I stopped a guy for dui and asked him if he could pass a psychomotor test...his face lit up and he said "Sure, I have a motorcycle."

20MM,

It's always refreshing to read posts where the writer knows what he is talking about.
Are you still active in the Insurance claims business?

I also spent many years in the Insurance claims end of it but mostly in the aviation end, with some TP liability, property, injury and a little auto.

Destructis, remember that the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

I have seen some claims paid that were out and out fraudulent but the claimant wouldn't give up and the Company finally gave and up and paid. These were small claims.

gbarclay, thanks. No, I'm kinda retired right now but I may get back into it.

I spent a lot of years working claims, everything from property to liability, auto, inland marine, marine, fidelity. I don't expect people who don't have that background to know the difference between uninsured motorist and collision, but it does bother me when an insurance professional doesn't know or when an insurance company uses its power to buffalo and BS and stall.

I always figured if you owe it, pay it. If you don't owe it politely say so, but be quick about it.

20mm, I did check my policy and I have two listings under my uninsured motorist. One for bodily and one for property and each one has their own amount listed.

Hmmm, well, maybe this old dog has a trick or two to learn. And maybe MD's policies are different. But I've never heard of uninsured motorist covering property damage.

Do you have collision and comprehensive cover? Collision would cover damage to your car resulting from a collision (duh), whether it was your fault or someone else's fault. How does that jive with uninsured motorist property damage? Seems like a double hit, pardon the pun. What I mean by that is the insurance company could end up with a double payment on the same claim. OK, I have a collision claim, pay me for that. And oh, by the way, the guy was uninsured, so pay me under that too.

Also, uninsured motorist is typically sold in tandem with underinsured motorist. Underinsured motorist is where you get hit by someone with inadequate limits to pay your damages. Let's say in the case at hand, your car is worth $20K and the at fault driver only has $10K in insurance. He's got insurance alight, he just doesn't have enough limits. So the "uninsured motorist" never comes into play because he had insurance, so therefore it's falls on the underinsured motorist?

See how confusing this gets? Much better just to say it's a collision claim. Cause it is.

Never talk claims with old claims guys! And best of luck.

If an insurance company didn't cover property damage from uninsured motorists, find another company.

You can be insured for just about anything, and you can wheel and deal on just about anything. If you got money to spend, someone will be there to offer insurance.

I definitely agree. He did something that could easily have killed people, no mercy for him. When he didnīt plan for somebody else to drive him back before his binge he just lost all claims to sympathy. And, yes, a drunk driver killed my grandmother and was convicted for it, so do NOT feel bad about anything concerning him.

@ 20mm - FYI, I'm looking at one of my renewal statements from State Farm (we have 2 cars) and we have uninsured coverage for both bodily injury & property damage. The bodily injury shows the coverage limits while the property damage doesn't ("normal" property damage does show the limits, though).

We also have "normal" collision & comprehensive. We don't have "underinsured" - I don't know if that's available as I hadn't heard of that one.

So, it does sound like different states have different coverage options.

I got a copy of the police report yesterday. It has some lines blacked out and I am assuming it has to do with his blood alchol levels. It did have his insurance information on it though. So I called my insurance agent last night and gave the information to her. She just called me a few minutes ago and said that State Farm can't find anything on the policy number or the name on the policy. She said we should go on the assumption right now that the officer wrote the policy number wrong. She asked me if I had the phone numbers of the guy who hit me and I gave them to her. She said she was going to try to call them to get the information and that maybe since she was calling from the insurance company, that they might give the information to her. After she calls them, she said she will call me back.

She said if they don't give her the information, that she will have to wait until the trace completes and if it comes back uninsured, that they will get my car fixed. I would have to pay the $250 deductible to the repair shop once the work is complete and when they go after the person who hit my car, that they would try to get that back for me too. She said that when they go after someone for the repairs, that it usually takes a long time, so not to expect the money back any time soon.

My perceptions on this is that she believes they are uninsured at this point, but still has to go through the steps and can't come out and say that. She has rules she has to follow and can only give me her offical options at this point. She has been very helpful and I am very impressed with my insurance company through all of this. It's going slow, but they are doing what they have to do. If anyone is interested, my policy is through Nationwide. At this point, I feel very comfortable in recommending them.

Now to sit and wait for the call back. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy decided to come down here after she calls them to start crap with me because he said he would pay for it. If he does, I will ask him once to leave and then call the police. I am just not going to deal with it.

You sound as though the car is repairable. Is it? That assumes you have a repair estimate or two and that the repairs are less than the value of the car. If the value of the car is $5K and the repairs are $6K, it's totalled.

So if you don't have repair estimates, I'd get a couple. Then I'd do what I suggested earlier and get a book value and a dealer value. Couple of those. You can get a book value online through Kelly or NADA.

Maybe your insurance company will send out an appraiser. That would help speed things up a little.

kadir,
If the "property damage" limits under uninsured motorist is blank, it probably means it doesn't apply. The dec sheet or renewal sheet may print out that way when in truth it's non sequitar. Collision is what I said it was. Your car gets hit or you hit something, that's collision. Period. Comprehensive is for things like fire or flood, glass breakage and so on. As for underinsured motorist, that's usually sold in tandem, but maybe not in CA, or maybe your agent missed it.