Auto Insurance Claims: injury claim on private property, blood boil, penny to my name

Question

damage I was exiting a parking lot edging forward to get on to the main road when I hit the side of a van and scratched it. There was very little damage and my bumper is intact with scratches. A police officer arrived and helped us exchange information. He said that he was not going to write a report because this was on "private property" and that this should be handled amongst the parties involved. He also was not going to ticket anyone. The girl in the van told the officer that her neck "hurts". I couldn't believe this as the scratch was on passenger side and there was no impact per se. The officer told her that if she has injuries she should go to the ER.

Go forward 1 month the driver of the car has made a claim to my insurance company and now claims that the passenger a 15 year old boy has "body aches". The car belongs to my father who lives an hour away and i use the car majority of the time. I was supposed to be covered but my dad forgot to put my name under the insurance. But the car is covered under his name.

2 questions.

1. What do you make of this claim especially considering this to be a low speed (maybe 15mph) and being on private property (the impact occurred on the ring road that goes around most malls).

2. What sort of coverage will I have for this claim considering my dad forgot to put me on?

bonus question:
I am a medical student with massive amounts of debt and not a penny to my name. What bearing will this have on the litigation process. I feel that the driver is clearly trying to take advantage of the situation and is really making my blood boil.

Answer
Hi Al (future Doc),

You should not tell your dads insurance company that you regularly drive this vehicle. Since you do not live in your dads house he is allowed to "occassionally" loan you the car without you being on the policy.

The private property thing is irrelevant.

This is obviously a money grab. The monor impact would not have caused any injury. These people are just looking for a settlement. You will need to report this to your dads insurance company. Explain exactly what happened, what you observed and the fact that you feel these people are frauds.

The insurance company is used to dealing with these things. They will likely make a small settlement offer of a few hundred dollars in exchange for a signed release form and that will be that.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh