Just looking for some advice on how to leverage this.. I was stopped at the stop sign, to turn right. The other driver is coming down the road from my right to take a left. She cut the turn way close and came into my lane hitting the front of my car. She admitted fault the second we got out of our cars. To the police as well, it’s on the police report. Both of our cars got towed to a tow yard. She filed a claim with geico and i’ve been in touch with them too. Geico called me today and said they came up with 60% fault on her, 40% on me. I said I didn’t understand because I had no way of avoiding this hit. He said they can review again once they get the police report (i already had the report so sent it over to them) and waiting for a call back. Any advice on how to handle this further is they come back with an offer that is still saying I am any % at fault? I already spoke with my insurance this morning and they said they can open a claim if I don’t think geico is handling this fairly. Should I involve a lawyer? Thanks in advance. Never been in a wreck so it’s all new to me. Ugh.
Not at fault, but geico called and came back with 60%/40%
byu/iwantdonuts44 inInsurance
Posted by iwantdonuts44
5 Comments
Call your agent the should get a lawyer
Have you contacted your insurance company?
You are probably going to need to use your own insurance. Do you have any damage photos showing both vehicles? The facts of loss you provided would have a pretty interesting impact location.
The police report doesn’t determine fault. Insurance will determine fault. They’ll base it off of your statement, and the statement of the other driver. They’ll use dashcam footage or independent witness statements you have it. They’ll go from there. It sounds like the other driver gave a statement that implied you have some shared negligence on this. It’s not so much that Geico is handling this unfairly. They’re going off of what they were told.
Your alternatives are to run this claim through your insurer and see if they make a different decision. And then they’ll go and argue it out with the other insurer.
Or, you can skip insurance entirely and opt to sue the other driver. Barring injuries, you’ll have a hard time finding a lawyer that will take this case. There just isn’t any money in it for them. And then you have to prove your case. And then if you win, you have to hope you can collect from the other person.
You, Geico, the other driver, your own insurer, and the police are all allowed to have their own opinions about who was at fault. But that’s all they are at this point. Just opinions. They’re not legally binding until the involved parties make a private settlement or a court imposes one.
You can wait until the other carrier gets the police report to see if they change their mind. You can call them and try to convince them. (“I could understand if your insured was driving a tractor-trailer truck, but she wasn’t” etc…). But if they won’t change their mind then your only options are eating 40% of all the repairs and rental, or filing a claim with your own insurer.
If you file with your own insurer you’ll get paid 100% of your damages, minus your deductible, and your insurer will settle or arbitrate against the other insurer. You’ll presumably be less than 50% at fault no matter what the outcome is.
Your next question for your insurer is whether you’re “made whole” first, meaning if your deductible is $500 whether you get the first $500 they get out of GEICO, or whether your deductible is covered proportional to whatever your own insurer recovers (ie. they get 60% of the damages back and you get 60% of your deductible back) It works different ways in different states.
Lawyer is sort of pointless. Most of them won’t take a case like this. The most they can get you in a purely property damages claim is the actual amount needed to fix or total-out your car. Their fee is going to be like 33% of any settlement, so you’ll only end up with 66% of the money you need to fix your car and they end up with an unhappy client.