Today’s post discusses some ideas for challenging an adverse liability decision by the opposing insurance company. If you have any questions or concerns about the denial of your personal injury case or property damage case our Durham Personal Injury Attorneys and Greensboro Personal Injury Attorneys are available to give you free advice on how to overturn the insurance company’s denial. You can contact our Durham Personal Injury Lawyers or Greensboro Personal Injury Lawyers by telephone at 888-820-5885, by email at info@kregerthacker.com, or by providing your contact information in our Consultation Form to the right.
We have had some calls from clients recently that have had their claim denied by the insurance company because the police officer chose not to indicate who was at fault for the accident. Rather than assessing fault, the police officer chose to indicate “unable to determine fault.” This is pretty rare, but some police officers choose to not indicate fault on a police report if there are no witnesses to the accident and if neither driver admits fault. If this has happened to you, there are ways that you me be able to still get compensated for the damage to your car and for your personal injury case.
First, if you have collision coverage for your vehicle, contact your own insurance company with respect to your property damage. Have your own insurance company repair your car, and ask your insurance company to seek subrogation of your damages (seek compensation from the other driver or the other driver’s insurance company). This will not do anything initially for your personal injury claim, but it will allow you to get your vehicle repaired and leave open the possibility that your insurance company will be reimbursed for the payments. While you are working with your insurance company, ask the insurance adjuster to review the liability decision of the other insurance company, and try to gather some ideas on how to better present your case to the other insurance company. Your insurance adjuster has handled hundreds or thousands of claims, and he or she can provide valuable insight into how the other insurance company views your claim and what you can do to reverse the adverse decision.
Second, gather evidence that the police officer did not have or did not consider. Any evidence that you can produce that supports your version of the accident is helpful. For example, try to get the driving record and criminal record of the other driver. If the other driver has prior traffic citations that are somewhat related to the facts of your accident, that can help your case as it may discredit the other driver’s story. In addition, if the other driver has criminal charges that are related to dishonesty or fraud, that can also help you with your case. Also, obtain photos of your car, photos of the other driver’s car, photos of the scene of the accident, photos of any skid marks on the road, etc. Any evidence you can produce that will corroborate your story will be helpful as well. So, if there is a dispute as to whether you were turning, you can produce evidence about where you were going (e.g., if your home is on the road you were turning on, you can corroborate your story that you were in the process of turning). Lastly, any evidence you can produce that will contradict the story of the other driver will be helpful.
Third, once you have gathered all the evidence that you can think of, then present your evidence to the insurance company of the other driver and ask the insurance company to reconsider their liability determination. If the insurance company does not change their liability determination, then it is time to hire an attorney to file a lawsuit.
If your personal injury claim or property damage claim has been denied by the insurance company, you can obtain a free assessment of your case by contacting our Durham Personal Injury Attorneys or Greensboro Personal Injury Attorneys. Our attorneys will review all the evidence you have gathered, and give you ideas on additional evidence that may be available that can improve your case. To contact our Durham Personal Injury Lawyers or Greensboro Personal Injury Lawyers you can email us at info@kregerthacker.com, submit your contact information in our Free Consultation Form to the right or call us at (888) 820 – 5885.