Auto Insurance Claims: Insurance company asking me to settle claim although I have insurance, NETS, Key pathway

Question
I have insurance from Intact. In Oct 2011 I hit a car bumper while parking in street. I tried searching owner but could not find as it was 1995 car standing almost like a junk car and never seen the driver. Other car bumper color came off to 1 sq ft. Other person reported to police after a month. Other car was also insured by Intact. Now the insurance company is asking me to settle the claim. I mentioned to them, I will see what quotation you bring to the table and decide if it is reasonable. Insurance company send me a quote after 5 months sometime in March 2012 with photographs. To my dismay the company was repairing much more than the damage I thought and was asking 1000 dollars (Car cost was not more than 500 dollars). I never replied the insurance e-mail thinking that it will be paid by my insurance company. I received a call a month after asking me to pay and threatening that If I did not pay I will be sued and amount will be recovered with interest and lawyer fee. I never agreed to pay the claim and I am not sure why company is asking me to pay when I have insurance because I just asked them to send quotation to see if amount was reasonable. I need your advice what I can do.

Answer
Hello,

Here is the bad news--It is not up to you to decide the value or what is reasonable. It was determined you did the damage and because you did not claim it on your policy by reporting it, you now have a problem.
You may have determined the car was a piece of junk, but even if you could not have found the owner by law, we are supposed to leave our contact information when we do damage to someone else's property.

It sounds like from your description, the insurance company honored the claim against you and are now subrogating against you.You can contact your agent to see if it isn't to late to file your claim and then that may be the end of it. If not, ignoring this will not make it go away. You may even get a ticket for leaving the scene of an accident.
Insurance companies always managed to get paid. That dry why they subrogate against the responsible party.


By contract (policy) the insurance company is defending you. They pay the claim, cut and dry! The insured has no say in what they are paying. It may be an over inflated price. It doesn't matter. They are representing the insured (you). That is just how it is.

It does not matter if you and the owner of the other car have the same company. If you didn't claim it to the company, they would feel the claim against you must be valid.
I know it sucks, but that is something beyond our control.

Because of all the time that has passed, you may be left with only one option and that would be to pay the insurance company for the damage, but that number is not always written in stone and it is possible that you can negotiate with the insurance company on the settled price ya'll can arrange.

Situations like this are usually a no win. You know darn well the other guy got much more than he was entitled to, but the only option next time is to leave your contact number. Maybe they will call and you can throw some cash at it, with a full release from all liability, signed by that person.

If you continue to ignore however, it is going to get more and more costly.

Good luck!


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