Got rear ended today morning

How bad is this?

Got rear ended by minivan while i was waiting on red light. Basically its a downhill turn, and he was not able to steer in time to make right turn.

 

Sorry brother!

 

Ouch. Hopefully the frame is ok.

 

Sorry man, others will chime in with the long list of stuff that’s going on there..

 

Pretty sure he went under when he hit me, minivan was very low on ground compared to my truck. Most of his left side was gone when we pulled over, bent hood, left panel all the way pushed back to door. I can't see any frame damage physically, but it might be.. Just very bizarre morning

 

that stinks!! how do the bed & cab line up on that side?

 

Bed seems fine, the right ( side that was hit ) bed side seems closer to cab than the left side.






Going to wait on police report to get uploaded, then will see what insurance will estimate

 

sorry to see, just remember that while insurance companies can suggest or recommend shops, you can take it anywhere you feel best about having the work done.

there's also the split decision to make here.

1. go through your insurance-- you'll need to pay your deductible, but they'll work to get it back to you later on. because you're paying them, they have a little more 'skin in the game' to fight for your rights, appropriate reimbursements, and making sure the repair is up to par.

2. go through the other parties insurance. the upside is that you won't be out any money for any length of time, but their only goal is to clear you off their books. they couldn't care less about you, so some repair costs might be questioned more, and they'll more easily seek to cut corners because they have no benefit to maintaining a relationship with you.

 

He was at fault, I thought it would be his insurance paying full?

 

If I not mistaken, if you live in “No Fault Auto Insurance” state, the driver that hit you in the back, his insurance pay for repairs.

 

Many states now have no-fault insurance.
I’ve been rear ended twice in the last two years, my insurance paid for my repairs.
Since I didn’t have a moving violation, it didn’t cost me a rate increase.
Last time the driver who hit me was most definitely on her phone, I was stopped in traffic, saw her coming in time to pump my brake lights several times, but to no avail.
Cop said it would be an invasion of her privacy to ask to look at her phone, but if I wanted to file charges, It could be done in court…

 

Wow, I wonder who had idea to apply law like this. That's crazy, I was hit while stopped on a red light, from rear and now my insurance has to pay , so basically I am paying for my own repairs.

I hope this is not case with me, that sounds ridiculous. From what I've read this might only be for medical bills, and we were both fine after accident.

 

requisite-- i'm not a lawyer or insurance person, i've just been on the sidelines when others near me have been screwed in the process.


they will[future-tense]. but getting the truck repaired is a present-tense issue. you need to be thinking on (extremely long and drawn out) insurance company timelines.

like i said-- you can absolutely deal only with the other person's insurance for the entire ordeal. many people do, and it works out fine. but i said what i said because while the conditions and rules specify that they need to pay, that does not mean they will automatically pay for damages-- there's far more shady people out there collecting money from others in the name of 'insurance' than you might expect. and the unfortunate reality is that your insurance is currently the only involved party that's financially obligated towards your interests--because you're paying them. but i should also state that your insurances obligation only extends as far as your full coverage insurance offers.


fun story time
a friend of mine lives in a typical residential neighborhood, and is the second house away from a 4-way, 4-stop intersection, all streets are residential, with a 20mph speed limit. he has a 1-car-wide, 3-car-long gravel area that runs parallel to the street. he normally parks his older pickup truck in that area any time it's not being used. it's not a nice truck, and he got it for cheap to get to/from work, so he only carries the required liability-only insurance on it(insert dave ramsey conversation about saving costs by self-insuring).

it was probably about 3-4 years ago at this point, but later one night, he was already in and getting ready to go to bed, so the truck was parked in the middle of that gravel area, somewhere near 50-ish feet off the 4-way-stop intersection.

a car came around the corner, lost control, and plowed into the truck so hard, it ended up stopping 75' further down the road from where it started, the fiberglass topper popped off, and the rear bumper was shoved forward a full 6" of where the rear axle was supposed to be located. we can all make some assumptions of how fast the driver was going to cause that level of destruction, but it clearly wasn't a 2-digit speed under 30mph...

anyways, that driver was officially state-legal and insured under a very random 'SR-22' insurance company. being that my friend only had liability coverage on the truck, he started the process with the other persons insurance--liability only meant his insurance had no interest in coverage for him either. after sending it out for repair, the other persons insurance came back and denied the entire claim, stating that he had illegally parked his truck on the roadway, which was the cause of the accident. the police report clearly documented the start and finish location of his parked vehicle being within the confines of private property.

he talked to two different lawyers about it, both of which offered the same advice. the truck was realistically worth about $1,200 before the accident, and he was looking at a bare minimum of $3,000 just to hire a lawyer and file suit against the driver/company for a single court date, though they both advised him that he would likely never see anything, and the shell 'insurance company' would drag the proceedings along indefinitely, and he could likely be out $15k or more before he saw a cent from them.

their official advice to him was "walk away, count it as experience". they all further expanded on the point that companies like that offer policies on the idea of never paying out, so they'd rather find the other driver at fault, or tie up the legal proceedings indefinitely on various filibusters instead of ever paying out--because many they have a salaried lawyer on staff, it costs them nothing extra to not pay, but can cost significantly over their allotted budget to pay anything.



so the decision is yours to make in how to proceed, but who's fault it is in an accident doesn't guarantee anyone will pay anything, or even follow the rules that we all might expect from modern society--my friends experience was a sobering look at life in general for our entire friend group. my friend made it out ok, the truck wasn't anything collectible, and the money for it wasn't at all significant enough to lose sleep over, but definitely enough to be aggravating.. the best advice i've learned from my friends experience is to protect myself first, even in insignificant money amounts, and assume no one else has any coverage...

 

Sorry, that really sucks.

 

That sucks, imagine if he was in that truck. That pos company would have said he was illegally "idling" and "blocking" the road and that's why he got hit. And what about Police Dep? they just let the insurance company slide? How's thats even possible, to overrule what was in the report.


Luckily in my case, the person who hit me was a vet , so we had an understanding. We talked, and I did tell him its fine and there was nothing to worry about. I didn't turn cringe and blamed him or anything, it happened and he knew it.

He said his breaks didn't work ( which was done few days ago by mechanic ) , and I do believe him. Basically I trust him not to play something. There is a police report, had to because damage was just too much. If it was just like a bump or two, i would go and get after market bumper myself . His car is way more fd up than mine is. That car was missing a mirror, had bumper taped and who knows what else, not a good shape before he hit me and then after, it looked like total loss to me. So its like similar to what you said, that minivan will cost way less to repair, but I trust him not to turn no story around or anything, but I dont trust insurance companies whole lot.

 

like i said at the end-- companies like that make money on the fact of never paying out. you're absolutely right, for you or me, it's unfathomable to screw over anyone like that. but what's important here is that they're working within the legal system.

and they didn't 'overrule' what was in the report. in my area, the police officially have a policy to take statements from anyone involved in any accident, but they do not assign blame. if someone admits blame, it's added to the report, but they do not assign blame.

it's up to the individuals and the insurance companies to assign blame, and work out who needs to pay for who. in this case, the insurance company assigned blame to my friend, regardless of the circumstances.

the legal way to fight my friends case it is to take it to court. like i said, they have a salaried lawyer for that. but he gets paid regardless of any result, and the company doesn't budget to pay out for accidents. it doesn't matter to that lawyer if it takes 1 month or 40 years. his salary is paid-- he just keeps coming up with different reasons to get the trial rescheduled-- his objective is to make things go away without costing his company any more money. my friends objective is to be whole, but he also doesn't have infinite amounts of money to chase after them for 40 years over a $1,300 truck.

the lawyers also told my friend that if he did have full coverage, he likely would still be out his deductible, as many official insurance carriers will chase after companies like that in situations like my friend had, but eventually write off the amount, because they'll just endlessly drag the case out indefinitely.

you're entirely missing the point. unless the guy that hit you signs a contract to pay for it out of his own pocket, absolutely nothing he says or does matters. insurance doesn't care if their client promised you a unicorn ride for your troubles. if you file through insurance, insurance is obligated "to make you whole", in this case, to repair the vehicle. they will not sign off for a unicorn ride as payment.

realistically, there's 3 options here.
1.walk. live with the damages the way it is and move on with your life.

2. repair via insurance, which i've already covered--

2a.you can file a claim under your insurance, they'll open a case, you pay your deductible, if they find you're not at fault, it won't hurt your rates, the vehicle gets repaired, they send their piranha lawyers after the other company, and get their money and your deductible back. if all goes well, you get your deductible back, your truck is repaired, you move on with your life. the benefit here is that your insurance cares about you because you're paying them to care. in this case, you're making use of the resources that you're already paying for.

2b. you file via the other drivers insurance. all goes well, they just take care of everything-- most large insurance companies will do this.

2b--continued: BUT. you're dealing with a question mark of an entity that must make the legal decision to "make you whole" and pay out for damages from their profits, while also minimizing damage to their profits(contradiction much?). you are an unintended, undesirable expense.

it's in their best interest to make you go away as quickly and cheaply as possible. large national insurance companies will usually work with the repair shop, and get it done. smaller insurance companies will nickel and dime the entire process, and just generally make your life hell-- demanding multiple quotes from different facilities, demanding you go to very specific shady repair shops, use substandard repair materials or processes, etc--all in an effort for them to save as much as they can on the repair costs. you bypass all this hassle by submitting it via your own insurance.

the catch-22 here is that if you want to file via insurance, you must choose early on which process you want to proceed with. you can't choose 2b, and then switch to 2a later when it becomes a hassle. that's the benefit to filing via your own insurance, and letting them argue it out with the other insurance company-- they know the rules of the game, and know how to fight dirty just the same, where you don't.

3. and this is an option many rarely discuss--don't get insurance involved: you could pay for the damages yourself--what my friend ended up doing with his pickup truck.

o you could personally work out an agreement with the other person in the accident -- exactly what i did when i accidently pulled out in front of another driver many years ago-- quote was for $800, i handed them an $800 cashiers check so i didn't need to get insurance involved and raise my rates--maybe they repaired it, maybe they didn't. the point is that they were paid for the damages i caused, and i didn't need to involve insurance.

that's only ok if you're going with option #1, or #3. as soon as you get insurance involved, yours or his, you need to trust an entirely different entity to see the process through to completion.

the same as 'tube steak' and 'steak' are both technically beef products, the end result is very different from what some people might be expecting. one is a hot dog, one is a ribeye...

the goal here is to make sure that you're covered and your expectations of 'being made whole' are the same as the company('s) involved--using your insurance company(and their lawyers) and being out your deductible temporarily is a method to making sure you get a desirable-to-you end result. but it can also be unnecessary if the other driver had a major insurance carrier that cares about their public image. but if it's not a major carrier, and they don't care, you'll get tube steak instead of that ribeye...

i don't trust insurance companies much either-- that's why i posted the original story. it's also why my vehicles carry full coverage.

the police report is important for the case if you choose to get insurance involved-- they'll pull it and make their determinations from what it contains. after that, it's up to what they decide to how everything proceeds.

i'm not trying to tell you what to do, i'm just trying to make you aware of the consequences of whatever action you choose will be. unfortunately, i and my extended friends/family have been involved in accidents over the years, and so i have a partial understanding of the process.

accidents suck. they'll continue to suck for months after they happen. but for me, i find a little peace in knowing all the options to deal with it before it happens, and i'm left with far less "i should've done this instead" fears that i acted improperly, or at the very least, i want to learn from others mistakes that have had to go through the process!

 

I just went through this. I was stopped in traffic entering a construction zone and got rear-ended. The woman driving was at fault but PA is a No-Fault State so my insurance company paid - and it cost me my deductible. The accident happened on April 30th and it took until mid-August until the last part - the tailgate - arrived. She hit me pretty much dead on the trailer hitch with her bumper and the hood hit the tailgate and bumper. Pushing the hitch down put two small humps in the frame but no cracks so it was easily straightened.

After paying out all the repairs, my insurance company will now try to recoup the costs, including my deductible, from her insurance company. Since I was not at fault (even had my dash-cam footage that showed I was stopped in traffic) they have a good chance of recovering.

Sorry you have to go through it. It does suck.




All repaired.

 

My steel bumper would have protected the tailgate & taillight .

 

Yea seems like I am going to be doing same thing.. My insurance will pay and then take money from his. Insurance is total scam, i wish we never had to pay it, would def have more money saved than what insurance keeps from all those payments.

 

Ive always wondered how after market bumpers would hold up in situations like this, but i cant find any test/comparisons