As the title indicates, my car was severely damaged while parked, which also affected my fiancé's car behind it. The driver attempted to flee, but fortunately, a helpful neighbor witnessed the incident and helped us track the car down just a few blocks away, where it eventually broke down. After contacting the police and filing an insurance claim, I learned that the at-fault driver’s insurance only covers up to $25,000 in damages. Given the extent of the damage to both my vehicle and my fiancé's, the total will likely exceed that amount.
I want to know if I need to consult a lawyer because of their limited coverage, or if my insurance will handle pursuing their insurance on our behalf.
My parked car was hit, and the driver’s insurance only covers up to $25,000 in damages. Do I need to hire a lawyer for this situation?
byu/Spire95 inInsurance
Posted by Spire95
14 Comments
your insurance will pay and get the policy limit from their insurance, split with your fiancé’s insurance in proportion.
Lawyer will just get parts of your money. Does at fault driver have assets to sue for
Lawyer won’t do anything for you if they have a $25k policy limit for liability. Policy limits are hard stops. Insurance will not pay above the policy limit. Period. No lawyer will force them to pay more. Your insurance cannot force them to pay more.
On top of that, the $25k is split between you and your fiance. It’s not $25k each. They’ll prorate it based on the damage to each of your cars, and you’ll each get the proportional amount out of that $25k.
Assuming you have collision coverage, you could always file the claim with your carrier to ensure that your car’s repair costs are fully covered.
Your insurance company will subrogate, but if the policy limits are $25,000, that is all that the other vehicle’s insurance company will pay.
Shouldn’t this also be covered by your own comprehensive coverage? It should be up to your insurance to shake down the at-fault driver for everything their insurance got, and then cover the rest, I would think.
Your best bet here is to file through your own collision coverage, and let your insurance surrogate hers for what’s available.
File with your insurance company and have your finance file with theirs. The insurance companies will work out the specifics
You need to use the collision on your vehicle to pay for your damages and let your carrier get the $25k from the claimants carrier. Attorney won’t do anything if you’re not injured.
Just file with your insurance and let them deal with it. Not only is it not worth an attorneys time it isnt worth yours. Let your insurance fix your car and they can worry about trying to get the money back from the other guy.
Have the same situation now.
The driver parked into my rear bumper. I left a note to the driver hoping he would call but he didn`t. He left today without calling me. I see a chip on the bumper, maybe I would ignore that, but insurance just paid 4k for a new bumper and paint work. So, thinking what to do know. Not sure if it`s hit n run. I think the best way is to call my insurance and ask what to do?
If the total amount of the repairs to *all* the vehicles that were damaged (not including the perpetrator’s car since his liability insurance doesn’t cover his own car), *plus* your rentals, (and *minus* whatever they sell the car for at the auction in the event it’s totaled)… is even remotely possible to exceed $25k, then using your own insurance is easily the best way to handle this.
The largest amount you can win in court is the actual amount of your damages. Lawyers will take *injury* cases because the value of pain & suffering is *subjective*. They generally won’t take property damage cases though, because the damages are objectively verifiable, so all that would end up happening is that your lawyer takes 1/3 of the damages as his fee, and you only have 2/3 of the money you need to fix/replace your car. And then he has a mad client on top of that. So they’ll usually shy away from property damage cases unless the value/damages in question are somewhat subjective, like the value of a super-rare or custom car.
If you pay for the coverage you should always file with your own insurance company that way you don’t have to even worry about this pd limits issue with the other guys insurance, that’s for your insurance to worry about. Yeah it sucks you have to pay your deductible but they will try and get that back for you.
Maybe a lawyer can put a judgement against the driver. Before going to a lawyer, I suggest contacting your insurance carrier and see what coverage you have since the other driver has such low limits. In TX, the coverage of Uninsured/Underinsured PD would cover you. You file on the other driver’s insurance for the limits and file under your insurance for remaining balance. It is up to your insurance carrier to file a judgement against that driver.
Or file collision claim with your own insurance and pay deductible. Your carrier will eventually reimburse your deductible once the claim has completed subrogation.