We often hear from clients who are frustrated that their vehicle has been damaged in a crash that is not their fault. The vehicle cannot be driven, they have no transportation to work or to the doctor and they are getting nowhere with the insurance company. We help clients with these issues every day. If you’d rather have an attorney take over, give us a call. We’d love to help. For those of you do it yourselfers out there, here is some advice. No vehicle damage case is exactly the same.
- Find out what insurance is available. Hopefully you called the police at the time of the crash and got a driver exchange form. If you didn’t call them now to file a delayed crash report. The police will gather the insurance exchange information and put it on the driver exchange form. If you lose that form, you can also get the information from the full police report. You can get a copy from the police department that responded to the call. Contact your own insurance and the at-fault driver’s insurance.
- Check your insurance coverage. Hopefully you have collision coverage. Collision coverage pays for your vehicle when it is damaged in a crash. If you have that coverage, tell the insurance company you want to make a property damage claim. They’ll need to get a recorded statement from you. If you are nervous about doing that, a service we provide to clients is to be on the phone with them when they give the statement. The adjuster will asks questions to establish coverage and determine who is at fault. They will also ask for details about the damage to the vehicles, where the vehicle can be found and how they can inspect it.
- Contact the at-fault party’s insurance and make a claim. They will also want to do a recorded statement so be prepared.
- We’ve seen a lot of insurance companies push clients to make the claim through the other insurance company. For example, your own insurance might tell you that to avoid paying your deductible you should just make the claim through the opposing insurance. The insurance companies should not be doing that. It is to your advantage to have both insurance companies evaluate the damage and make offers. We’ve seen a lot of cases where someone with a $500 deductible gets an offer from their own insurance that is more than $500 more than the offer from the other insurance company. Obviously, it is to our client’s advantage at that point to take the higher offer. The other trick in this scenario is that even if you end up paying your deductible, you have a good chance of getting it back. Your insurance company will make a claim against the at-fault insurance company for the amount they paid plus the deductible. If they win, they will send you a check for the deductible. Usually several months later.
- If you car was towed get it out of storage ASAP. Tow yards make a ton of money by charging extremely high storage rates. They can be $40, $50 per day or more. The longer your car sits in storage the more that is owed for storage. Yes, the insurance company may end up paying the storage but if there are any hiccups you’ll be glad you got it out of storage sooner rather than later. If you can retrieve it yourself, great. If not, release it to the insurance company. They will tow it to a new location without storage fees. If none of those work, we know several body shops that will tow your vehicle to their shop and store it for free or for cheap. They do this because they are hoping to get the body repair business.
- You have the right to have your car repaired anywhere you want. You also have the right to take your damaged car plus the money and repair it yourself. Don’t let the adjuster push you into something you don’t want. We’ve seen a lot of adjusters push people to use “preferred providers.” They do that because those shops promise to give the insurance company a discount in return for the referrals. The advantage to you of using a preferred shop is that if the shop gets under the bumper and finds additional damage, the insurance company usually won’t argue. However, any good shop will document the additional damage and shouldn’t have much problem getting it covered. You decide what is best for your and do it your way.
- If the other party is at-fault for the crash, you are entitled to a rental car for a reasonable time while your car is out of commission or being repaired. That rental car will come from the other insurance company. If you go out and rent a car on your own, you may be able to get reimbursed but it may be difficult. The safer course is to work with the insurance and have them rent it for you. If you have extra coverage on your policy, allowing you to get rental car insurance, your insurance will pay for a rental car for you. But remember, that only works if you purchased the extra coverage
- One last caveat, we are a Utah law firm and this advice and experience applies only in Utah. Other State laws may differ. You’ll have to contact an attorney in your state to find out.
We hope this information is helpful. If you would like the assistance of attorney, please call us. That is what we do, all day every day. We help people who have been in car wrecks. We’d love to help you.