Reader question:

If I get into a car insurance accident, how am I supposed to prove that I’m not at fault?

Juan

Thank you for your question, Juan.

Many times, when someone gets into a car insurance accident with, say, a pedestrian or someone riding a bike, it is easy to tell who the blame needs to be laid on. The percentage of the blame laid on a certain participant in a car insurance accident is called negligence, and there are many ways in which this kind of negligence can be determined. While common sense always plays a big role in the decisions as to who is at fault for a car insurance accident, what really seals a good car insurance claim case is the presence of a traffic or law violation that can be seen as having caused the accident. Without such a violation on the part of the at fault driver, you may have a tougher case to prove.

The best way to back your story up is to get a police report written up on the accident. This is always done whent he accident involves an injury, but should be done any time you intend to make a car insurance accident claim for the collision. All you have to do is call the police, and they will send some officers over to check out the damage and to take your stories.

Often, a police report will contain what the police officer claims as to who is the at fault driver in the incident. Normally this is stated because the person who is claimed to be the at fault driver appears to have committed some sort of traffic violation and the police officer believes that this puts them rather obviously at fault for the car insurance accident. Other times, while there will not be an outright opinion stated in the police report, the police officer will report any sort of violation that occured, whether a citation was given, and so on, although he or she may not state that it was this that was one of the main contributing factors to the accident. The first situation is pretty bad for the at fault driver, the second slightly better, but still not a good sign.

As the driver who was not at fault, these police reports can definitely be used in your favor, even if the police officer did not stater their opinion. Sometimes in a car insurance accident where there is some dispute as to who caused the accident, it is difficult to get documentation proving it, especially if you can’t contact witnesses who might have been there at the time, or if there weren’t any witnesses at all. In this case, using the police report comes in handy.

But what happens if the police officer who writes the police report about the car insurance accident is of the opinion that you are the one who was at fault for the accident, and you know that you were not? Well, it’s not the end of the world. It is possible, indeed, to fight a police report, but it will be difficult at times. First of all, make sure you have as much of your own documentation as possible, such as pictures and contacts with witnesses. This can be useful if you need to challenge a claim so that you don’t have to py a deductible and your rates don’t increase.

A lot of times, the police report will only have a contributory effect on the final outcome of the car insurance accident claim decision. This is because most car insurance companies have their own investigations, which sometimes take days or weeks and involve experts who might be able to see more details than a police officer would. While the police report does play a part, car insurance companies pay more attention to their own people.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.