In general, car insurance claims are filed after a person is involved in a vehicular accident. It could be from one that you caused, or that was caused by “the other guy”. Once in a while, you hear about some really crazy sounding auto insurance claims. It makes me wonder what these people were thinking.
Not everyone has a good understanding about what their auto insurance policy will, and will not, cover. For some reason, this is one type of insurance that people tend to make assumptions about. Typically, they tend to expect that their assumptions are precisely what their insurance will accept claims about.
Getting in a car accident, even just a small “fender bender”, can be disorienting. Right now, as you are reading this blog, you might be able to rattle off exactly what you should do if you are involved in an auto accident. In the moments after a car accident happens, however, people tend to get too “shook up” to recall those important instructions.
Perhaps this is what causes people to file a really crazy sounding car insurance claim. There is potential that some of these claims will be paid out by an insurer, even though the situation is a bit bizarre. Other claims, however, are incredibly likely to be denied.
The strangest auto insurance claim that I have ever filed was the result of a car accident that took place at a gas station. I was parked in one of the spaces located right next to the station itself. My husband was in the car with me, and I believe that we were intending to quickly pick up a few things from inside the station. In other words, we were not trying to buy gas when the accident happened.
Before we got out of the car, I glanced into my rear view mirror. Something moved, and caught my attention. There was a truck located several yards behind my car. The driver of the truck had just finished filling her truck with gas, (and, I assume, paying for it). When she started driving, she decided to back up, instead of driving forward, to leave the gas station.
I could do nothing more than watch as this truck proceeded to back into my car. The impact put a dent into my trunk, and smashed one of my taillights. I don’t think the driver of the truck even noticed what she had done until I started honking my horn at her.
She did, eventually, stop the truck, and get out. It turned out that we each had our auto insurance policy from the exact same insurance company. I bet they don’t see that very often! To make a long story short, my insurance company accepted my claim, and paid for the damages.
Other strange claims come from situations where people simply were not paying attention. Claims have been filed by people who watched their spouse back a car out of their garage, and directly into their second car, which was located in the driveway. This type of claim is usually denied.
Have you ever smashed your hand or finger in the door of your vehicle? Sometimes, insurers will pay this type of claim. It would fall under the “bodily injury” portion of your auto insurance policy. Auto insurance should also cover claims about damages that were caused to your vehicle by the thief who stole it. That is a bit of a relief.
Image by Nayu Kim on Flickr