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Auto insurance

werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
edited February 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
I'll need to dig out my policy and see if my question is specifically answered, but I wanted to throw this out there and see if anyone had any insight.

I was in an accident yesterday. As I was driving home someone coming the other way lost their tire. As the tire rolled away the car skidded to the side of the road, and as it went a large chunk of metal from the wheel well tore loose, flew out, and shattered my headlight. The other driver wouldn't give me his insurance information ("they know me down there" is never a good thing to hear) though I did get his license plate and enough information to identify him.

When I called my insurance company today to file a claim, I was told that since I didn't have collision insurance, they wouldn't pay my claim, though they would help me file a claim with the other driver's insurance.

Which brings me to my question, what exactly is the definition of "collision" in the context of auto insurance? Does an object coming loose from one vehicle and striking another fall under that? I'll check to see if it's spelled out anywhere in my policy, but my gut instinct is that I'm just getting jerked around. Which may or may not have anything at all to do with whether there's anything I can do about it with my insurance company.

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Posts

  • CrashtardCrashtard Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    werehippy wrote: »
    I'll need to dig out my policy and see if my question is specifically answered, but I wanted to throw this out there and see if anyone had any insight.

    I was in an accident yesterday. As I was driving home someone coming the other way lost their tire. As the tire rolled away the car skidded to the side of the road, and as it went a large chunk of metal from the wheel well tore loose, flew out, and shattered my headlight. The other driver wouldn't give me his insurance information ("they know me down there" is never a good thing to hear) though I did get his license plate and enough information to identify him.

    When I called my insurance company today to file a claim, I was told that since I didn't have collision insurance, they wouldn't pay my claim, though they would help me file a claim with the other driver's insurance.

    Which brings me to my question, what exactly is the definition of "collision" in the context of auto insurance? Does an object coming loose from one vehicle and striking another fall under that? I'll check to see if it's spelled out anywhere in my policy, but my gut instinct is that I'm just getting jerked around. Which may or may not have anything at all to do with whether there's anything I can do about it with my insurance company.


    I would imagine that is covered, but it's going to have to come from his insurance company since he was at fault. That also differs from state to state, so you might have to check up on that.

    I haven't been in an accident in many years, but if something like that happened and the other guy refused to give me his info I'd get his plate number and tell him I'm calling the police if he doesn't give it up. I don't know whether it would do any good, but probably it would get him to give the info up. Seems odd that he didn't want to.

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  • meekermeeker Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    If I remember correctly, NY has some pretty strict insurance requirement laws. You should have absolutely insisted that he give you his insurance info, otherwise call the police to get it.

    Your insurance company doesn't have to pay a thing if you don't have collision insurance. Collision is pretty broad as any damage that happens while driving that you cause. Say you hit a pole and wrecked your bumper, that would be collision.

    Call the guy up, get his info. Call the cops, file a police report, better late than never. Call your insurance and give them all the information you can about this guy so they can go after his company, if he has one...

    If he doesn't have insurance, you are SOL...

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  • an_altan_alt Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Just to slightly correct meeker, collision is damage to your vehicle when you're at fault in an accident.

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  • mtsmts Dr. Robot King Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    i don't know if this is the case, but if he refuses to give you his information , isn't that technically a hit and run regardless if he stopped and talked to you?

    defintiely go to the police and file a report if you haven't done that you will still need a police report for your insurance

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