Advice – Minor accident with uninsured vehicle

Looking for a little bit of advice from the smart people of IDO here…

Recently was in a very minor accident that only damaged my front bumper and fender. A lady pulled out in the road right in front of me, and I was able to nearly avoid her. An officer just happened to be driving by about 20 seconds after it happened, so he stopped and handled everything from there.

Fast forward a few days to now. Got a copy of the accident report, where she admits that she didn’t see me and pulled out in front me and then made contact with the front of my vehicle on her passenger side. I then got a quote from an autobody, (I’ll just say less than $1,000 and more than $500). Went to submit it to her insurance this afternoon that is listed on the accident report, and guess what? Their coverage ended a few months ago, they are not insured.

I then called the lady since her number was on the accident report to see if they maybe had a different company now and she just accidentally gave the officer an old card. She immediately hands the phone off to her husband who begins to chew me out. “The accident report is not accurate, my wife is hispanic and the officer is racist and changed her words.” “She never even hit your vehicle.” “There are no marks on her car that weren’t already there.” “You are committing insurance fraud by trying to fix old damage on your vehicle with our insurance.” He yelled several things at me non-stop for a few minutes before hanging up. The only words I was able to say is that, “do to your non-cooperating right now, I am going to report this back to the officer that she did not have insurance,” his response, “prove it.”

Sigh… just wanted to get some minor damage fixed without paying against my deductible since the other person straight up admitted they were at fault in the accident report.

Any options I have here? Small claims court will hardly be worth it by the time I pay other fees. I can tell that they are just one of those people that are going to be very tough to work with on this unfortunately.

Get a call in to the officer that responded. The officer will handle it, but you’re probably not going to get the car fixed without some cost to you. Gotta love those uninsureds.

I would defiantly let the PD know what you know regarding the insurance issue and let them get to the bottom of that. You are hosed if they are uninsured because you pay your deductible for the repair. Hopefully when the PD gets to the bottom of this you are not paying.

Not that this helps you, but about 12 years ago a guy rear ended me while I was at a stop light waiting for traffic to clear to make a left turn. As it turned out the guy had a revoked license and no insurance. I paid the $500 dollar deductible and had my car repaired. 2-3 years later I received a letter in the mail accompanied with a check from my insurer stating that this is 1 of 3 payments for reimbursement of my deductible as a result of the litigation process.

I hope this turns out better for you.

As others have said I would talk to the officer that did your report.

On the other end a top priority for me would be to talk to your insurance agent and make this there issue, they should have what they need to fight the other person with the accident report, but ultimately you might end up having to pay your deductible as Francis eludes to.

No fault insurance in Minnesota. Turn it into your guy and send the cops after her. Do not engage in any conversation with the other party. Thats what you pay insurance for. Insist your company follow up against her, otherwise whats the sense in having insurance laws?

First contact your agent to get the claim started. Then call the officer back. It’s not really going to help your situation at all, but it makes you feel better. You already know she’s without insurance. Just get it in, let insurance subrogate against her. That’s what you pay your premiums for. If they can’t recoup the costs, they’ll litigate against her later on down the road. Hopefully, you can squeeze blood from a turnip and you’ll get your deductible back like Francis K stated.

Gahh… There, now it feels like I’m doing work at my insurance job, talking about insurance while looking for Driftless area/ pool 4 ice fishing reports.

No fault only applies to medical damages (PIP claims).

Realistically you have 3 options:
1. Involve the police and insurance. You will have to pay your deductible, and depending on how much the insurance company pays out they may or may not go after the other party for their and your reimbursement. If damage was less than your deductible, don’t bother filing a claim.

2. Involve the police and take them to small claims court. You will likely get a decision, but good luck collecting. Not sure what court costs are, or who is responsible for them, but something to keep in mind as you don’t want to add court costs to what you already have to incur.

3. Call the other party again and offer to have them pay out of pocket, and you won’t pursue further. After they tell you to take a hike again, you will have to take the hit, and deal with it yourself.

its easy….. 1-800-axe-gary!!!

post deleted.

Was the Husband Hispanic ? I like to know who I am playing cards with….

Dutchboy wrote:

No fault insurance in Minnesota. Turn it into your guy and send the cops after her. Do not engage in any conversation with the other party. Thats what you pay insurance for. Insist your company follow up against her, otherwise whats the sense in having insurance laws?

This is the right answer. I’d have to believe that your deductible would be held until the case is settled.

When I was 19 I was the guy without insurance that got in an accident. I quickly paid off the amount of damages to the other vehicle once I got a letter from the plaintiff attorney stating the cost of damages. Since I paid 100% of the damages, there was no deductible for the other motorists to pay.

I also got a No Fault charge against me which relates to a misdemeanor. Not good. Lost my license for 30 days and got a $500 fine. More penalties than a DUI.

My daughter got hit by an uninsured a$$ last year. We had to pay the deductible and the insurance company went after the party. We still have not received a dime. Police issued a ticket, I have no idea if she paid or not. $4000 damage, $500 deductible. I think I can write off $500 on taxes as the only benefit, but I’m not even sure of that.

Oh, and by the way, I never once had ANY contact with the other driver after the accident.

I was in a simialr incident except the guy that hit me said since my vehicle was old he didn’t feel it was worth fixing so we filed a police report and on the report he had to list his insurance company/agent and also admitted to the officer he was at fault. When we went to turn in the claim to his company we found out he had switched companies so we contacted his agent and told them what happened and they called the guy to confirm our story and after confirming it his agent started a claim with that guys new insurance company. So if the husband said they are insured try to contact their agent if they have one and get the new company. It doesn’t matter what the husband said she already admitted fault in the police report so they can’t back out of it if it were to become a legal matter. Also if you need or want a loaner car while yours is being fixed their insurance will pay for that as well. Last thing to remember is the estimate you got is for only what the shop can see there may be more damage you can’t see until you tear the car down for a complete estimate (Hidden damage) so if you do decide to just pay out of pocket it might be more than the original estimate. I do body work and see that kind of stuff all the time what may look small can sometime become expensive when you get everything apart.

Anonymous wrote:

My daughter got hit by an uninsured a$$ last year. We had to pay the deductible and the insurance company went after the party. We still have not received a dime. Police issued a ticket, I have no idea if she paid or not. $4000 damage, $500 deductible. I think I can write off $500 on taxes as the only benefit, but I’m not even sure of that.

Why do you think you can write off the $500 deductible? I had a meet and greet with a deer this fall. DOH!

Tom Sawvell wrote:

Get a call in to the officer that responded.

I ended up leaving him a voicemail yesterday letting him know that they gave him a faulty insurance card and they do not have insurance. Hoping to hear back from him sometime soon.

CBMN wrote:

On the other end a top priority for me would be to talk to your insurance agent

From my understanding in talking with them. Since the damage is for a little less than my deductible, it would end up being on me. If the damage was over my deductible, then they would take it over and go after them. I don’t want to submit it to my insurance, because 1) the damage is minor, just a few scratches and my grandpa will be able to fix it I believe. 2) I don’t want to pay for it, since it’s less than my deductible. 3) I don’t want to risk having my rates increase because of it.

Stanley wrote:

Last thing to remember is the estimate you got is for only what the shop can see there may be more damage you can’t see until you tear the car down for a complete estimate (Hidden damage)

I don’t think there will be anything else. All there are are a few scratches and paint damage, not even a dent. They pulled out in front of me (they made a left turn into the lane I was traveling down), I was able to slam on the breaks and swerve slightly. I honestly thought I avoided any contact with them, until I saw a scratch down the side of their vehicle, then pulled over and saw the scratches on my front bumper and fender.

Anonymous wrote:

My daughter got hit by an uninsured a$$ last year. We had to pay the deductible and the insurance company went after the party. We still have not received a dime. Police issued a ticket, I have no idea if she paid or not. $4000 damage, $500 deductible. I think I can write off $500 on taxes as the only benefit, but I’m not even sure of that.

Assume you are referring to Casualty Loss? That’s not going to change your tax liability at all. Casualty losses have a $100 and 10% of AGI threshold. If your income is over $5,000, the deductible casualty for this incident will be $0.

This reminds me of when I got backed into a few Christmases ago, yes, Christmas day. The kid was very nonchalant about it, said his dad would pay as if this wasn’t his first rodeo. Despite the obvious damage, I think he thought it was going to be less than $1000. I got an estimate and it was $4,000. Besides the bumper and paneling the radiator and some brackets were shot. The kid was sort of a PITA to get a hold of, he basically got back to me on his time.

I did call our insurance right away. They suggested since he admitted fault (thank God he was at least honest), to work with their insurance. Now that I think of it, I had all the info, I called them out of courtesy. If they wanted to pay the body shop up front out of pocket to avoid their insurance I was fine with it.

What we were told by our insurance was to take care of it through their insurance. If we had any issues, call them back and they would get involved. Its a lease so I wanted to make sure the body shop was also approved by Volkswagon as well.

I was also very fortunate that his insurance was very cooperative and easy to deal with.

By the way, I got backed into again at a stop light down here a year or so ago driving the same car. This time the damage was less, but these people were a PITA too.

It’s nice when people admit fault, but I wish they’d go the extra mile and realize the inconvenience was caused by them and not be such disks about it.

biggill wrote:

No fault insurance in Minnesota. Turn it into your guy and send the cops after her. Do not engage in any conversation with the other party. Thats what you pay insurance for. Insist your company follow up against her, otherwise whats the sense in having insurance laws?
This is the right answer. I’d have to believe that your deductible would be held until the case is settled.

FYI No-fault refers to the 1974 statute regulating the insurance you must have to operate a motor vehicle in Minnesota. It allows those involved in an accident – regardless of who caused it – to quickly recover costs for medical bills, lost wages and other economic losses (ie not physical damage to the vehicle, that is covered by Comp or Collision and subject to your deductible or the at fault parties Property Damage coverage). Before no-fault, people waited months, even years, for payment of benefits. No fault insurance also is referred to as personal injury protection (PIP). Minnesota requires that a minimum PIP coverage of $20,000 for medical care and $20,000 for wage loss be available to every person involved in an accident.

apparently my check for $500 for the deductible I had to pay on the claim against my insurance was paid out recently by the low life that smashed into a my boat and didn’t have insurance a year and a half ago. Still waiting for the check in the mail. Im hoping you have a better go of it, its not a fun process.

BigWerm wrote:

FYI No-fault refers to the 1974 statute regulating the insurance you must have to operate a motor vehicle in Minnesota. It allows those involved in an accident – regardless of who caused it – to quickly recover costs for medical bills, lost wages and other economic losses (ie not physical damage to the vehicle, that is covered by Comp or Collision and subject to your deductible or the at fault parties Property Damage coverage). Before no-fault, people waited months, even years, for payment of benefits. No fault insurance also is referred to as personal injury protection (PIP). Minnesota requires that a minimum PIP coverage of $20,000 for medical care and $20,000 for wage loss be available to every person involved in an accident.

Yep, and your subject up to a $1000 fine and revoked license if convicted. Trust me, I know.

Please, do the citizens of MN a favor and continue to follow up with the police officer to make sure they are pursuing the case. If you don’t get through, follow up with the department involved. Do NOT let these POS perps get away with this!

I do not understand WHY in this day/age, the police cannot have live data feeds from insurance companies. Any insurance company that can provide insurance in MN must provide a live feed of who they cover. Officers should not even have to ask for proof of insurance. Run the license number and they get a yes or no. If no insurance, the cuffs go on and the perp gets hauled off. $1000 fine first time and car impounded until you pay, $5000 fine each time after that. Problem = solved.

Call your insurance company. You may get lucky, some companies have an uninsured motorist deal whee you get a break on your deductable.

I have a similar story, I got backed into by a driver who didn’t have insurance and gave a fake number to the police. When my insurance company tried to handle the claim, the other party disappeared. Luckily, my insurance included some kind of uninsured motorist deal so IIRC we only had to pay a couple of hundred out of pocket, which was still a raw deal, but much better than shelling out the full deductible.

Grouse

At the very least I would for sure contact the officer that did the police report and notify him that she didn’t have insurance. If nothing else you save the next guy she runs into from going thru this same thing. Then you can call her husband back and tell him to prove he had insurance. Then laugh loudly and hang up. He sounds like a real @ss clown to me.

I’ve been in this situation before. You will not get a dime from this person. Save all of the receipts from your deductible or out of pocket repair costs. Go to court and file a small claims lawsuit on them. When they don’t show on the court date, (and they rarely do I’m told) file a lean on them for the money owed. From that point on they will not be able to get a loan for a house or car or anything until they pay you. Their credit score will be trashed. Only way to fix is pay up. In my case, the d-bag moved home to mama in Nebraska. Yep, I’m out the time and money. But knowing this d-bag can’t do business in Mn is worth it to me.

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

I’ve been in this situation before. You will not get a dime from this person. Save all of the receipts from your deductible or out of pocket repair costs. Go to court and file a small claims lawsuit on them. When they don’t show on the court date, (and they rarely do I’m told) file a lean on them for the money owed. From that point on they will not be able to get a loan for a house or car or anything until they pay you. Their credit score will be trashed. Only way to fix is pay up. In my case, the d-bag moved home to mama in Nebraska. Yep, I’m out the time and money. But knowing this d-bag can’t do business in Mn is worth it to me.

-J.

X2

Good Luck! I am not saying that to be a jerk, but these things usually end with you spending more money than its worth to fight them. What SHOULD happen is you report to YOUR insurance company and provide them with her information and send them to bat for YOU.
The same thing happened to my wife. Uninsured motorist t-boned my wife, my wife had medical bills and a totaled vehicle. The other vehicle was probably totaled too. In the end the Sheriff’s office send summons to her address, drove to her address on multiple occasions, but she was no longer there. My insurance company went after them for any/all money but were not able to get any response.
In the end we did nothing else. It really wasn’t worth it. My insurance company paid out the totaled vehicle and all of my wife’s medical bills. It is frustrating for sure, but I would avoid small claims if you can because it is only going to cost you in the end.
Work with the sheriff/police and your insurance company. If they do have valid insurance then they should be able to work that out, but if I was you I would try and stay out of the middle of it. Last thing you need is someone to come searching for you…