dbj1000

My wife and children were stationary at traffic lights yesterday evening when a car rear-ended them at 40mph.

Thankfully, amazingly, they are all unhurt. A little sore, and we're still watching out for whiplash, but essentially they had a very lucky escape.

However, the car is a wreck. We believe it's a total write-off, but the claims adjustors haven't taken a look at it yet. We have never been involved in a crash before, and do not know what to expect.

Can we expect full market value for the car from his insurance? It's a used car, and we've only had it a few months. The title is held by the lender, and looking online today the pay-off amount is about $1000 over the Kelly's Blue Book value.

Can we expect his insurance to pay for a hire car, and for how long? Our insurance apparently doesn't cover a hire car (I'll have to address that once this is all sorted out) and his insurance say they haven't received a report of the crash from him, so they can't do anything yet.

What else should we be doing? What do we do with the totalled car once this is all over? Should we sell it for scrap?

Any advice from y'all would be most appreciated. I know some of you have real in-depth insurace knowledge, and many others have been in car wrecks, so any words of wisdom would be great!

mickmills

Sorry to hear your news. Like you say, main thing is everybody is ok.
I wrote my car off last year too.

Was insured through MetLife, & I actually got about $1000 more than I paid for it They gave me a little more than what the car's "blue book" value.

I also didn't have the rental car option, & so no they will not provide one.
When the insurance pays out, I think the car no longer belongs to you so you can't sell it.

Sounds like you may have a case against the other driver?

Englishmum

Sorry to hear your bad news but thank goodness your wife and kids are ok.

My 17 year old son was rear-ended just after Christmas. However, he was stationary and the 20 year old driver seemed to be on her cellphone....it was her third accident in a year! My son's car is a Subaru Outback and she had a Nissan Altima....hardly any visible damage to the Subaru (2 months old) but her car was a total mess and had to go on a tow-truck.

The police took a report which I had to collect a few days later. We phoned her insurance company and a few days later their insurance assessor turned up (when I was out - left the car on the drive) to estimate the cost of repairs. He left his report in our mailbox - ie. the max amount that they will pay to get it fixed.

It was then up to me to decide where to take the car to get repaired - got advice from the Subaru dealer so we took it there and they then had the people they recommend for accident repairs to estimate the cost...it came in about $50 cheaper than the insurance company's estimate. We received the cheque within a week.

As it was clearly their driver's fault as the car was rear-ended we were eligible to claim up to $28 per day for a rental car until we could get ours back.....I guess you will be offered a similar amount but you need to get on the phone to them ASAP and get this confirmed....helps if they will agree in writing by e-mail or fax...some car rental companies will bill the insurance company directly rather than you having to pay first and then reclaiming it.

Good Luck!

Big D

Sorry to hear that. As soon as the third party registers the report with his insurance then they should sort everything for you - if he delays or doesnt do this it could get messy. However you should be able to claim back a rental car from the other party if they accept fault (which they should do) SOmeone ran into my wife - did very little damage but needed a new light and some paint - we dealt with the guys insurance and not ours - they gave us a rental and paid everything direct (State Farm - superb) so i would try and get him to report it ASAP.

In terms of write off - if they do the car is theirs not yours. No idea how much you would get, but you would be surprised what they can fix and the cost - so it may not be written off. Roughly what value is the car?

Good Luck!

Partystar

I think the car rental part on your insurance is for both parties, so it can be used either way. If the other driver has car rental insurance, I think you can claim on that, that's how I thought it worked, but I could be wrong.

vegas

I noticed that there was a car crash on saturday night March 26 near to Plano that killed a flight attendant that should have been on the plane that crashed into the twin towers.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.a...d-af4d97f20211

britontour

Isn't there a movie with a plot like that?

Partystar

Final Destination.

scrubbedexpat099

You are wrong.

Rental car cover is and extention, usually called a rider, you buy it for your protection at an additional cost if you want it. Some Insurers will give you a cash amount per day, whether you hire a replacement or not, for the duration of the reasonable repair period.

When someone else is at fault you sue/claim for all your reasonable costs, which may include rental/additional transportation etc etc costs.

You were lucky to be hit by somebody who has Insurance!

Normal basis of settlement with be Actual Cash Value, basically the current market/book/whatever value. There is an extension to your own insurance to cover the fianced cost, which initially will be higher as eggectively you pay less initially and more later through a fiance agreement. A very few, OK 1 I know of, US Insurer will give their policholders new value on a nearly new vehicle, common practice in the UK. Probably will come in over time.

Unlike the UK there seems to be no Uninsured Loss Recovery service, seems to be a monopoly of the lawyers.

Partystar

So that part of your insurance is for you alone? Okay, thanx for letting me know.

snowbunny

Who's the other driver's insurer?

Who's your insurer?

BigDavyG

Quick question before I go any further - what are the insurers involved ??

dbj1000

Care to elaborate? We're assuming that since he is 100% liable (as confirmed by the police at the scene) his insurance (Allstate) will cover our expenses. Our insurance (Safeco) will most likely not be involved, since there's no question of who's at fault here.

scrubbedexpat099

I have elaborated, I was going to do a new post and decided to edit that one.

You own policy gives you generally pre determined contractual benefits, a claim against another party is goverened by law, I think in the US usually State and Common law, but Federal Law maybe in there somewhere.

Rental Cover, each Insurer has its own wording(s) is a benefit they provide to their own policyholders, as far as a third party is concerned then it is all down to legal liability, reasonableness etc etc which may or may not cover all your car hire costs.

dbj1000

Thank you Boiler - that's all very helpful indeed.