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Got rear ended by a lumber truck last week and I only have liability on this car, so I get to deal with their insursnce. I was stopped in traffic for a light that backs up. Traffic in front of me started to move, I was waiting for a slight gap to open up since they were moving very slowly, and then the truck behind me started moving with traffic right into my trunk lid. He says he couldn't see me. Police report even has him saying that in it. Should be cut and dry.
Relativly minor damage (I am guessing around $2k, gonna get an estimate today) and it was about 3mph so no whiplash or anything.
Their insruance company get bad reviews both by people trying to make claims and by the people who work at the insurance company. Any tips for dealing with them? They are already being non comunicative to the point I haven't managed to even start a claim.
I am already documenting everything and all comunications with date and time.
Document everything and a police report is a must. I specifically remember also taking pictures at the scene, which ended up helping a bit.
Had this happen about 8 years back (college girl forgot what the brake pedal is) and rear-ended my old Volvo. $2k in damage. to make a long story short, it took about 3 months to get resolved, with her insurance dragging their feet the whole way. It's wasn't a fun time. BEst of luck.
Basically just have to keep calling and keep calling.
If you had full coverage, you could just make a claim against your insurance company and let them deal with subrogation, which doesn't impact your claim/accident record.
Tell them you don't want to hire an accident attorney but you will if you don't have a check in your possession by next Friday. "My neck might start bothering me more by then if this isn't resolved."
for rear ends a no fault law applies, so they must pay out.
get a couple quotes from reputable body shops, and give them to the insurance adjuster when he comes.
as they will 100% try to low ball you, saying old car, blah blah, and will price out junk yard replacement parts as the replacement costs etc...
insurance is regulated, if they give you a hard time opening a claim, send a certified letter, along with police report stating that you will contact the regulatory agency with an official complaint if this case is not resolved quickly.
Tell them you don't want to hire an accident attorney but you will if you don't have a check in your possession by next Friday. "My neck might start bothering me more by then if this isn't resolved."
Claim reps care exactly 0% about the threat of an attorney. When I was a claim rep for State Farm, if someone threatened to hire an attorney or sue, we would politely tell them that all future contact would need to be handled through their representation and would also go through our huge legal team (when I worked there in the mid 2000s we had something like 700+ lawyers on staff) and that I would no longer be in direct contact with them.
And since attorney's actually understand the law and how to read the policy, they were much easier to deal with anyway.
As for the neck thing, "Did you receive treatment at the scene? Were you taken by ambulance from the scene? Have you visited a doctor and received a diagnosis of injury since the accident?" etc etc.
Mostly what I was expecting to hear about having to call, and call, and call. I will be sending a certified letter next week if I don't manage to open a claim by then.
Z31. This is very good to know about the threat of a lawer. I will keep my yap shut about that until/if it gets to a point where it is time to involve one.
I am truely always.amazed at the dofferent professions that are represented on this board.
We were rear-ended on Thanksgiving day (in our truck, fortunately), and even with the other party's insurance admitting 100% responsibility, it took until last week to get an estimate approved and get an appointment to get the truck into a shop. I had to pester the **** out of them. Every phone exchange seemed to take a week, before I finally connected with something other than voice mail. Try to get it locked into a single point of contact for you to deal with, and then keep after them.
Call your insurance anyway and ask if they could help and/or contact/threaten them.
I got the run around from fedex's insurance for 2 weeks before calling my insurance company. Fedex called within an hour, check was in the mail the next day.
My insruance isn't gonna do anything. Already asked.
Got an estimate. $3764 from the local body shop. On a rusty 167k mile NB. So I know it's totaled at this point. Just need to get them to write me a reasonable check now. (And actually talk to me.)
Exactly this happened to me a few years back (https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs...lt-wins-65825/). In my case, it was an oilfield service rig. I'll never forget how huge that Peterbilt grille looked while it was pushing me along at ~3mph directly into the minivan in front of me. Same thing, he couldn't see me over his hood and forgot I was there. I don't think he even felt me until I bumped the minivan (a lot of possibilities with this statement).
Amazingly, I wasn't totaled, but came awfully close.
The trucking company can be your ally in this. They were for me. Contact them about it. The liability is actually theirs and if you were to take this to Small Claims Court, you would be suing the trucking company, not the insurance company. That's a hassle the trucking company doesn't need -- which is why they buy insurance. The trucking company has a contractual relationship with the insurance company and, assuming the insurance company wants future business on a fleet of trucks, they will be responsive when the trucking company calls.
If the trucking company is also unresponsive, then go ahead and file in Small Claims against them. The Small Claims process usually goes pretty quickly and your case is clear-cut.
Yeah, he didn't even feel it. I had to flag him down. It's a lumber yard though, not a fleet trucking company. Don't know if that makes a difference, but I will defiently bug them if insursnce gives me the run arround.
The trucking company can be your ally in this. They were for me. Contact them about it. The liability is actually theirs and if you were to take this to Small Claims Court, you would be suing the trucking company, not the insurance company. That's a hassle the trucking company doesn't need -- which is why they buy insurance. The trucking company has a contractual relationship with the insurance company and, assuming the insurance company wants future business on a fleet of trucks, they will be responsive when the trucking company calls.
+1. The insurance company isn't your customer, so they have less than no interest in playing nice. The trucking company, OTOH, pays their bills. Make friends with the trucking company.
If the trucking company doesn't want to be friends, sue them in small claims.
Another awesome example of why you should have a dashcam... makes everything cut and dry. A little $2000 claim isn't worth thte time or overhead for an insurance company to fight if you've got video proof of what happened.
The truck driver already filed a claim and admited to rearending me, so that's gonna be a non issue.
The adjuster finally got back to me so we could get things started. Turns out they gave the case to an adjuster who was burning a week and a half of saved up vacation time. I sent them pictures, the police report and the estimate from the local body shop (almost $3800). We will see what they come back with. I am not expecting much to go quick with Christmass and new years though.
If you don't want the car totaled and the insurance company says they're going to total it, I think it becomes a price negotiation. If they tell you they're going to give you $2,500 for it, but your value is $10,000 due to performance improvements and due to the fact that your 167k mile NB isn't a massively neglected heap like anything you'd find at a dealer for $2,500 , then let them know that the bottom-line cost to buy the car from you is $10,000. You have no agreement with someone else's insurance company stating that you'll accept whatever lowball total loss offer they want to give you.
That only took a month and a half. Got hit on the 12th of December and the check just deposited. Went better than I thought, though they never, ever called me. Had to harass them to get anything done. They sent someone out to me to look at the car, decided it was totaled, valued it at $3244, $250 buy back and sent me a check for $2994. Not gonna complain about that with an almost 170k mile rust bucket 99! And to top it off, between buying, registering, paying taxes, and then buying parts and fixing, I had spent $1600 on this car since I bought it March 2018. Put 4k miles on it during the 4 times my daily decided to be problematic this year, and it should fix up easy. So I am 100% fine with this.
Anyway, I can post pictures now that this is all settled and dealt with.
Stripped it down today. Already picked up a semi rusty trunk lid (still in nicer shape than the one that was on here) and a tail light for $60.
Picked up a nice tow strap. Gonna strap it to a tree with this eye bolt and try and drive away. Couple tugs in the right spots should have this thing back close enough that the bumper cover will hide anything else. Little bit of sanding and spray paint to fix the spots where the paint cracked off and it will be good as.... well, as good as it was considering the back half of this car is spray painted.
Drive away and then beat it with a hammer worked quite well actually. You just have to make sure you line the car and tow strap up right and then slowly increase how much force you use. I will add some finished pictures in a bit, but I got the trunk lid panel gap just about perfect now.
I selected one of my many mighty oak trees. They make good immovable objects. (also, does anyone know what the heck to do with all these acorns? I have 11 mature oaks on 1/3rd of an acre....)
First well placed tug took it to about 70%
Moved the trunk latch and drilled another hole, then did a bit more tugging and it's pretty darn close. After this I took it in the garage and did a bunch of hammering to even out the lip seam thing and some small spots so the seal will sit well.
Dealing with someone else's insurance?
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