[OR] Hit a parked car while uninsured, what will happen?

So is this lady’s explanation real?

Likely. It may be better to think of what she did as less a “claim” and more a “First Notice of Loss”. She can’t take back the insurance companies awareness that a loss has occurred, and now the insurance company is governed by the statutory and contractual requirements of that state and policy. They have to conduct a reasonable investigation, pay covered damages, and do so in specific time frames.

This is a form of consumer protection. It gives the insurance company no room and therefore no leverage to try and strong arm policyholders into withdrawing claims when it’s in the insurance companies best interest.

When notified of a loss, the insurance companies hands are tied. The only thing the policyholder can do is 1) lie and claim the FNOL was in error or 2) refuse to cooperate with the investigation leading to a denial.

These are not reasonable requests to make of someone who was only guilty of having left their car parked in range of yours.

Let the insurance coverage work. Eventually a subrogation company will contact you wanting to recover the loss. There will be two factors primarily in play when that happens

1) Uninsured motorists typically don’t have much money, so they’re used to getting pennies on the dollar for settlements

2) But as a hammer they can get your license suspended

So you need to balance #1 against #2. I’ve never directly dealt with uninsured motorist subrogation, that’s usually outsourced to 3rd party vendors, but it seems likely you will be able to negotiate an installment agreement of some sort with them.

An easy recovery for them will be worth a certain amount of accommodation from their side and may help you avoid more complicated trouble such as losing your license.

/r/legaladvice Thread