What Are The Car Insurance Laws?
Reader question:
When I am filing a car insurance accident report, how will traffic car insurance laws effect who is considered to be the at fault driver?
Ronny
Thanks for asking, Ronny.
I think that one of the greatest ways to get your car insurance accident claim done your own way is to be educated. Be the smart one in the situation, and impress your car insurance claim adjuster with your knowledge. So, let’s begin. What’s a good thing to know about when you need to prove that a car insurance accident wasn’t your fault? Car insurance law and state traffic laws. State traffic laws can be the biggest factor in showing that the other driver, while they may not have been a very direct cause to the accident, was at least reckless or negligent in some manner.
Traffic laws govern the way people drive, and it isn’t very hard to find out which ones rule the roads of your own state. The information is publicly available in your local library. The listing is usually called the complete vehicle code. Other places that you can get a hold of it are law libraries (which you can find in universities, usually, and if you want to find one somewhere else, just check the yellow pages) as well as the department of motor vehicles.
How do you use the complete vehicle code when making a car insurance accident claim? It’s simple, and it doesn’t really take very much time so long as you have a clear idea in your head of the event of your car insurance accident. Just look in the index section of the vehicle code book and try to find any sort of laws that might apply to your car insurance accident claim report. These might be things such as speed limits, or right of way, or stop sign laws. Once you find the laws that apply to you, don’t just scribble a note down. For the best effect, you need to have the entirety of the wording of the law, correctly, as well as the statute number. This way, when you submit it to your car insurance company they will be able to confirm what you are claiming. It is always good to have accurate data and sources when you are using information that is not simply from your memory. It’s the same principle when they require you to submit your medical bills and statements so that they can verify your car insurance accident injury claims.
What happens if you have trouble finding the right laws to apply to your car insurance accident? All you have to do is ask a librarian to help you. They know what they’re doing. This is why I always suggest going to the library over going to the department of motor vehicles–considering that, concerning the latter, we know that they don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t want to help you.
Traffic law violations are also often included in the police report if they happen. If this is the case with your car insurance accident, then you should reference the police report. However, you might find it necessary to look up your law anyway–just for extra back up.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Do You Need Gap Insurance When Buying A New Car?
Reader question:
If I have to get a new car as a result of a car insurance accident, does my gap new car insurance coverage take care of the down payment for my new vehicle?
Britney
No, it does not, Britney.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why you have to be way more careful when you own a new car, and that is because even with gap new car insurance you will be entirely responsible for getting yourself a new vehicle. The reason for this is that gap insurance has one purpose only, and that is to create a bridge between what your car is worth and what you owe. For example, the car that I am purchasing right now is worth fifteen thousand dollars, but I still owe eighteen thousand dollars on it. This is called an upside down loan, and it means that you owe more for a car than it is actually worth. This happens a lot with new cars, which are worth a lot straight off the assembly line but depreciate rapidly.
If I had gap insurance (and I do), then if I got into a car insurance accident I would not have to worry about continuing to pay on a car that I know longer have. My collision coverage will give me the fifteen thousand dollars that my car is worth, and then the gap coverage will provide the other three thousand. However, at the end of all this, while I would be safe from debt, I would still be stuck paying for a new car. I would no longer owe anything on my old car, but the gap insurance does not worry about that, it only worries about bridging the gap between what you owe and what your car insurance coverage is actually worth.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Cheap High Performance Car Insurance
Reader question:
I have a great car but it has a dent on it now, which I found when I came out of the store. Should I make a high performance car insurance claim?
Michael
I’m glad you asked, Michael.
You know, I think that one of the reasons that people can’t get cheap high performance car insurance is because they are too worry some about their vehicles. Now, don’t get me wrong. Most high performance cars are expensive, and thus even the smallest scratch could cost more money than usual to fix. However, you should not compensate for your worry for your vehicle by making a high performance car insurance claim for every little thing that happens. Even if it is something that will cost money to fix, that does not mean that your car insurance company will need to know.
The way I see it is that if something is under your deductible or you are otherwise able to afford to pay for the damages, then most of the time there is no reason to contact your high performance car insurance company unless you are a hundred percent sure that this would not put your clean auto insurance claim record in jeapordy. The reason I say this is, even though auto insurance companies want you to report all accidents in good faith even if you don’t file a high performance auto insurance claim for them, and they won’t punish you after the first couple, once you start a list then you will begin to see that they don’t think you are as good a customer as they thought you were before.
There are some guidelines that you should go by when deciding whether or not to report your high performance auto insurance accident to your company, and I’ll give you a list following this. You should think about these before you decide to call up and advise your company of your dent, although there are always going to be more factors and these should not be the deciding ones for your situation. Here they are.
- Can I pay for this?
This is the number one primary thing that you should consider. I got a dent in my car, too, recently, but I didn’t bother to call up my vehicle insurance company. It will probably cost me around fifty dollars to get fixed, which is five percent of my auto insurance deductible, so it doesn’t make any sense to report it. I can just wait and be lazy and go get it fixed when I’m ready, instead of having to worry about the long problems making a claim with my auto insurance collision coverage.
- Am I alone in this?
Another thing that will obviously play a huge role in you reporting your little accident to your high performance car insurance company is whether or not someone else is involved. If someone else is involved in the accident, then go no further. REPORT IT. I really don’t think there should be exceptions to this guideline, because even if the other person says they are okay and there is no need to report it and claim, that does not mean that it is true.
I’m not saying that the other person is lying, but I am saying that the evidence of damage may not be apparent right away after you get into an accident. The other person might start to feel back pains later that night, or might notice their vehicle making weird noises on the way home. One time I barely nicked a guy, and although there was no outer damage to my car, it wouldn’t start! You never know what will happen. If you get into an accident involving another party, report it.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
At Fault Car Insurance Accident – Who Should Pay The Claim?
Reader question:
If I’m changing lanes and somebody in the lane I’m changing to is pulling out of a parallel parking spot, who is the at fault driver if we get into an auto accident?
Jerry
That’s a good question, Jerry.
It all depends on the timing of your little collision ballet, actually. For example, of the other car started pulling out before you started changing lanes, then that would bring one result. But if you started changing lanes before the other car began to pull out, then it would bring another. IT just goes to show how similar situations can be and how different the results are.
From the situation you describe, though, I want to say that it is most likely that the onus of the accident would be on the person who was changing lanes. The reason for this is, to begin with, that any time you collide with someone in a car insurance accident from behind, you are almost always at fault. This even applies when somebody slams on their brakes and then you run into them. The reason for this is that your car insurance company expects you to practice defensive driving techniques, which would have helped you avoid an accident.
It is also probable that if you started to change lanes and the other person started to pull out at the same time, that it would be a case of shared negligence. That way you would be considered responsible for a certain percentage of the other person’s damage, and they for a certain percentage of yours, depending on how much they are considered to be at fault in this car insurance accident. Either way, the person who ended up paying more would be the lane changer.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
How Do I Prove To My Car Insurance Company I am Not At Fault For The Accident
Reader question:
How do I get car insurance accident proof that it was the other person’s fault, and not my own?
Jackie
Thanks for asking, Jackie.
What many people do not realize is that there is no set algorithm for determining who is at fault when it comes to car insurance accident claims. It is mostly based on common sense, and the decision goes to whoever’s argument and evidence shows that they are correct and not culpable for the accident. You don’t need mathematical logic to win a controversial car insurance claim. The only thing that you are required to know are the laws of driving, and how that affected your car accident and how the other driver ignored these same laws. Many car insurance claims, even those in which both of the drivers are shirking responsibility and blaming the other, can be won with a simple argument pointing out the obvious. It isn’t that hard to know what to say, but some people might need help knowing how to say it, which is where you would hire a car insurance accident claims lawyer.
The biggest factor in a person winning a disputed negligence case for a car insurance accident claim is that, even if the insurance company does not believe that they are right, it may think that it is possible that someone else will think they are, and so they rush to end the whole situation and get the claim taken care of. Car insurance companies mostly exist to help their own customers, and while come are extremely helpful with car insurance claims when the claim maker is not a customer of that company, I’d say that most try to obstruct and give you the lowest balled figures, which your own car insurance company probably does too, but to a lesser extent. When a reasonable argument is made for who was negligent in a certain car insurance claim case, and the insurance company realizes that their own position will probably not hold up in court if a lawsuit is filed, they will probably go ahead and approve the claim. So you don’t need hard cold facts. You just have to be convincing.
I find that the best way to send proof for your case is through letters to the adjuster instead of over the phone, or through emails, if the car insurance company allows that particular means of communication when dealing with claims. This might be because I like to communicate more in writing than over the phone, but it could hold true for many other people too, I think. The reason for this is that you can get all of your ideas down on paper without being interrupted, you can attach any information that the adjuster wouldn’t otherwise be able to see over the phone, and, most important of all, you can edit. The editing is a big one, considering that saying something stupid over the phone when you’re having to act partially on impulse could get you into a lot of trouble with your claim. At least when you write a letter of evidence to your adjuster, you would never get caught saying something like,
“While I was backing up at the stop light, he hit me in the rear!”
While I would suggest admitting negligence in a case where you caused someone to hit you from behind, I hope you can see the point I’m trying to get across. If you feel, though, that you can’t succeed either in the form of the letter or over the phone in proving the negligence of the other driver, then you should hire a car accident lawyer. An attorney would be able to navigate the system and also knows what claims adjusters want in order to prove cases.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Car Insurance Accident Liability – How To Determine Who Is At Fault?
Reader question:
How do you prove liability and responsibility in a vehicle insurance accident?
Ennis
That is a very good question, Ennis.
When you get into a car accident and you weren’t the cause of it, many would start out by seeing red. They might want to toss out insults and make demands to the at fault driver’s vehicle insurance company. However, the problem with this is that saying it does not make it so. You can’t just demand that your car insurance company realize who is the driver that should be liable in a certain situation, because there has to be more proof beyond just the words of the two drivers involved, considering that much of the time both will be vouching for their own side of the story.
Liability comes down to one basic factor, and that is the carelessness, or negligence, of the drivers. If one of the drivers is found to have been more careless than the other driver, than that driver will have to pay more of the car insurance claim costs than the driver who was not as careless. However, carelessness is not the singular factor. There are others, as follows.
- If the person who was injured in the collision was in a place that they had no business being, and the other driver had no reasonable reason to think that they or anybody else might be there. It’s like if you drive into a dark alley in the middle of the night to park and you run over someone sleeping on the ground. People have to sleep, but an alleyway is not the normal place for that, so the driver can not be considered careless for driving into a dark place to park and to dodging the people.
- Now, there are some cases where the person who was injured was careless, but so was the person doing the driving. As an example, if you run out into the middle of the street in your neighborhood and get hit by a car. Now, the car should be taking care while driving in a neighborhood and go slowly, because there are plenty of children and pets who are more likely than adults to run into the street randomly. On the second hand, you were stupid to have run into the street. This is called comparative negligence, and both of you would have to pay for the percent that was determined to have been your fault.
- If the collision happens on or involving some kind of property that is not safe, for reasons of being badly made or not well kept up, or for any reason really other than that you just crashed into it, then the owner will hold part of the responsibility, even if it isn’t his fault that the property is in this condition.
- If the motor vehicle accident is caused because one of the vehicles is defected in some way, then the blame falls on neither driver but instead on both the manufacturer of the car and the person who sold it, regardless of which of them is actually fully responsible for the defect.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Auto Insurance Claim – How To Prove Negligence?
Reader question:
What does it mean to be negligent in an auto insurance accident when making an auto insurance claim?
Mallory
That’s an excellent question.
The word negligent is a term used in the legal sphere to speak of an action that was caused as result of carelessness on the part of the negligent driver. This is often used concerning people, as in a negligent parent is someone who does not watch their child well enough and the child runs out into the woods and is eaten by a bear. In driving, negligent is much the same in that one driver’s careless action causes damage to another person or someone else’s property. For example, say you are passing through an intersection that has stop signs. While you’re in the middle of the intersection, another vehicle drives up to the stop sign that is perpendicular to you, fails to see it, and keeps right on going, and then smashes into the middle of your vehicle. You would have no fault in an accident such as this, because the second driver was completely negligent and didn’t keep an eye out for stop signs and other drivers.
Even direct acts involving the driving itself are not the limits when it comes to the word negligent as it is used concerning auto insurance claims. For instance, say someone who thinks they are especially cool goes driving after dark while wearing dark sunglasses. This person would then have a much lower visibility and could easily miss something and cause an accident. They would be considered negligent, and thus, at fault, because their silliness in wearing the glasses lowered their ability to drive responsibly and thus indirectly caused an auto accident.
Negligence is usually what is used to figure out who is the one who is at fault in a car accident and auto insurance claim, and it isn’t until negligence (or the occasional purposeful act) is found out that someone can be considered the at fault driver. If the other driver in your car accident is found to have acted carelessly, that is, to have been negligent, then they are responsible for any trouble they have caused you. Thi can extend from injuries and damages to your vehicle to anguish that you have suffered from the collision.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
What Happens to My Car Insurance Rate After An Accident?
Reader question:
I have pretty much every type of car insurance coverage available on my car. Now what do I do if I get into a car wreck?
Jimmy
Great question!
While the brunt of the handling of the situation will rest with your car insurance company, you will have to do your own share as well. Because of this, you should always be prepared and know what to do ahead of time. It’s good that you are taking interest in this in advance. Here are some guidelines to follow when you get into a car insurance accident.
- Keep an insurance kit in your car. This will contain things like your car insurance card, a disposable camera, a flashlight, pen and paper, phone numbers you might need, and anything else you can think of that might be necessary in the case of a car accident. Stick it all in your glove compartment for easy access.
- Stay cool. If you freak out, not only might you forget to do things that you need to do at the scene of the accident, but you might forget more about what happened when the time comes to tell.
- If there are any injuries, no matter how not serious, call 911.
- If it is possible, drive both cars to an area where they are not in the way of traffic. You already got into one accident for the day, you don’t want to cause another.
- If the damages are more than you can pay, then you should call a police officer so that a police report can be filed. The cop will want to get information from you as well as for those who witnessed the accident, and it is important that a police report be filed with both sides of the story.
- Use your camera to take pictures of damages. This helps you avoid fraud.
- Sometimes you are unable to get a cop out there to file a report. If this happens, you an the other driver have to go to the station to do it yourselves.
- Always report the accident to your car insurance company, and if it is for more than your deductible, file a claim. Even if the other person said that wouldn’t file a claim, call anyway, because you never know if they are telling the truth and you want your car insurance company to hear it from you first.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
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