Guru

So I got in an accident a while back and I wasn't at fault. (My first Accident)

My rates have increased and I'm still under the same policy. A friend of mine who use to work for a insurance company said that it is illegal for my rates to increase if I wasn't found at fault. She said I should threaten to call the insurance commissioner.

Is this true that its illegal for my rates to increase if I wasn't found at fault? I don't want to call them up and sound like an idiot based on one persons advice. I'm still looking for this law on the insurance commissioners (WA State) website.

Slimey

How do you know that you were not at fault, or better said, how do you know that your insurance company didn't assign fault to you?

AFAIK, it's not illegal for insurance companies to change rates. Upping your rates after a claim is commonplace.

As you mentioned, you might want to talk to your state insurance commisioner's office to find out more about the rules in your state. No harm in asking.

Honestly though, there's no harm in asking your agent why your rates went up. S/he'll be more then happy to explain it to you.

dfv3.2CL-S

iTrader: (1)

If you are not at fault and a police report exist for the incident, you may want to present that to your carrier. Also you should not see an increase in premium, but the twist to the story is, that if your insurance carrier did fix your vehicle and not the other person when not at fault you will see a drastic hike in premium. Same thing goes for using PIP or personal injury protection, if you get involve in accident and you decide to use that part of the policy that should not increase your premiums. If you have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage that can help because you can claim a hit and run type of incident at a mall or retail store parking lot.

anothercls

If the other person was charged with the accident your insurance company shouldn't have paid anything. If they paid more than $500.00 they will usually raise rates, but, as noted above, if not your fault they should have subrogated against the person at fault's insurance company and your rates shouldn't have gone up.

I got a 2k increase in premium from being in an accident, not at fault, no tickets issued either. That is another problem, if no tickets were issued then they can't consider someone else at fault.

Guru

Slimey,l I'm pretty sure the other person was at fault considering he was driving on the wrong side of the road, spun his firebird when he floored it and collided with me while a cop was watching. Plus I was working with other insurance company to get my car fix/totalled, but after the repair shop said it was totalled and the other insurance company didn't agree, I called in my insurance company and a independed apraiser and my company totalled it. The other insurance company has been paying for my car rentals.

Pure Adrenaline

iTrader: (2)

Did the cop issue a ticket to the Firebird driver? Did you get a case number of the accident report?

When you filed a claim with your insurance company to fix your car, what did you report it as?


Also, it could be because your tier rating went up. A lady I knew got rear-ended 3 times, and got her car stolen all within a period of 6 months. Tough luck, but none of it was her fault. But her insurance company rated her as high-risk, raised her tier level therefore her premium, and eventually dropped her.

Slimey

OK.
As I said above, instead of going through this online guesswork, just ask your agent why your rates went up. S/he'll be more then happy to explain.

2003TL-S

The way it got explained to me by the ploice about five years ago when I got t-boned, was that you are always 10% at fault just because you are on the road. Whether or not he was just blowing smoke up my a**, who knows, I sure thought it was BS.

CLUofI

They may not have raised your rates, you may have lost your discount of having no claims.

Mongolian

Coming from the Insurance industry....

what CLUofI said is correct. If you were not placed at fault by your insurance company, your rates went up due to the loss of "accident free" discounts that most insurance companies offer.

Or

Maybe your adjuster placed you at fault.... what exactly happened in your accident and who is your carrier?

NJTypeS

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is tricky. if you have collision coverage you cannot use uninsured motorist coverage if your car is struck by a hit and run driver. if you don't have collision coverage and your car was struck at the mall, you are basically SOL. uninsured motorist coverage only applies if you can PROVE the vehicle that hit you did not have insurance, meaning a police office needs to write a report verifying that.

going back to your situation, call the claims dept and ask the adjuster what their liability decision was in your claim.

CrockPot

my insurance company asked if i 1) had any accidents or tickets in the past X years, 2) if i had been in any accidents whether or not i was at fault.

i figure that since they even asked question 2, there would have been a premium adjustment had i answered yes.