Look up the word Mitigate

As an adjuster one of the first letters I send out to people is one that encourages them to mitigate their damages. It basically says that it may take some time to sort everything out and we will not pay for fees that you could have avoided by using a little common sense. We send this out because sometimes people feel if they were not at fault for an accident they don't need to worry about anything, the other guy's insurance will take care of it. Well . . . maybe.

Insurance can get complex. The other guy may have insurance, but maybe not enough. He may have insurance, but his policy may not cover him for this accident for one reason or another. He may have insurance, but forgot to pay his bill until after he got in a crash. Your best bet is to repair your car through your own collision coverage, using your rental car benefits if you need to, and hen let your insurance company worry about getting paid back. If you are not at fault, your insurance rates should not be affected.

Real Life Example:

I got a claim some time back that did not have any information about the other driver. Of course the description on my claim report said, "Information on police report." When I spoke with the driver he did not have the info either. I figured if the other driver wanted their car fixed they would contact me since we were at fault for the accident. A month went by before I heard from the other driver.

When the other driver contacted me she asked when I was going to fix her car. I asked her where it was and she said at a tow yard. When I asked how long it had been there, she said since the day of the accident because he air bag went off and the car could not be driven due to extensive front end damage. The car was older so I figured it would be totaled and we would pay her for the value of the car instead of repairing it. One problem, my insured had $5,000 for property damage limits, and the other car was worth more than that. To make matters worse the tow yard was charging $50/day to have her car in their yard so she had racked up $1,500 in storage fees that would have to be paid before they would release the car. No insurance company will pay for storage for more than a day or two because these fees are easily avoided by removing your car from the facility. Insurance companies will almost always cover reasonable expenses associated with having your car towed from a storage facility to your house.

The thing that drove me crazy was that the other driver had coverage to fix her car but told her insurance company that she wanted to use our policy because it wasn't her fault. Well, now she can choose to take my $5,000 policy limit (which is not sufficient to cover her damages and expenses), or fix her car through her own policy (which she should have done to begin with) and let her insurance company worry about getting paid back. Unfortunately, she will be paying about $1,200 in storage fees no matter what she chooses to do because she did not mitigate her own damages.

The moral of the story: get your car fixed ASAP through your own policy and let your adjuster worry about getting paid back, that's their job.