Does Texas have a no-fault coverage for hit & run? The police gave me a case number for my insurance which I passed onto them, but my insurance company told me to wait a few days and see what the investigation turns up. I hate all this waiting.
Check your policy, if you have been accident free many times you have accident forgiveness, but this is really if YOU are at fault, which it sounds like is not the case. You have a police report, MAKE SURE you do not wait to contact your insurance company, you are supposed to do so within 24 hrs, or as soon as possible. They will get you on the track for repair, you're going to have to worry about the police tracking the dink down and seeing if he/she has insurance as this goes on. DON'T wait on filing your claim. You should check with the police if anyone witnessed this or if there are any camera's at the intersection. If it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's a hit and run.
I was involved in a t-bone accident and not a hit and run. I was crossing an intersection with a green light and the other driver cuts in front of me on an unprotected right turn, causing me to hit him. The other driver is at fault. Liability is obvious based on how the accident happened and the other driver will admit fault. Not so in my case the other driver claim that he had the right of way, that he had the signal and that I was at fault. Call to police (they may be able to determine who was responsible) get contact information from anybody who witnessed the accident, do not admit liability to the other driver, and take pictures of the scene and damage if you are able. Police may not make a determination of fault in the accident report, if they make the wrong determination. It won’t take much for the other driver to claim that the accident was your fault. An experienced personal injury attorney can help you establish that you weren’t the one responsible for the accident, and can help you navigate every stage in your insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit. AS far as fixing you car good luck parts will be hard to come by. The easy parts are hood, fender, and bumpers’ other parts may get a little difficult to locate. MY insurance is fixing along with my attorney are going after the other party. No my insurance is not going up............
Insurance companies are all about: taking in more money total than they pay out, and managing risk.
Generally, whether it is your fault or not, if they cannot get the money from the other driver or his/her insurance company, your rates can and likely will go up. Insurance companies do not like to pay out.
Now, if your policy has accident forgiveness, which many insurance companies now sell, that's different. You can get away with one accident without rate impact.
BUT, again, insurance companies are not about being generous or particularly forgiving. For the most part you are paying a bit more for that kind of insurance. They really are not forgiving anything, they are getting the money for the first accident up front in the form of higher premiums.
But you 'feel good' knowing you've got a pass on one accident.
This is a bad situation, but it doesn't sound like you're 100% certain that he's uninsured. He may just want to avoid yet another accident on his record or maybe he was drinking and didn't want the police to show up and find that out. The truck could have been stolen. I had an accident earlier this year with a neighbor who backed into my truck. He didn't want me to call the police because he had an outstanding warrant! Dodge truck guy may have run for any number of reasons. Being without insurance is only one.
So what's taking the police so long to run the plates and go talk to the guy? Leaving the scene is a crime in most states. Did they close their report and give you a copy yet? I would think they're required to file their report within 24 or 48 hours so you can get a copy and move on. The driver could decide he doesn't know what you're talking about and he did see some guy taking pictures of him the other night but didn't think much of it. Until he's made a statement to the police or an insurance adjuster (yours or his) admitting involvement and fault, you don't have much to work with. Even if you have a high power attorney, unless you can prove he hit you, he can deny everything. I'd push for a police report saying my insurance company needs it. They'll have to close things out. Either they found him and know his name or they didn't, or he claims no recollection of the events, or they got his insurance card. Something.
I had a similar situation happen to me when I was a teenager. I was coming out of a side street onto a thoroughfare. I had a stop sign. The cross street did not. A guy wants to turn left into the street I'm turning left out of and motions for me to go first like I was blocking his path or something. I go and so does he. I t-bone the guy and he jumps out screaming about how I cut him off a few blocks back (we weren't even on the same street) as if that justified him tricking me into hitting him. He'd obviously been drinking and after a minute or two, takes off. But I got his plate number. Someone called the police, we made a report and the next day I got a call asking me to come down to id the guy. He admitted having an accident and leaving but claimed I ran the stop sign and he said that his attorney had advised him to avoid encounters with teenagers because he'd had trouble with my kind before, so he just left to get away from me. He got arrested for leaving the scene of an accident. In the end, he had the right-of-way, didn't recall motioning for me to go first, was sober by the time police caught up with him, and his insurance company was able to get my insurance company to pay for his damage. I don't recall if my rates went up, but they probably did. The point is that the police can sort this out pretty quickly and the longer you wait, the more time he has to work on his story.
My daughter was rear ended in Houston by a guy who said he was uninsured. No doubt about who's fault it was. She turned it over to her insurance, which covered it with "uninsured motorist", less her deductible. About a year later, she got her deductible back. Her insurance company got it from him somehow.
Texas is not, and never has been, a "no fault" state regarding car insurance. One possible reason for the delay from law enforcement is that the other car was not insured and the motorist had no US driver's license. Unfortunately, that is becoming a common problem.
So the police tracked the owner down and I found out the owner of the truck was insured after all. Not sure why he did not stop. But I did find out the owner who has insurance for the truck was a woman, and it was a man driving the car. So maybe it was her son or boyfriend, or husband, who knows. I'm just glad the police did a great job of tracking him down. The police gave me the owner's insurance company and policy number. They are now making arrangements with me to have my car fixed! So I do not have to worry about going through my insurance company, nor will I have to pay the deductible.
GREAT NEWS !!! (I think it was the jerk from "My Ride Rules" who drove the Lincoln in disguise driving the truck... LOL )
That's funny.
I just hope they arrest this guy and take away his license. Stupid jerk!
On another note, I have new vented fenders ordered. I wonder if they will paint them in place of the one that was damaged? I would be willing to pay the difference to have the other one on the passenger side painted and installed.
Location: Parker Colorado, USA, directly above the center of the earth
Glad to hear that you are back on the road to goodness.
My limited experience with accidents caused by others, and with USAA, is that the major insurance companies have agreements in place where your insurance will fund and facilitate your repair and the other insurance company pays for it after the fact. That way you get taken care of by your insurance without having to work through a "foreign" company.
If I were asked for a recommendation, I would say check with your own insurance company to see if they recommend that you let them get the fix done for you.
__________________
Rob the Elder
Punisher's Daddy
Green Dragon's chief mechanic
Carol's husband for 45 years
Glad to hear that you are back on the road to goodness.
My limited experience with accidents caused by others, and with USAA, is that the major insurance companies have agreements in place where your insurance will fund and facilitate your repair and the other insurance company pays for it after the fact. That way you get taken care of by your insurance without having to work through a "foreign" company.
If I were asked for a recommendation, I would say check with your own insurance company to see if they recommend that you let them get the fix done for you.
This is exactly what happened with us recently with our Subaru (USAA as well). The important point here is that our company directed us to the approved shop, vs. some other company that we have no association with. The other company paid the shop bills. We took the car back a time or two as well and they continued to work with us to get the car back to perfect condition (most people would never know the car was in an accident, it would take a trained person knowing what to look for to possibly see that the car was rear ended).
BAD NEWS! The latest update is that the other person's insurance company is telling me since the male driver was not on the auto policy, and not covered as a driver of the vehicle, then they(Female policy holder) are NOT liable. So basically it's the same as saying, she never gave the person permission to drive the truck that hit me, or that it was taken without her knowledge. This sucks, I can't do a dam thing about it. All she has to do is keep denying that she had any knowledge that her truck was being used and she and the insurance company get off free! So now I HAVE to file a claim through my insurance company and eat my deductible because her insurance company is saying their client is not to blame. So the bottom line people is even if you do get some ones plate number and it comes back as an insured motorist after a hit-and-run, they can still get away without paying a thing. All they have to do is play dumb.
I'm convinced now they are no more honest people left in this world. STUPID FUC$%NG PEOPLE DRIVING AROUND IN OTHER PEOPLE'S CARS WITH NO INSURANCE!
All I can do now is hire a lawyer to TRY to get my deductible back. And I really don't have that kind of money.
They also still want to come out to do an estimate on my car! I don't understand why??? They are not going to pay anyway. Is this some thing insurance companies do to cover their asses?!!! Makes no sense to me. I'm not signing anything on the estimate if they are not going to bother fixing it. Can anyone explain this to me? Why do they still want to see my car if they are telling me their client is not liable?
The other unsurance company may be bullying you, tell them to talk to your ins agent.
Would put everything in the hands of your insurance company and let them deal with the other people.
If the other party wants a damage estimate for some reason let them get it from your insurance agent.
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