normally an informal interview with no notes and then relayed by phone to the examiner.
Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 01:28 am Post Subject: insurance
OMG!! What a story!! (The FIRST post, I mean). It should be (AUTOMATICALLY!!) the uninsured motorist, who should 'face-up' to what they did. Sooner or later, he's gonna get caught. What if there was a death involved?? I don't mean to sound morbid, but..it COULD have happened. In the state of PA, if you don't give your insurance information, after an accident, you can get MAJORLY fined!! I actually new someone who was stupid enough to give FALSE info, on their insurance company, after he totalled another car. Went to jail for that one!!
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 02:06 am Post Subject:
Yep I have to agree mith sdchargers here in this state if you don't have insurance info or give the wrong info..your butt is in a sling. Don't plan on much help from the state police though. I had a crazy time getting any info from them. The officer on duty felt bad after seeing my daughters and my injuries and called my house and gave me the info as long as I left the call off record. Some people still have a heart.
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:08 am Post Subject:
I think that most police man and woman do feel bad for the victims and wish that they could give the information to the wronged party. I think with everything else it is a privacy issue and they may be afraid of getting a lawsuit placed on them for violating privacy.
Fireyone I am glad to see that you had one that stood up for something past the normal privacy rules. Did it do you any good to get the information, how did you proceed? Did you contact their insurance company or did your insurance company do it for you?
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:39 pm Post Subject: accident
I hate to say thiss, but, it seems like ( in just about every state) there are laws to 'protect' those who hurt someone else. How can insurance companies, lawyers, etc. help tose who KNOW they broke the law?? Reminds me of a LAW and Order episode I saw. We have REAL victims, in this world and the laws are protecting the 'criminals'.
Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:40 am Post Subject:
I know what you mean sd, but there are some police man that don't agree with those laws either, like in fireyone's case with the off the record information, that police man knew that the victim needed the information to move her case forward and gave it to her. I think there are some police man that have the human component to their make up.
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