KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you get rear-ended in a car accident, and the driver at fault even admits to police he’s to blame, you would think you would have no problem collecting from that driver’s insurance company. But you would be wrong.
Experts say insurance companies are increasingly reluctant to pay out on claims, even when there is no dispute over what happened.
More and more complaints about this are rolling into the Problem Solver Hotline. The most common excuse that people are given by the insurance company is that they can’t pay the claim because the driver at fault wouldn’t return their phone calls.
Gloria Yates’ son’s car was damaged so severely that the 1998 Buick Century was totaled. The driver of the car that hit her son’s car was insured through Progressive. Yates had a police report, but when she tried to file a claim, she was surprised by what she said she was told.
“I was told by Progressive that if they couldn’t get in touch with the driver, or if they didn’t cooperate, they didn’t have to pay the claim,” she said. “I was shocked and I was like, ‘Where is that written?'”
Yates was angry, particularly since she is also a Progressive policy holder, but she only had liability coverage on her son’s car. After two weeks passed and Progressive still couldn’t reach the other driver, Yates called FOX 4 Problem Solvers and we called attorney Scott Shachtman. He said he couldn’t find any language in Progressive’s insurance policy that required them to speak to the other driver before paying a claim.
“Even though they both had the same insurance company, they were still giving Ms. Yates the runaround,” he said.
Unfortunately this isn’t the first time Problem Solvers has heard this type of complaint. In fact, it’s so common that we found another attorney’s website where he warns clients that insurance companies: “Will flat-out deny the claim if their insured does not call in the claim,” no matter what proof you have that they caused the accident.
So what do you do if it happens to you? While you are still at the scene of the accident, insist that the other driver call their insurance company and report it. In fact, dial the number for them. Or you can also try filing a complaint with the State Department of Insurance if their insurance won’t pay, or you can hire an attorney.
In this instance Shactman donated his services and sent Progressive a copy of the police report and a letter encouraging them to pay Ms. Yates. A week later she received a check for $2,800, even though Progressive still has yet to reach the man who hit her son’s car.
“Had Scott not called, I don’t think I would have gotten anything,” Yates said.
A spokesman for Progressive told FOX 4 that despite what Ms. Yates said she was told by a Progressive employee, it had always planned to pay her claim, regardless of whether it was able to reach the other driver. Progressive said its investigation of the claim took longer than it had initially thought.
