Can I Fight this Outcome?

G

Guest

Guest
So back in February I accidently brushed against the stone wall in my own driveway. No property damage, just some minor damage to the car. I put in a claim with my insurance company and after my deduct. they paid out slightly over $600. I have been a customer of this company for over 10 years with no other incident and I'm sure thousands of dollars in their pocket. I was honest about what happened and now it is considered an at fault accident which is making my premium jump by a crazy amount. While I understand the "at fault" because it was. What I don't understand is why, after years of paying in.... far more that what was needed to cover the balance of this incident am I going to be bumped to such a degree. I plan to make a call tomorrow but found this place tonight and decided to ask....Can I fight this? or is it a lost cause. I really am thinking I should have lied about it and said it happend in a random parking lot or something. Anyone with experience with this? I'm in Mass BTW. Oh, and I've been a driver for nearly 25 years.
 
Keep in mind, insurance is a peace of mind product. When you have small claims, everyone kind of wonders the same thing. When you have large claims, nobody stops and thinks, "Hey, I should pay a LOT more for my insurance".

Rather than parsing out big claims, little claims, medium claims, whatever, insurance companies do it 'simpler', by rating any at fault claim as a claim. In some states, small claims don't count as at fault, and won't get rated.

If this is your only incident, it will have an impact on your rates, but it shouldn't be dramatic. If it is and you feel it is excessive, shop the rates with other brokers. Every carrier has a preferred client model and others may be a better fit for you.

Also, realize the reason for the increased premium (you may not want to know this) isn't to cover the accident you had, but rather to cover the significantly increased chance you'll get into a second accident. Ask any licensed insurance agent. People will go years and no problems at all, then something happens and they have 2 or 3 claims in a row. I think people get stressed out over something and don't pay as much attention to their driving.....

To answer your question, you really can't fight it since it sounds like it was correctly coded and rated.

Dan
 
To add to the excellent advice Dan pointed out, there is a common misconception about insurance in that the agent can "change" rates like you can haggle a used car salesman. The rates are filed with the insurance department and they have to enforce them the way they are submitted.

On top of that, Mass is a TERRIBLE state for auto insurance.

Lying to an insurance company is probably never a good idea, this is certainly no exception. If the premium is that much of a jump you probably should have just paid the 600.

Have you shopped your insurance lately? If you find an independent agent and shop around you might find a carrier willing to give you a better rate.
 
I wouldn't file anything if I hit my own property and I could live with the damage or the amount was small enough.

Everything said above is true. An insurance company can charge you $600 for 6 months and all it will take is a small claim to wipe out anything they ever collected from you. There's no law stating that you have to stay with them until you've paid every last dime you cost them. You can up and leave them right after having a claim.

There can be some benefits to staying with a company for a long time if your rates don't fluctuate too much. Progressive gives you small petty discounts for staying with them but a phenomena that I witnessed was Allstate in Florida during the big PIP fraud boom of the past few years. They walled off their preferred product at the time and created a new preferred product. They stopped writing new business in the old preferred product and non-renewed bad risks from it as they came along. It left a bunch of long-time, low risk clients kind of shielded from the dramatic rate increases that were happening at the time.
 
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