Subrogation - Getting Deductible Back

[kevo84]

Hello,

This involves an accident in which the opposite driver admited fault at the scene, we had a witness, police report, pictures etc. Then the admited at fault driver did not contact/would not answer his own insurance company and they took over a month to finally get in touch with them myself (dodged calls, wouldnt leave name/contact info in messages etc etc) Once I finally got in touch with them they said they didnt have sufficient evidence (they were provided all of the above) I then gave them all the evidence again and they called back a week later ready to set up an appointment to fix my car.

Now lets look at my side. My car had its front bumper ripped off including license plate etc. Registration was due and in my state it has to be inspected for registration + have a front license place to be legal. Not to mention driving around without a front bumper for months isnt exactly ideal. So I went ahead and paid the $500 deductible to have the 1k+ job done.

NOW since I told the at faults insurance that my insurance has taken care of it and they need to get in touch with my insurance to recover my deductible. It is now in subrogation with my insurance for 20 days.

WHY does it take 20 days after saying they would fix my car to just pay the damn deductible to my insurance?? I am trying to get a number to call my insurance and find out what the story is...but anyone have a clue how to approach this?

Just to keep this unbiased I have kept the insurance companies names out, they are both big name insurers so there SHOULDN'T be issues.

 

[djs]

Did the other insurance company assume liability? You don't make that clear in your text. You imply it was the other drivers fault, but its not clear the insurance companies came to that conclusion. This is a big difference.

Someone saying they are at fault at the scene is meaningless. They don't accept that since its usually a stressful situation and it was probably said to you, not the insurance company directly.

Check with your insurance company and see if the other insurance company has accepted liability. You should have also received a fault determination letter, which is the key to getting your deductible refunded.

By the way, part of my confusion is that you claim the insurance company setup an appointment to fix your car. Insurance companies don't typically do this, they do set up appointments to inspect the damages of your car, which is typically part of the fault determination process.

Dan

 

[VolAgent]

I admit I'm a bit confused here.

So you turned in the claim to your insurance company because you were tired of waiting on the at fault party to contact their company and admit fault, plus the time to actually do the repairs once fault was admitted? If so, why aren't you calling that number and following up on the subrogation?

I believe this may be related to your core question. You should be pushing your insurer and not the at fault insurer. Your insurer is the one that will be recovering the money and returning your deductible. In life, when we want money, we tend to push things forward.

I will say, you have a lot more patience than I. I doubt I would have waited a week before turning in the claim to my insurance company. It sounds like you may have waited months? I do question if your previous patience is why you also ended up on the bottom of the pile here.

Additionally, and most likely, there are some issues that have arisen that you are simply not aware of at this time.

 

[kevo84]

To answer questions:

1) The at fault drivers insurance did accept liability.
2) I reported accident and all details to my insurance immediately following the accident, but waited a week to get it fixed since it seemed that everything would go smoothly since the other driver seemed cooperative at the scene.

And to clear up the details on his insurance contacting me about repairs it was simply a "we are accepting liability lets setup an appointment to take a look at the damage and get you on the way to having your car repaired" call. Then told them I already had it repaired by my co.

Oh, and my patience involved me calling their insurance company for weeks trying to get ahold of someone that had answers and finally we got a direct office number for the agent involved. At first it was "we cant get ahold of our insured, we just have to wait" situation which took up a week or so of waiting. Then we started to badger them. They avoided calls at all costs. definitely seemed purposeful.

 

[djs]

Insured avoiding calls is a very normal thing. I've seen it happen lots of times. Also, again, what happens at the scene is not relevant.

Did you actually get a fault determination letter? This is your key to success. I don't care about phone calls, I'm asking if you have a piece of paper from an insurance company that says the other driver is at fault.

I won't get into the issue of coverage determinations, which is likely at play here. This is usually why insureds avoid phone calls, they didn't pay their bill, that particular car is not insured, the driver is excluded or whatever. This might not be an issue, but is also sometimes why insurance companies don't respond quickly.

You need to contact YOUR insurance company. They deal with subrogation.

Dan

 

[adjusterjack]

You need to contact YOUR insurance company. They deal with subrogation.

Exactly.

And, generally, the deductible isn't refunded until AFTER your insurance company collects. There is nothing you can do to speed up that process.

 

[INSUREGEEK]

Accepting liability doesn't always mean they accepted 100% liability. They may have been planning to split costs with your insurance all along. Depends on the state there sometimes.

In subro....you don't always get your full deductible back, if anything at all.

Press your carrier for a resolution, but I bet they have bigger fish to fry and they aren't the least bit worried about your $500. :(



Good Luck!