this morning my mom rear ended someone. it was clearly her fault, but all they did was exchange insurance info. there was no police report. my question is, can the other party still make a claim and does my mother need to contact her own insurance company?
Yes and Yes...A police report is nice, but not necessary, although it's he said she said, but if you admits she is at fault, then it's a done deal...Be sure she contacts her agent ASAP...The other thing is that the guy that got rear-ended will have a slew of bils and get a decent setttlement and yoru moms rates will go up...
If she rear ended someone it is pretty much automatic. 100% of the fault lies with the person in back. Police report is not necessary and might end up in your mom getting a ticket.
thanks for the replies. i don't know all the details. i wasn't there. just know what she told me. i'm sure it is her fault though.
I'll reiterate that. Rear-endings are the biggest no-brainers for insurance companies. Unless something very unusual happened, they'll assume your mother at fault. Very cut and dried.
When u rear end someone, it's always your fault even if the other person should not have been there or done that! Your mother should contact her agent or the agent will contact her soon enough. It happened to me twice and you would think it wasn't my fault but I ended up paying anyhow. The first time, the car in front was turning from a side street into the feeder road. The kind of intersection with Yield sign and the road curves and merges into the feeder. She slowed down at the Yield sign. I slowed down behind her. She proceeded pass the yield sign. I followed her while turning my head looking out for cars coming down the feeder road. She then stopped arruptly on the turn, barely 20 ft from the intersection for no reason at all, the road was clear all around us. It was mid-day (My guess is that she glanced back and saw cars on the freeway and thought they were coming down the feeder road). By the time I turned my head, a second later, I braked but it was too late and I hit her. I paid for that. The second time, I was driving on I-45 at night. Someone in front stopped completely on the freeway. I don't know the reason, maybe traffic slowed down ahead. I saw their brake light so I slammed my brake and stopped behind him. All well and good except the car behind me hit me and pushed my car into the car in front. The guy sued and even with my protest, my insurance company settled out of court and paid him some money. They said it 's better that way. It would have cost more to go to court.
My girlfriend had an accident last week. It was also her fault. She said the other guy who got rear-ended looked absolutely alright initially. But he started to complain about neck pain after the paramedics came. My girlfriend is kinda worry about it now. Is the guy trying to get something out of it?
Whiplash can be like that. You don't feel it at first and it hurts later. Might be faking, might not.
My girlfriend is paranoid. She keeps saying she doesnt want to have to support the guy for the rest of his life in case he has lost his ability to work due to the accident...
I hope your insurance didn't go up for that one. Because the one who started the chain reaction was the one behind you. Usually whoever is in back is the one at fault, no matter how many cars end up in the pile-up. That happened to me once in a stop-and-go traffic situation on a freeway. The blame was assigned to the person behind me, who ran his nose up under my truck bed. That pushed my truck into some people, and pretty much totaled the one in front of me, but they didn't blame me for it. The whiplash <i>is</i> worse the next day. When they asked us if we were hurt, most of them were feeling a little bit of whiplash. I wasn't. (larger vehicle = less fuel efficient and all that, but protects you better in a wreck) I even played eight games of racquetball later that afternoon. The next day, my neck felt awfully sore and I couldn't raise my head up if I was lying down. The racquetball doesn't usually do that. It went away in a couple of days, but if the other people were already feeling it after the accident, theirs was probably considerably worse. I heard one of them did visit a doctor later.
I think the insurance would cover it up to a maximum. After that, I think they would have to sue to get anything from you personally. If you don't have much, I doubt that they can get much from you. Anyone else thinks differently?
They didn't give me the details, but I am sure the guy behind me must pay good money. My car, a 12 yr old Honda, was totalled and I got like 2k for it. The guy in front got a fender bender but because he sued, he got at least a k from my insurance company and more from the other insurance co. I don't mind the people who really get hurt to get their due but lots of people would try to make money from this. In the end, all of us pay, because everyone's premium goes up.
