Feel for you No collision sucks and your insurer SHOULD have asked you ”are you sure you don’t want collision?”

We had a house fire many years ago. Did not know our insurance was NOT full replacement value. They just gave us what things were worth at the time.

My daughter had a parking lot mishap with wind in April. The car was just this week fixed. Things are backed up--it's not a given yours would be good as new this fast. Too bad you can't just send a bill. No police are never ever going knocking on this guys door and I doubt the insurance company is either. Might be worth taking him to small claims court over....

I relate to the "no" collision insurance. We brought our NEW off the showroom truck home, I called our insurance company the next day. I printed temporary cards, a week later the hard copy cards arrived & I noticed.... there's NO collision! I called....the guy said "OOPSIE". My agent was training this guy...left him alone at the helm, then had to fire him for ALL the messes he made! We drove the truck for a week before I figured it out. Most people would not have looked at their cards that closely.

I appreciate the update and hope your car gets repaired soon!

Don’t beat yourself up over the no collision. Insurance won’t pay out more than the car is worth, and they likely think it’s worth a lot less than it’s worth to you. ’They’ have different guidelines for when collision should be dropped, but if you’ve not been paying it and have gone several years without a claim you’re likely ahead of the game even if you end up footing the whole thing. Someone probably recommended dropping it at some point.

But the rest of your story…. odd!

Here it is suggested that the Comprehensive portion be dropped depending on the age of the car. However, when my Toyota had an accident the cost of the repairs would have equaled the payout. Repair company pulled a sneaky and contacted me saying the insurance company was ok with the repairs. Since I had already agreed to the repairs the insurance company went ahead and paid but they were not happy and neither was I.

Today I called Travelers again. They had a bad number for their insured party. I'd Googled him, so I gave the agent the number I had. Two hours later we got a text from a different agent saying they'd reached the man and he'd denied any fault. He says he was unaware of any accident; had just 'got into his car and drove away'. Funny how the noise was heard *indoors* not a minute before he did this, and he must have been invisible, as DH didn't see anyone enter or exit the car door.

Now the police say they have all the information they need and the report is only held up waiting for a supervisor to approve it. Said Super is supposed to be 'in' tomorrow. We'll call tomorrow afternoon to see when we can go get the report.

IDK what's next. I guess it depends on the report -- if they believe the other guy's story or my DH's side of this.

I can think of two times I hit something relatively softly and wasn’t actually sure that I hit anything. Both were during abrupt, slow speed stops, in a heavy vehicle, where I wasn’t sure if what I felt was a hit or just the ”recoil” from braking.

Whether or not this is what happened to the other driver doesn’t matter; he had no choice but to deny knowledge of the accident becaise he left the scene.

If he’s saying he was unaware then he doesn’t have a side of the story to be believed, so any admission of partial blame on your husband’s part is unfortunate. Never admit guilt.

I would think they could inspect his vehicle for damage.

I always have liability only insurance when I can. You're better off saving the money poured into premiums and fixing it yourself. Unless it's the other person, and then it's their insurance that pays. I agree with the small claims court idea. Just fix it and sue.

I’ve actually been hit twice and the other driver had no idea. Once, a truck backed up and I was behind. I tried to reverse but they still hit me. I had to chase them down, tell them what happened, show them the dent, and show them the matching paint on the back of their truck. That was my cute little Capri. I had to have the hood painted, but then it didn’t match the older paint on the rest of the car.

Another time, my car was in the school ”circle”. It was a little Civic. I heard a collective gasp from the parents around me on the playground, and turned to see the Ford Behemoth that was in front, back up over the hood of the Civic! We heard a thud! The driver saw people waving and stopped, got out, and saw the back end of her car on top of my hood. She had a rear-obstacle alert system (not camera), but apparently even it had a ”blind spot”. Miraculously there was no damage, but had she not stopped she might have flattened my cute little car.

Now I drive a minivan. DH says I still seem to be invisible on the road some days. He’s right. My next minivan witll be neon yellow.

chisue, you know I’m dying of curiosity, but I‘ve been trying to refrain from getting into things that are none of my business, lest I cross a line and become a gossip lol.

lt's now all over but the repairs. The police report leaves out quite a bit. (That DH reported the incident; that the other driver was playing hide and seek, that there is no way to *know* which vehicle was in motion.) From the report, you'd conclude that they believe the other driver's claim that he was unaware of the incident...leaving DH at fault.

Anyway...we have an appointment for body work ($2100) Aug. 8 and have reserved a rental from Hertz ($350) for the week it's expected to take for repairs.

bpath -- We can't allow your demise over this! I'll try to PM you.

a well known member of our community

Enough said.

Perhaps delay was to avoid recovery of the black box data.

When I said the man is 'well known'. I only meant that it shouldn't have been hard for the officer or his insurance company to FIND him quickly. *I* had never heard of him or his company.

Mdln -- What an interesting thought! I think you have to volunteer to have one of those boxes installed. IDK how many people have them. I am wishing we had a dashboard camera to capture the other car's back-up lights.

We've had to accept the outcome, although there's so little chance that he 'didn't know' there was any crash. (Unless he's deaf.)

The black box is mandatory not voluntary. But they’ll be accessed to investigate causes of more major accidents with injury or death. I doubt they would even notice the minor fender bender that occurred here, and doubt even more that anyone would try to access this. I had a much newer Land Rover hit with much more damage and no one was talking about black boxes.

This is a $2100 accident and you’re admitting partial fault. Try to get money out of their insurance. If that doesn’t work then either take them to small claims court or take the loss. It’s unfortunate, but if you subtract deductible from the $2100 and then subtract what the years of collision would have cost, the net out of pocket will either be small or negative.

It only takes a 5mph crash to trigger the black box to record the pre and post crash events.

Ok, and this was a parallel parking accident.

Every time I see the title to this thread I read it as if it were a 14 car accident in July!

Sorry, I failed to see that this kind of black box is different from something insurance companies once touted to record your safe driving and 'help you save on premiums'. (Hahahaha!)

We'll skip the stress of small claims court, and Travelers has no motive for budging. They might have if we'd had Collision coverage and State Farm arguing for us.

The nicest thing I can believe about the other driver is that he just didn't feel or hear the collision when he backed up. It's unlikely, but 'possible'. We can afford to pay for this, but my belief in people 'doing the right thing' has taken a hit.

This little fender bender pales to nothing in the news of a horrible accident last week where a young woman driving 'wrong way' crashed head-on into another vehicle, killing herself and five of six family members -- wife/mother and four children -- leaving the husband/father in critical condition. The family was enroute to a vacation in Minnesota.

Thank you all for your helpful comments...and commiseration.

Sorry to hear Travelers isn’t living up to their obligation. Have they given a reason?

Travelers says their insured had no knowledge of the accident. The police report infers DH ran into the other vehicle. There's no witness to say the other vehicle backed up. (Oh, for a dashboard camera!)

Unfortunately I guess that’s the price paid for your husband being honest and saying he was moving. Lucky it wasn’t worse.

(Just to add to chisue’s report of the family killed on the highway, a friend of one of the daughters was also traveling with the family, and also died.)

(Another update, chisue. The father has also now passed away. An entire family. They were also caring for their elderly parents who lived in their home. I could just weep.)