Quote:
Originally Posted by uEih
Just hoping I can hear some success from others so I won't be so anxious and nervous to hear what the conclusion is or anticipate how long it'll take.
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Don't be anxious. Someone damaged your car. You have video evidence of it. Sounds pretty open and shut.
You have a few choices.
You can file a claim with your insurance company. If you do that, you'll have to pay your deductible, and your insurance company will take care of getting the damage fixed. Then your insurance company will file a claim on the other driver's insurance to get reimbursed. If the other insurance company accepts responsibility, they'll reimburse your deductible as well. If they don't, your insurance company may sue on your behalf, or you may end up having to file a separate claim with the other insurance company to get your deductible back.
You can file a claim with the other driver's insurance company. If you do that, your insurance company will want to know about it, but otherwise they'll stay out of it. Then you'll deal directly with the other driver's insurance company. You won't pay a deductible in that situation, because the deductible only applies to your own policy, not the other guy's.
If their insurance company won't honor the claim, you can simply sue them in small claims court. You'll likely win. The insurance companies know this, which is why it probably won't be necessary. They will not want to pay for litigation and also your court costs for something they know they'll lose. You usually have up to a year to file a lawsuit, but that may not be the same in every state. You can get a lawyer to help you if it comes to a lawsuit, but this sounds like such a minor thing that it probably won't be worth it.
As for how long it will take, that could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a year, depending on how it unfolds. It will probably be on the shorter end of that range. However, if you don't feel you're being treated fairly, you ought to resign yourself to letting it take as long as it's going to take. Insurance companies know people want their cars fixed quickly, and claims reps will use that against you to get you to accept a lower settlement than you really deserve, just to have it over and done with.
But that goes both ways. Claims people also want it done quickly. They are evaluated on the volume of claims they process and how quickly they get them done. The longer you're willing to let it sit out there, the more "helpful" your claims rep is going to be, because a claim that's dragging on looks bad on their performance review.
So just relax, don't worry about it and do what you need to do.