Auto Insurance Claims: insurance claim, auto insurance company, public storage

Question
Hi, I need to know about a very unique insurance claim which was filed.  A car was in a supermarket parking lot.  The driver fell asleep and ran through the side fence of Public Storage.  It crashed through two units and kept going into the third, where it crashed and caught on fire.  The driver was fine but, approximately 40 units were burned.  The car crashed through the unit next to mine and all the property was destroyed. I has about $8000 worth of property in the unit.  An insurance claim was filed with the auto insurance company because it was considered an auto accident.  I carried no insurance with Public Storage and no homeowners insurance therefore a claim was filed against the driver.  He carried only 10000 worth of insurance for property damage.  His insurance company said that the claim  would be prorated according to the number of claims filed. What exactly does that mean and how will this affect my claim?  Is there any additional steps I need to take to resolve the matter? Thank you in advance.
Rita

Answer
Hi Rita,

This is a very unfortunate situation. When a claim is pro-rated that means that you will receive from the $10,000.00 of available coverage the percentage that your claim represents to the total of all claims. All claims would include all of the contents of the 40 units that were dmages as well as the 40 units themselves.

As an example lets say that the total value of the contents of all 40 units is $320.00 ($8,000.00 X 40). Then lets say that to repair and /or rebuild the 40 units will cost $250,000. Then the total of all claims is $570,000.00. Your $8,000.00 divided into $570000.00 = 0.014%. This means that you will receive 0.014% of the $10,000.00 of available coverage or $140.00. Of course this is just an example. if the total claims are less the amount you receive will be more, if the claims are more your share will be less.

You should assume that you will not receive anything. It is likely that nothing will be paid out until all claims are known which may not be for a year or more until all of the units have been rebuilt.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh