<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buckybadger wrote:</div>
I hate that the insurance industry has essentially shifted towards not seeking blame or pursuing guilt in accidents and has submitted to just bumping rates across the board. A buddy of mine has a pretty large book of business worth 10s of millions for State Farm and has told me that things like this are “minor” through their eyes and that efforts to track down hit and run suspects has never been lower with local law enforcement for a multitude of reasons.
Its not a insurance companies job of Determining blame or determining guilt. That is the job of the police and court system. I do agree that there has been a recent shift in the police of determining fault or issuing citations at the scene of accidents ( Even when its really clear of who is at fault ) I’m sure many recent factors is the cause of this. I can not tell you the # of times that the at fault party has openly admitted fault to the policy at the scene of a accident and no citation was issued. To make matters worse when the police report is issued, there is no mention in the report of the at fault party admitting responsibility. Once the not at faults insurance company reaches out to the at fault party to take a statement, they no longer admit fault. Now the insurance is left with: No police citation, No police report with a determination who is at fault, No mention by the police of the at fault party admitting fault. Its kind of hard for a insurance company to collect subrogation from the other insurance carrier without a determination of fault.
My son was rear ended driving my car by an African American in downtown Chippewa Falls, WI in August after he stopped for a pedestrian while he was turning left. After the cop got statements from the drivers and the two witnesses that backed up my sons story, I asked if they would be issuing a citation, the cop said yes. I assumed it was for following too close or driving too fast for conditions, was I wrong, they cited him for driving while suspended! My 2004 Vibe was totaled and his Ford suv had minimal damage. I filed a claim with the insurance company that he told the cop that he was with and they did not have a policy for him, I only had liability. After getting the police report and the body camera footage and seeing what he was cited for, I met with cop. I asked him why he wasn’t cited for rear ending my son and he said it was not up to him to determine fault, that’s up to the insurance companies. I said that would be fine, but he didn’t have insurance or I wouldn’t be talking with you. The body cam footage also has the other cop asking him if he was going to cite him for following too close and he said no, the video also has the driver saying he knows his brakes were bad! Sooo, it would be a felony if he stole the car, but since it’s an accident and doesn’t have insurance, I’m screwed. All I can do is try to garnish his wages now that I have a small claims judgement in my favor. Also, he has two pages of violations on C-cap.
Moral of the story is that even if you know who did it and they were wrong, you can still be out the money!