A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from the gym with my partner, Dottie (aka “Elise not her real name“) when we both felt a loud THUD. “Did I just get hit?” Dottie asked as she stopped for a red light. “Yes, definitely,” I replied before jumping out of the car and walking back towards a black BMW i4. I arrived at the driver’s window. “Please pull over, you hit us,” I stated. His reply: “What? I didn’t hit you.” I answered that indeed he had, and he should pull over. This man, so disoriented and confused he should almost consider running for president, pulled his car over and handed us his information. Fast forward a week, and what I thought should have been an open-shut case for State Farm resulted in the insurance company finding Dottie “at fault.” It is an absurd decision, and one that highlights the importance of dash cams and police reports.
Sometimes I need to just go with my gut instinct. This was one of those times. Upon reaching the sidestreet where we exchanged information with the BMW i4 driver who was born in 1935 (yes, you read that right), the man claimed we’d cut him off somehow. In reality, what had happened is that two lanes had become three, and he’d gotten confused about the lane markings and which lane he should remain in. So his right front hit our left rear.
Here’s the damage:
My first instinct was to call the police and get a police report, but Dottie produced a State Farm insurance card that gave instructions on what to do when in a fender bender, and I did not see “call police” anywhere on there. Maybe I missed it somehow, because I recall at the time that seemed odd to me, but in my head I thought: “Hmm, if the insurance company doesn’t mention that in the instructions, then maybe we shouldn’t reach out to the police in a fender bender.” In any case, we took photos of the incident, got the man’s insurance info, and moved along.
This was a mistake.
Fast forward a week, and we’ve submitted what in our heads should be the easiest insurance claim in history. We got rear-ended by an 89-year-old who had no clue what he was doing. But a few days later, we were contacted by State Farm, who told us they’d found Dottie at fault.
Obviously, this is ridiculous to us. The man in the i4 had literally told me he didn’t realize he’d gotten into a crash. (In his defense: Public transportation in LA is awful, so he kinda has little choice but to drive). Then he apparently told his insurance company, which also happens to be State Farm, that we’d cut him off. Do I think he intentionally lied? Maybe not; the man didn’t seem to really know what was going on, so maybe that’s what he truly thought. State Farm told us that, since both parties are State Farm clients, and they see this as a he-said-she-said situation, each person is at fault.
So what’s the takeaway here? First, always get a police report when in any fender-bender. I knew this, got thrown off guard by a dumb little “what to do when you’re in a crash” card, and blew it. Second, having a dash cam on your car is critical, because who knows if that police report would have changed anything. It’s possible State Farm would have seen it as a “he said she said” situation anyway, and at that point you have no recourse.
Without a dash cam, you’re just not protected. Someone can literally crash right into you and, in the absence of witnesses or police reports that can corroborate your claim, video footage, or any obvious signs that show exactly what happened, you will be at fault.
Dottie and I are still fighting this, mostly out of principle, since the 89-year-old seemed to me to be clearly cognitively impaired. For him to hit us and us be at fault is just wild. We’re working with local police to find footage of the incident, which occurred literally right out front of a police department.
It’s a reminder that any sense of security you feel about an Insurance company’s ability to dispense justice may be misplaced. When it comes to fender benders, they’re not expert investigators. They’ll take the photos you took they’ll listen to your statements, and then they’ll just guess based on that. They’re not necessarily going to look for video footage or witnesses or any of that. You have to protect yourself from liability. It’s an obvious lesson for many, but a worthy reminder.
I have a dash cam for this and other reasons. I’m pretty sure the law in my state (Oregon) is that you must call the police after an accident. I’d assumed it was that way everywhere.
In CA police are only necessary for any crash causing more than $X amount of damage. $750 last time I checked? I guess suddenly we’re all expert insurance adjusters now too.
That’s basically just a broken taillight anyway.
In our area, police will not respond to a wreck unless there is an injury or significant property damage. You are still supposed to call and report the accident, but an officer will not respond or provide a police report.
I got a dash cam after the accident that totaled my Civic and am glad I spent the money. That accident isn’t actually why, as it had a reasonably happy ending. I was sitting at a red light and got rear-ended by an older guy in a truck. He made sure I called the police, filed a report, and had helped me out of the car and made sure my partner and I were okay. His insurance admitted fault, especially after he did, and it was… actually a pleasant experience? Things got taken care of pretty quick, and his adjustor got my partner and I each some money for our troubles on top of paying off my car because I was nice to him.
The incident that made me want a dash cam? Sitting at the window at a Wendy’s. My car is in park because I’d been waiting on food, and as it’s being handed to me, some old lady rear-ends me and immediately starts shouting that I hit her. One of those fake costume jewelry, overly perfumed, self-important Karens. She’s screaming at me, hurling insults, and the Wendy’s people are just looking at me like they have no idea what her problem is. I probably should have called the police, but there was no damage to her car and only a tiny scratch in the plastic bumper on mine. Nothing ended up coming of it, but a recording sure would have been nice if it had.
“Like a bad neighbor, State farm doesn’t care” 😉
Like a good neighbor, State Farm stays the f&ck out of your business.
Even though it’s literally their business.
Insurance companies are scum.
Indeed they are!
You don’t have to go too far to hear about State Farm being the worst insurance company to ever be giving your money to. I imagine they’re probably only one-of-the-worst. Just know, the more an insurance company sucks, the more money they will spend on stupid feel-good advertising to keep the fools rolling in.
Eh. They’re all the worst. Even USAA, which has a stellar reputation, won’t hesitate to fuck its members over if it thinks it can get away with it.
State farm does suck. I have my insurance through them, and I had to threaten all sorts of (legitimate) legal shit to get them to pay up when a severe storm blasted my house, and that still didn’t work. More on that in a second.
But they don’t suck as much as Progressive, which once accused a guy in my old car club of arson because his car caught fire. They’d rather file a false police report than pay a claim.
Insurance is one of those rare examples of a scam we have to have. If we don’t have insurance, we’re not only often breaking the law but we’re taking the risk that a fender bender could bankrupt us. If we DO have insurance, we know we’ll have to fight tooth and nail if we ever have to file a claim, regardless of who the insurance company is.
One thing to keep in mind, your insurance *agent* is your friend. Your insurance *adjuster* is your enemy. The adjuster’s job is to minimize expenses for the company in order to maximize profits. The agent’s job is to be an independent contractor who makes commission off of your insurance premiums.
If State Farm pisses you off and you leave, your agent doesn’t get commission anymore.
That’s how we finally got them to pay for the house repairs. I called up the agent and told him we have five cars, a house and an umbrella policy through them, and statistically we have at least 40 more years worth of insurance premiums before we die. Does he want those premiums to go to State Farm, or someone else? Within two days, the company agreed to pay for everything.
Not that long ago, USAA hired a new CEO that seems to be the guy who finally decided to act like a “normal insurance company” and squeeze the unflinchingly loyal customer base that they have for every cent they will yield.
I mean you can see it with the Rob Gronkowski ads. USAA never used to advertise, they didn’t need to. I know zero people who are USAA eligible, who don’t know what USAA is. You don’t need to pay an ex-football player to talk about it.
Anyway, I don’t know of any insurer that is any better, so I continue to pay high rates with USAA.
It is weird to advertise to the general public like that.
I have Mercury and have had them for a long while. I had a friend get them recently after my recommendation and they saved $2400 a year between home and auto. I keep them because I have had them since high school and have never had any issues with any claims. I have no at fault accidents, claims have been when my car was parked and a windshield, and I was not in it and have had zero issues. I will pay extra for that. I hope it continues this way but if not, I will shop around.
Voice of experience: take LOTS of pictures asap and be SURE to get a picture of the face of the driver. Just do it, and then call the police. Do NOT just exchange info and drive away no matter how minor the damage. Also, if you suffer ANY sort of injury or ANY sort of pain or minor ache, drive or get driven to a hospital or ER.
I’ve been involved in a few accidents in over 50 years of driving and gotten screwed by being the nice guy.
The Police will not show up in California, especially LA, if there are not significant injuries.
Yup, LAPD will not respond unless there’s an injury or claim of impairment. When I had a driver refuse to show me his ID, they did say they’d come out, but who knows how many hours that would have been… In another accident, they happened to be across the street, and strolled over to check the other driver for impairment and then they were gone. Maybe SMPD would be a little more responsive…
(Singing)
“And, like a good neighbour…
…State Farm don’t care….”
One small counter example to State Farm always s*cking is that last December my 2012 Civic got hit while parked on the street near work, one of the results of someone making an ill-advised left turn and getting hit (left turner was hit and ended up hitting my parked car). First I knew of it was when I went out at 8pm to head home. I was very peeved to put it mildly. There was a tiny slip of paper on my windshield with SFPD contact info and a reference number. Body shop estimate was more than a 2012 Civic was worth per State Farm even though the car was and still is perfectly driveable as is. Wanted to keep the car, so got a payout from State Farm minus the salvage value. Spent $50 on a replacement left taillight, went through the hoops with the CA DMV to get a salvage title, still driving it today and hopefully until I retire. The kicker is that later, one of the other drivers got some lawyer who tried contacting me and State Farm demanding a $50K payout. Given that my car was parked at the time, they were told to take a hike and later I even got an additional check from State Farm that reimbursed my deductible. Which I did not even ask for but gladly deposited! I have no idea why, maybe because of the extra hassle from the lawyer or because I’ve been insured with State Farm since I got my license at 16, made very few claims on this or our house insurance over the years or what.
They’re great for the first claim. It doesn’t matter how long you were insured with them though. My dad had State Farm insurance for nearly 40 years and never made a claim, but the second time my brother got in an accident they tried to drop the entire family’s collective policies.
They eventually succeeded in dropping my brother’s policy, but that is a longer story and was probably justified.
It’s worth hardwiring a front and rear dash cam in. I got spoiled with the Tesla cam and ended up adding a dash cam to the front and rear of my expedition constantly powered using an add-a-fuse to a non-keyed circuit.
I’m a huge fan of dashcams. Got my new Subie in September 2023. Five weeks later I was rear ended (5mph) by a gentleman in his 80’s with a cold (he was wiping his nose and his foot wasn’t pressing the brake firmly). He asked me why I backed into him, which I didn’t, and he offered me $50 since he thought I was trying to shake him down. I foled a report against his insurance company, State Farm, which told me he wasn’t at fault. I asked them if they’d like to see the dash cam footage, which they did, but they said it wouldn’t make a difference. Ten minutes after sending it they called me and said they were going to be the bigger entity on the call and pay for my repairs.
Insurance companies, like all companies, are out to make money and pay out as little as possible. Spending $200 on front and rear facing dash cams are VERY CHEAP the first time you need them. If you never need them then you just end up with a moderately expensive toy and a historical recording of how awesome a driver you are. 🙂
Fix the car, pay the deductible and remember uncle Torchinsky’s advice: don’t drive anything without a real bumper.
And by the way, judging by the pics, reporting it has cost your gf more in lost resale value (if not leased) when the incident pops up on carfax, compared to paying out of pocket and keeping this to yourself. Especially since the guy was out of it.
There goes that plan to trade in the for the Lexus EV for $10k.
Damn! It being a minor incident, I don’t expect a huge loss in resale.
Assuming we can get State Farm to wake up, we can always file for a Diminished Value claim.
Diminished value is another thing that you’ll need to spend some time and energy to fight for. They’re not going to voluntarily offer just because you ask.
Damn I’m regretting filing this claim. What a waste of our time. And potentially a big money-suck.
You learn as you go … this is relatively minor and if there’s another accident you have a better idea what to do. I just sued someone for the first time in small claims for an auto accident and I have definitely learned some lessons from that.
I appreciate your insight. Thanks for being here.
It would suck to be an EDITOR of a CAR BLOG WEBSITE and not be able to call someone in the PR division of STATE FARM and tell them your story… Just a thought, DT.
I suppose I could try to pull that card.
It’s very rare you get a chance to use influence that you’ve earned over many years. In this case, it would just be getting treated like a human being and have them pay what they owe. There is no shame in that.
They are very difficult to get in California as well. Especially when both parties have the same insurance. I am not a lawyer, just someone who has had cars hit when parked.
You won’t get one. In California if they repair your car that makes you whole. Especially when both parties have the same insurance you would have to take the old man to court yourself. I am not a lawyer, just someone who has gone through this in the last year.
Not every insurance company reports accidents to the DMV if the value is under $2,000. It varies by state and what is required by law. I just looked up California and it looks like their damage value is $1,000 or more.
I’m wondering if we can just withdraw this. I mean, we haven’t even gotten a damage estimate. Far as anyone is concerned, there could be $20 worth of damage.
Don’t you know someone that owns a bunch of car dealerships and does repair work? If you get a repair quote for say…$980, it wouldn’t have to be reported to the California DMV.
Isn’t this buffable?
Dashcams that monitor both front and rear aren’t super costly anymore. $200 will get a decent one along with a large memory card. With garbage like this occurring, the only defense in a case is footage showing Dottie’s car stopped. Even then it may not be enough without being a squeaky wheel.
I would be surprised if the cops show up for something like this. While just about everything nowadays is an expensive fix over whatever old damage value threshold there might have been on the books for calling the cops, they don’t really care* unless there’s an injury or maybe if there’s a disabled vehicle blocking a road. I think Timothy Hood nailed it below—they’re stiffing her out of the deductible by declaring her and Thutmose III in the BMW both at fault. I’d say that State Farm sucks—and they do—but they all suck and I don’t really have a suggestion for a better company, so that’s not helpful (though, if they’re like some companies, she might be getting dropped soon for making a claim, even if she clearly wasn’t at fault, ask me how I know . . . on second thought, you don’t want to read that rant).
*Care as in concern themselves to show up, they don’t actually care in the empathetic sense either way.
Call the cops, they’ll ask if anyone’s hurt and if alcohol is involved. If you answer no to these 2 questions they’re not going to bother to show up. Tell them you’re not qualified to answer.
I lived in LA for over 15 years. This is correct for the LAPD.
Thutmose III is good, enjoyed that 😉
State Farm fired me as a customer after we made 2 house roof claims in 5 years – one for the old house just before selling, one for the new house because the 50-year-old cedar shingles finally gave up.
American Family has paid out twice for two WRXs belonging to my son, first one got hit by a drunk/stoned driver, second one hail damage. So far they haven’t fired us, I was expecting it after the second claim.
USAA if you can qualify for it, military or military family, is consistently at the top of CR ratings for insurance. All the other good insurance cos tend to be small local ones only available in limited areas. Otherwise, shop based on rates, and hope for Mr Incredible to be on your claim..
Consumer Reports does list State Farm as one of the 15 worst auto insurance companies in the country.
How many auto insurance companies are there? It seems to me like the worst 15 would include almost all auto insurance companies.
There are actually 100s of auto insurers, but most, though not all, of the biggest are in the 15 Worst. USAA was not among them, but Travellers, State Farm, Geico, Farmers, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, and The Hartford were on the list. Exorbitant pricing and poor customer service scores seemed to be the two most common factors for being included.
“Exorbitant pricing and poor customer service scores” – I’m pretty sure that is the textbook definition of insurance company.
I haven’t had a real accident in many years, but a buddy of mine has been in 2 in the last 5 years. He said both times, the cops showed up, but fully refused to do anything but “facilitate the exchange of insurance information”. No reports, no tickets, no assigning of any blame, just make sure the info gets swapped.
State Farm isn’t blaming you, they are saving money. Since it is paying regardless of who is at fault, Stae Farm saves money by declaring both at fault. It reduces its claims payment by both deductibles by doing so. An attorney might help State Farm change its mind, but it would probably be hard to find an attorney that would take the case.
LOL at the idea of calling the cops for a fender bender. Unless you’re injured or going to pretend to be, they aren’t coming. My daughter’s car got hit in a parking lot last Spring. She called the cops, they just said “no” and gave a website to file her own report.
The station was about 200 yards away.
Really? Must be a big city thing. I live in a mid-size town (65,000 people) in Kentucky and when my Mazda6 was rear-ended by a Chrysler Sebring in 2018, the cop I called was there in ten minutes to write a report from the gas station parking lot I and the Sebring owner pulled into. Of course, I called the specific “non-emergency” line for the local PD.
I live in a town of 17k.
Guess I live in the “sweet spot” of city size, then. I can see it being “not their concern” in somewhere like LA, and I guess that goes for smaller towns as well.
yep. I call the police, they show up. Pretty basic stuff.
Sadly, someone smoked baby Bambi in front of my house. My daughter called me sobbing, because it had landed in my driveway, and was clearly suffering. I was on the way back from the brush dump, and as I got home, three other police cars showed up.
One police officer unholstered his sidearm and ended the suffering. I gave them an empty brush dump bag to dispose of the carcass. Over in about 5.
I even have Ring camera footage if I knew how to post it…though not of the gunshot or actual impact. But yeah…call them and they come around here?
Well there are plenty of other anecdotes in the comments here that support the statement that calling the cops for a fender bender would be pointless, which aligns with my experience. Perhaps it depends on the size of your town.
Each and every time I have had a traffic incident, up to and including reporting road rage via 911, I have had a response.
The only time I have not had a response was with AAA when my old Acadia died by the side of the road. And that’s, well, AAA.
I don’t know where everyone here lives…but I know in both states that I frequent, LEOs show up. Every time.
Not the same as trading paint at a stop light with a BMW.
As I replied above, I don’t know where everyone here lives…but I know in both states that I frequent, LEOs show up. Every time.
Interestingly, my sister says she only hears from my brother when he has to put down a deer. That gets him pretty bad, I guess.
Plus, the actual horrors I know he’s seen, it might be the only thing he can afford to engage with in an emotional context.
The driver apparently nuked the little guy even though it was just standing in the road, confused, enough so that my neighbor cross the street, who seems pretty level, was very angry. He claims to have seen the whole thing.
I could hear the poor thing crying when I got there, and my daughter (and dog) were pretty agitated. Dog saw the whole thing, too, and likely wanted to go out and play with a new friend.
The three LEOs weren’t thrilled, either. I don’t think you could have even processed the little guy due to how it was hit.
To go back to my primary point above, though, three LEOs showed up for a fawn strike. They do respond here all the time, anytime I call.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiskb6C8rzH5I6MWt6QMLdARNYOTWgOtN6soOYUFDEmNRD_G4NZW3E_cUGkm7opoAwT_oVp0RM6CPxpg12ECYGEV6jECaYB3bIisEGSguplmyE_zrPpIlXDXEiOROlXoKZdQ7iW05ycCnAb018Bmn2E6dVcmZxnO3tnAePUgdzn5kGe7H32LhNIbpAQ_Qw
Yeah, that was my immediate thought too.
Lol indeed, especially in big cities. Welcome to a metropolis.
Definitely escalate, this kind of thing should move up the chain until you get someone who can see this for what it is and get you sorted. My BIL worked in that role at [BIG INSURANCE PLACE] for YEARS and had all kinds of stories like this.
Bingo. We had to do this when my wife was t-boned at a light (she had the green) by an 80 year old man in a C7 ZR1 (I shit you not). Both us and the old coot had the same insurance and EVEN WITH A POLICE REPORT they tried to place equal blame. A few phone calls up the chain solved it.
Sorry to hear about the accident, and glad that everyone is okay.
Remember, you’re going to be 89 at some point, and my guess is that you won’t be so eager to give up your license.
I don’t know a lot, but I do know that every single person who read post this will either get old or die before they get old.
Kudos to every single commenter here; not one single person nibbled on the ageism bait.
Yeah, but but but….
There was no bait here. I’m just telling the story of what happened.
I feel bad that he has to drive; I wish that LA had better public transportation. But the truth is, the gentleman clearly isn’t fit to drive.
That said: If I’m so lucky as to last until 89, you bet I’ll be driving!
I didn’t see any ageism. If the guy was cognitively impaired, that’s different than if you had said he was just too old to be driving.
Or be president of the US
No one nibbled the bait because there was no bait.
People are people. It’s ageist to let them off for the sake of being old, implying they have no self awareness and selfishness is a natural and acceptable part of aging. If I have the misfortune to live so long, which my damned genes point to being the case, I’ll have a self awareness about it and people are free to shit all over me if I don’t. Reluctant to give up the keys, of course, but when you’re incapable of the mental processes required for driving, you can injure or kill someone else and should be giving it up. Besides, it seems he has plenty of money going by the car and sure as hell should be retired by now, so he has other options. My grandfather lived to 103 and was well with it until 102. He gave up driving when he was about 80 after arriving home to have a large piece of granite slide out from under his Caprice with no idea where it came from. He didn’t want to kill anyone and he was not as well off as this guy, so his transportations options were a lot slimmer.
You can call HPD and wait 5 hours and they still won’t show up. If you call and complain they tell you to head to a local substation and submit your own report for whatever good that does. Like you said, the dash cam is literally your only defense, and even then it’s only a defense if you’re willing to take the other driver to small claims court. In your case where the insurance is same for both it’s in their economical best interests to call both parties “at fault” and write it off completely. You’re both free to file the claim against your own comprehensive coverage, pay your own deductibles, and both probably pay higher premiums next year. This all leads to more $$$$ for more stupid Jake at State Farm commercials.
This would go against collision coverage, not comprehensive.
Police reports for accidents are essential. When my wife got broadsided at the end of July the police report was essential in establishing the other driver was at fault for pulling out and ramming into the side of our van after being given “the wave of death” as Lewin called it in his article a few days ago.
Fortunately our uninsured driver coverage picked up after the other drivers insurance was found to be nonexistent.
Our local constable won’t come to a crash site to file a report unless there is an injury or “more than $1,500” damage occurring on a public roadway (if it’s less, they send you to an online portal to create a report). What I’ve recently discovered first hand is that the slightest amount of nick, scrape, or rub on more than one flat plane surface on a car newer than say, roughly seven years will require $2,000 minimum in labor, parts, and materials. So nearly every two vehicle accident causes more than $1,500 in damage here and it’s a lot easier to get a police report than the police would like you to think.
Absolutely, the body shop that estimated the damage to our van stopped documenting items when they got to $23,000 in damage and a co-worker had a minor accident with just fender and door damage from venison that was over $5,000.
Yep. My grandmother’s 2012 Cadillac SRX had one tiny dent and a crunched taillight after a 17-year-old girl backed into it in the hairdresser’s parking lot, and the total was around $3,000. Guess that Cadillac pearl white paint is pricey.
I’ve been told by a few body shop guys that pearl white is one of the more expensive paints. I guess it’s whatever makes the pearl effect, but according to the paint guy I talked to, metallic isn’t that expensive (at least not the metallic blue I was getting), so it must be something different for the pearl. But, anyway, it seemed any time someone so much as tapped the Mazda3 I had, it was $3k to fix and I traded that in back in 2011.
Pearl white typically has a lot of layers, sometimes like 5. Something like metallic blue is usually just a base and clear, so two coats.
It’s also often not possible to blend in a paint job that has a lot of coats, so you end up painting entire panels to get it to look right.
Thanks!
Getting the police to come out for a non-injury crash is basically impossible.
I got hit recently by someone who confidently stated “I put my blinker on, isn’t that enough?” I had to explain to them that they still need to make sure there isn’t a car in the lane they are merging into. Fortunately the damage was minor and their insurance company realized their client was an idiot, and paid out with no fuss.
Police actually show up around here, so I dunno where you all live
My wife was t-boned by a cop, and they found her at fault! Her light was green, his red.
Same with my ex-wife, t-boned by cop car running a red at night with absolutely no lights on, they gave her a ticket while she was in a hospital bed. Her car was totaled, never got a cent for the car or hospital bills.
ACAB
Sorry to hear that she was hurt. I hope she recovered.
My wife and son were not hurt. But, my son was in the middle of the backseat in his car seat. The car was hit in the driver side rear seat. If he was on the side, and not in the middle, there is a good chance he would have been killed.
I have long since had a very bad taste in my mouth for cops. I know there are good ones, and most are, but shitheads like this infuriate me. Once I told the lawyers I spoke with where I lived, no one would take the case. I wonder why?
Adult child of a cop here.
Sorry for your misfortune.
My Old Man drove like the world was on fire. A miracle he never hit a soul.
And right on about the lawyer thing as well.
A bad or crazy cop, (or both) is a dangerous thing. To society and to his family.
The ptsd from childhood is still real, as is my general distrust of law enforcement overall. I see dealing with them like dealing with a rattle snake. It just don’t seem like a wise move. Avoid. If possible.
100% get a dashcam! No matter how obvious the situation might seem to be you can count on two things: The other person will never admit liability to their insurance agent no matter what they tell you in person, and the insurance adjuster will disregard anything and everything including the laws of physics when deciding who to blame.
Wait a minute. This wasn’t how car insurance was explained in Animal House.