Third party claim in vehicle accident, neither party admitting fault.

[jmann9784]

In ON.
Hi there, I’m hoping someone can advise about my situation. I had a vehicle go through the fence of my house after a head on collision. I’m trying to seek damages, but insurance for each vehicle is saying I need to contact the other vehicle’s insurance because they are at fault. What are my next steps as a third party claimant here? Can the insurance of the car who went through my fence refuse to take fault? Regardless of who cause the accident, their vehicle damaged my fence. Is my only recourse to get a lawyer/will that even be worth it? (Quote for damage is ~ $8000). Thank you.

 

[marshallbryant]

@jmann9784 Typically you would make a claim through your home insurance first. Your insurance company will then reach out to the driver’s insurance company to pursue subrogation through their liability coverage on the auto policy. I feel getting a lawyer would be a waste. Hope this helps! Source: I was an auto claims adjuster for 2 years and in the insurance industry 9 years

 

[mark264]

@marshallbryant Before filing a claim I'd check in with a broker because many insurers have limits on fence/post damage. If your limit is $1500 then you'll still need to litigate.

Nobody likes lawyers but they usually send a clear message to auto insurers when liability is present. It's your money and now it's possibly going to cost them more.

 

[jmann9784]

@mark264 Thank you for this perspective. Opinions seem to be mixed on the best course of action.

 

[jmann9784]

@marshallbryant Thank you for your response. We have been homeowners for only a few months so would like to avoid that route as making a claim a few months in to the policy will likely have implications for years. We also heard that due to understaffing in the industry right now they may not pursue subrogation that hard/ may accept a settlement less than what they paid out to us, meaning we don’t get our deductible back and may seem premium increases. Are these possible implications ?

 

[marshallbryant]

@jmann9784 If you have a broker I would definitely speak with them first. The point of insurance is to cover losses. This would be a different situation if say you drove into your own fence or garage door etc. it’s hard for me to say as I don’t personally underwrite policies for personal lines. Normally for a vehicle impact with a building we consider that the policyholder had no control over this loss. Again please talk to your RIBO licensed broker who would be able to advise and then you can make an informed decision whether or not to go forward with the claim through insurance.

 

[sovereignone]

@marshallbryant The policyholder having control or not is generally irrelevant for a personal lines home policy. Fault ratings simply don’t exist, that I’ve ever seen, for residential insurance. The claim either happened, or didn’t, and there was either a payout or there wasn’t. A loss caused by nature, by the insured themselves, or by a third party, would all be treated the same.

 

[sovereignone]

@jmann9784 Those are very possible. Even prior to the last few years, subrogation is a long, drawn out process that doesn’t always result in all costs being recovered and the claim essentially “going away.” Your insurer could still justify rating you for the claim as they still had to pay out initially without the guarantee or recovering costs and past claims are often an indicator of future claims. Just because they were successful in this case doesn’t mean they’d be successful in subrogating next time.

As the other commenter said, this is what you have insurance for. You can have it fixed now, and that’s recommended since one of the conditions of insurance is that you mitigate the loss by doing everything you can to prevent further damage, so leaving a gaping hole in your house while you chase after one of the other parties is counter to that. You also have to prove they were liable in order to have a hope of them paying out, them simply driving through your house does not prove that. Were they struck by the other vehicle and spun out, for example? In that case their insurer would likely not hold them at fault and would likely decline to pay out as a result.

 

[jmann9784]

@sovereignone Thank you for your response. We did have our home insurance’s preferred vendor come and put up emergency fencing, as we have a pool/ in anticipation that we might eventually end up having to go with home insurance. It is disappointing to hear this is the route we most likely need to take.

Fault for the accident as per police report was the vehicle that did not go through our fence, but both companies are denying liability.

 

[sovereignone]

@jmann9784 If you’ve already availed the emergency response services of your insurer’s preferred vendor then I don’t think you’ve got much choice of whether or not this impacts your rates at this point.

Also the police don’t determine fault as far as insurance goes. Insurers will use industry standard/province specific fault determination rules to determine who is at fault. (Ontario’s are freely and publicly available.) It could be 50/50 or it could all fall on one party, and that may align with the police report but the insurers aren’t going to agree that the non-fence-crasher is at fault just because the police said so.

At this point the adjuster for each claim, because each insured claims through their own insurer, is trying to determine what happened and who’s at fault on their respective ends. You are essentially persona non-grata to them. You don’t pay premium to either of them, but you do pay premium to your home insurer so they’re gonna continue to tell you to pound sand unless you can prove one of them is liable for the damage and you’re on your own going that route.