As some of you may recall, a little over 3 years ago Avraham was the 2nd car in a 3-car pileup. A car had come to a full stop in the HOV lane on the LIE during rush house, and the CR-V in front of Avraham stopped behind it. Avraham slowed down (in our Camry) and then slammed on his brakes, tapping the back of the CR-V. The car behind Avraham chose not to brake, and instead tried to switch lanes, only to swerve back and slam into our car, crumpling the entire passenger side. The owman in front of Avraham then sued us for damages.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I went to switch to NY state insurance because I'm finally becoming a NY State resident (boo!). They told me that they were going to try to switch me to one of the better companies and give me various discounts. They called back today to say that they couldn't upgrade us. It turns out that that woman got $100 for physical pain, and $5000 for damages to her car, which in the police report were NON EXISTENT. So we've been paying through the nose for auto insurance, and will continue to do so for another 2 years, because an at-fault accident counts for 5 years, and a payout over $1000 kicks your insurance up - a lot.
So what's the lesson learned? Should Avraham have denied that our car touched her car before the guy behind him plowed into the Camry? That would be horrible. It would be lying, cheating the system, and screwing someone else. But how is it right that this woman got away with lying like she did, and giving us a huge bill that we've been carrying in the form of crazy insurance rates? It's infuriating that she screwed us so badly. It's infuriating that the guy who caused the accident didn't have to pay out anything to the people who got into the accident. It's infuriating that the guy who demolished our car would have walked away scot-free if I hadn't hounded his insurance for 3 months, because we didn't have collision on our policy.
The whole thing has me annoyed, and has me wondering why the system skews towards liars and cheats. And Allstate? All that BS you spout in your commercials about accident-forgiveness? WHAT THE HELL?!
That's ridiculous! Doesn't the insurance company take the police report into consideration?
ReplyDeleteHave you both taken the safe drivers course to reduce your premiums?
It is completely ridiculous. The insurance on the guy who hit Avraham (Nationwide) made me fight for every penny, pretty much. The guy destroyed our car, and Nationwide said he was only responsible for damage in the back, because that's where he hit us. They weren't going to pay for our rental, or reimburse us for our car seats. They accused me of lying when I said my car seat cost over $200, and I had to go find not just the price, but the actual credit card statement for the Britax I had bought 2 years before. They were awful. And I was 35 weeks pregnant or so! It was madness. This is just a final insult from the whole mess. We pay about $1600 for insurance on our minivan.
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