A couple of Sunday's ago, I was hit in the side by another vehicle pulling out of a parking spot as I drove down the parking lot lane. The driver of the truck was an off duty Sheriff's deputy and we were on private property, so I mistakenly trusted him enough to not call the police and just exchanged insurance information. When it happened he apologized and acted like it was his fault the whole time. The only weird thing was that he asked me what happened to my mirror and I said "Nothing my mirror was fine before the crash". Then he witnessed me fish the lens of my mirror out from under my car.

I filed on his insurance and they took statements from both parties. A QA guy for the insurance company called me claiming that the Sheriff's Deputy took responsibility for the accident but claimed he thought my mirror was broken off prior to the crash. This was of course untrue and through a series of conversations with the QA guy and pictures I sent the company, the QA guy sent me an e-mail agreeing with my statement. The adjuster also confirmed this over the phone today, so that is not an issue.

What is an issue is that the adjuster told me that they came to a decision that they were only 80% Liable and that is all they would pay. There is over $3600 in damage to my car and that is not acceptable. He stated that I said in my statement that the other vehicle was halfway out of the parking spot right before I passed him. This is absolutely untrue and I said no such thing. I stated that I saw the truck as I started to pass and it was sitting in the parking lot stationary and as I passed it slammed into the side of my car.

Any ideas how to handle this? Know anybody at Safeco that can handle this? The exact same scenario happened to my Fiancee three weeks before me and the insurance company (Farmers) were extremely professional and handled the problems with no pressure and have paid 100%.

Ugh.

Get your ins co involved?

Get your own insurance company involved and let them duke it out with SafeCo. That's what you pay them for

Couldn't that potentially affect my rates? My longtime independent insurance agent instructs me against this. I'm going to talk to an attorney in the morning and see about my options. I know it may not be worth it for that small of amount of money, but there is no way I'm going to let this scummy insurance company get away with ripping me off.

Did they record your statement?

Yes they did, I will ask for it to prove they are blatant liars. I don't want to contact them again before I know exactly what I want. I didn't ask for it earlier because I was extremely pissed off at the time and was letting the adjuster know that I wouldn't back down in a less than professional manner.

According to my uncle who is also an insurance adjuster, if they claim 51% liability they are required by law to pay 100%. If this is in fact true I plan on using this to receive full payment and turn them into an ethics board.

Your neck hurts now, let them know that. You'll have a check in minutes. I know this from experience with State Farm.

NEVER give details about an accident over the phone. You keep it simple. all you should have said was "I was driving down the parking lane and WHAM, your guy hit the side of my car"....that's it. No details about where you were going, why you were there, the color of you pants. NOTHING other than the simple facts of what happened.

Allstate tried to pull this on a family member "we have determined you are 20% at fault". She was hit from behind by a speeder when she had her turn signal on.

Letter from an attorney took care of it.

This must be a new insurance adjustor PIA technique.

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According to my uncle who is also an insurance adjuster, if they claim 51% liability they are required by law to pay 100%. If this is in fact true I plan on using this to receive full payment and turn them into an ethics board.

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Wrong. Assuming this is Texas, 51% bars recovery. Essentially, if they admit 40% liability(you are 60%) then you cannot recover 40% from them. However, if its flipped and they admit 60% then you can choose to take 60% of your damages or go through your carrier and take them to arbitration.

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Your neck hurts now, let them know that. You'll have a check in minutes. I know this from experience with State Farm.

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Unless this is true, it's called fraud. Also, any carrier worth its salt will deny the injury claim on a parking lot accident where the claim is filed only after you reach an impasse.

I'm not going down the injury route, it's not worth jail time. I am turning them into the Texas Department of Insurance for fraudulently misrepresenting facts for financial gain.

Update:

Today I spent the day trying to get them to send me the recording or to justify their partial liability claim in writing. They refuse to turn over the recording or justify the liability claim in writing. I even told them if the tapes said what they said I said, they will never hear from me again. They still refused to do either. They know I caught them in a lie. The adjuster won't even give me his Texas Insurance Adjuster's License number or his supervisor's contact info. I've been busy all day on a jobsite so I haven't had time to file a written complaint with the TDI, but I will be doing so this weekend. I have never encountered such a sleezy company in my life.

Sad when the insured tries to save money, the claimant gets punished.

Where are the damages if you don't mind me asking?

The mirror, passenger door, and rear quarter panel. Also, I can not roll my window up, it was down during the collision.

Is your vehicle at a shop now?

Are you in a rent car?

Let's just say there has been a lot of changes at SafeCo for the worst in the last two years as far as customer satisfaction goes. I am sorry you are having to go thru this.

Hire an attorney.

Not worth it to hire an attorney over a few thousand in property damage. His damage is to the rear bumper?

Time to show up in an office. They love that.

A nice letter or call to the sherriff's office might be i order.

[This message has been edited by ursusguy (edited 8/10/2013 1:37p).]

Letter to state board of insurance.

Always overdo it at the accident scene (call cops, call insurance, take pictures etc.)and just assume that whoever you are dealing with is trying to screw you. I don't care if it's the freaking Pope that hit me.

Where did this happen? I ask bc my wife got rear ended a couple weeks ago with damage to her bumper and lift gate (Tahoe). We have Safeco as well and so far I haven't noticed any problems. Other than the fact that the lady that hit her stated and showed proof of coverage but apparently she didn't pay her premium on time and was dropped.

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Become friends with an attorney.

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FIFY

It happened in Longview. Good luck with Safeco, if you are the policy holder you have a better chance than me. Record every telephone call and use email as much as possible.

I filed a complaint yesterday with the Texas Department of Insurance and an internal complaint. I'm going to start calling Safeco on Monday and work my way up the management chain to see if someone higher and smarter will be more reasonable. Hopefully ill bring some heat on the adjuster one way or another. I know I should file it on my insurance and let them deal with it, but Safeco messed with the wrong person. I can't stand thieves and I'll make sure their dishonesty was not worth it.

You should already have contacted your insurance company !

You must have time and money on your side .

Hasn't cost me a dime and I've got a car to drive in the mean time. I finally talked to someone, who wasn't an ******* at Safeco today after I filed an online complaint with them. The guy insists that I said the truck was halfway out of the spot, but I know that part is a lie. That's not how it happened, so there is no reason I would have said that. He also claimed that because the truck hit my mirror it would have been in my direct line of sight. That doesn't make sense either, but there was no arguing it with him. Apparently the cop lied his teeth out about the situation in his statement as well. It looks like I'm hosed and my insurance company will have to take them to arbitration. Moral of story: Don't trust cops, record every conversation, get witness testimony, and know that if your in a parking lot accident the police will not file a report and you're probably going to get screwed by the other guy's insurance. Basically they are going to low ball you with misinformation so they can settle in arbitration for a few bucks less. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

The only good part that came from the conversation is that his insurance company will have to reimburse me for the 80% of my deductible.

T&P for the rest of my deductible and my insurance rates.

[This message has been edited by aggieforester05 (edited 8/12/2013 5:00p).]

Cops will not write reports on private property. However, I am curious to know what the cop said...

The other driver was the cop (off-duty sheriff's deputy). He told me the same thing, which is why I didn't call the police.

It seems to me that if you are in a parking lot accident, the liable party's insurance company is the judge and jury.

I think they are forgetting one key piece of evidence though. This picture shows my car exactly where the accident happened. His truck was moved forward a couple of feet to get his bumper out from under my fendwell and off the top of my tire. I'm approximately 2-3 feet from the parking spot. If they're claim that he was halfway out of the parking spot before I started to go past him was true, then I would be much farther from the parking spot than that and would likely be on the other side of the isle. Also from the dent in the side of my car you can see that he hit me pretty hard. If he would have already been backing up and moving with that kind of speed, I would have hit him in the side with the front of my car.

The other driver said that he had just pulled into the parking spot and was immediately backing up to straighten out his truck. If that were true I would have seen him pull in the parking spot. Either he sat there for awhile before he moved or he was leaving. I'm assuming it was the latter, because they left the scene after we conducted our insurance exchange and did not go into the store. He has already proved himself a liar about the mirror, which the insurance company sided with me on.



[This message has been edited by aggieforester05 (edited 8/13/2013 8:17a).]

I had a hell of a time dealing with Safeco when I got rear ended in Plano. Was told the police wouldn't come write a report unless someone was hurt. It took a month for them to contact the other guy and get his statement in order for the claim to start.

I hate driving in Longview. People there don't know how to drive.

Things to keep in mind in any accident:

People lie.

People change their stories.

People always try to blame someone else.

Insurance companies deal with liars, cheats and frauds all the time.

Therefore, they assume that YOU are a liar, cheat and fraud.

Therefore, be aggressive in your dealings, admit to nothing, document everything.

Be truthful, but don't agree to any medical releases until the property damage is settled. In other words, don't claim your neck hurts and file a false claim. But I wouldn't be above implying I was sore and thinking about a trip to the doctor.

Yeah apparently trying to be the better person and following the whole honesty is the best policy didn't work out too well for me. All I can hope for is that my insurance company wins in arbitration and that my negative insurance website reviews will cost them more than they could have possibly saved.

Unfortunately most people just get quotes from A-Z insurance companies and pick the cheapest one. I highly doubt they care what you put on the internet.

It does suprise me though that they didnt try to stop you from filing an official complaint.

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Yeah apparently trying to be the better person and following the whole honesty is the best policy didn't work out too well for me. All I can hope for is that my insurance company wins in arbitration and that my negative insurance website reviews will cost them more than they could have possibly saved.

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Unless you said something damning in your statement... I would be willing to bet that your carrier will be successful in arbitration.

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It does suprise me though that they didnt try to stop you from filing an official complaint.

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TDI complaints are like ass holes...

[This message has been edited by MRB88 (edited 8/14/2013 6:26p).]