Accident Was Not My Fault, Now What to Do

If you are fairly certain that you were completely innocent (or not at fault) in an auto accident you should file your claim with the other driver's insurance. I would not bother filing under your own insurance since this will likely to cause your insurance premiums to go up (yes, even if you didn't do anything wrong). When you are involved in an accident you should immediately get all of the information you can from the other driver (see my article on what to do after an accident). The next thing you will want to do is call the insurance company for the other driver and file your claim. They will ask you all sorts of questions regarding damage to your vehicle, they may ask for a recorded statement, they will ask questions about the accident. Let them know what they need to do for you, after all you were not at fault and you will likely need repairs done to your vehicle, a rental car, and maybe even medical attention (let's hope not).

What should I do after the claim has been filed?

Though you will expect that the other carrier (insurance company) will jump on your claim and get you all fixed up in a blink of an eye, this probably won't happen right away. You have to give the other carrier to get caught up on the claim. These people are not really the evil empire though you may wish to think of them in that sense. The other carrier will have to speak to the other driver, take photos, get police reports, check and see if their policy was valid, and a lot of other stuff. In the mean time try to keep all of the bills that you have incurred as a result of the accident.

One of the pitfalls here is that people who have been involved in accidents think they have just won the lottery and go ahead and rent themselves a Lincoln Navigator while they were driving a Yugo, OK? Nice try, but that is not going to fly and you will probably have to pay for that rental, since it doesn't really match your vehicle that was damaged. Try to keep it reasonable as far as the bills you incur while your car is in the shop or in the tow yard, because there is always a chance that the guy that hit you didn't pay his premiums and has no insurance, even if he gave you an insurance card that looked legit.

This goes the same for medical bills. Don't think that because you got tapped on the back bumper through the drive through at Jack and the Box that you are going to get massages and chiropractic sessions up the ying yang. You might be on the hook for those as well as insurance carriers are cracking down hard on minor impact accidents that involve little to no damage to the vehicles.

As the other driver's insurance adjuster (they are tremendously impacted with huge caseloads) catches up with the claim and sees that you were in the right and their driver in the wrong they will likely call you and give some options regarding repairing your car, providing a rental, and maybe even one doctor's visit or something (for small accidents). I will say that usually insurance companies want to do the right thing, which is pay you what they owe you. Everybody seems to have a different opinion about this point obviously which makes the claim process such a tough thing.

The best thing to do is be honest, provide lots of documentation of your losses, and try to be cooperative. It is unfair that we were minding our own business and got into an accident that was the other driver's fault, but the most important part is focusing on getting past it by making the claim process as smooth as possible. You will likely have lost something if you have been in an accident, whether it was time, an appointment, work and wages, discomfort, and a lot of other variables- but such is life. While you will not get those things back hopefully you can take away some knowledge, wisdom, or patience.