Insurance Agents please give a hand settle this argurment.!?
My teeneage daughter coasted into the back of an SUV. Less than 500 dollars impairment to SUV. No one was ticketed. There be a police report taken. Is it against the law to not claim it on our insurance, if we wages to have to SUV fixed?
Answers:
If you are liable to pay it out of your own pocket you do not enjoy to report it to your insurance company. However, if anybody was hurt you should report it to your company.
Also, please be advise that in most states you would owe for a rental sports car while the other vehicle is being repaired.
I'll inform you up front that I'm not an insurance agent, but I do know enough to put together one suggestion. That is, go to the police station and draw from yourself a copy of that police report. See if the drivers license numbers are on there. If they aren't, you merely might squeak it by. If they are... you'd better go ahead and convey the insurance company about it.
No, it's not against the statute. Is it a good belief? Maybe, maybe not.
Here's the dipper: most SUV's these days enjoy a plastic cover on the bumper. It can't be repaired, it has to be replaced. Because of this, it's HIGHLY unlikely that here is "less than $500 damage". Bumpers can scale from $800 to $1800, and even more. So a REALISTIC amount of damages, PLUS the rental car while the saloon is in the shop, is closer to $1500 to $2000.
Second issue: unless the SUV be parked with not a soul in it, you could be first up a HUGE can of worms from a bodily injury point of view. I NEVER EVER EVER push for my insureds to handle a claim themselves, if someone be in the other sports car.
Here's why: If you pay adjectives costs bypassing the insurance company, you effectively absolve them of any responsibility for the claim. Two days from now, if this personality decides they might know how to make a few bucks from person hit, and starts seeing a chiropractor 2-3 times a week for back stomach-ache from the accident, okay, YOU will end up paying for it. You of late won't find out, until they present you with $5,000 of medical bills. Or even worse, they "miss work" and present you next to two weeks of "lost wages".
Once you START paying for a claim, any court in the world will look at that as acknowledgment of fault, and you are going to KEEP paying for it out of pocket, because the setting up of the payment "jeapordizes the company's defense" of your at shortcoming driver - thus voiding their responsibility to pay ANYTHING.
SO. If someone be in the saloon, it's stupid for you to do this. If the car be empty, and you're in place to shell out $2,000, go for it. It's sure not against the law.
MBR's answer is correct.
I would make a payment that you should find out the surcharge threshold that your company has surrounded by your state. Where I am, no claim under $1250 is held against you (it does not adapt your premium).
If you did want to handle it yourself you should own an attorney type up a release that the $500 settles the claim in full and no adjectives claims from the accident can be claimed.