Auto insurance: Getting a claim reclassified

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Benzadmiral

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Last August, I crunched the rocker panel of the Regal against a high curb. Naturally I knew this wouldn't buff out, so I put in a claim with Geico, my then insurance company. They took care of everything.

Until now, when my new premium came with a 66% increase. I've called them, and they say it's not a mistake.

Every other shop I've called for a quote gave me even higher premiums, until I came upon Esurance. Everything was going fine there . . . until the agent said that Geico had classified the event as an accident, rather than as a comprehensive claim. Because of that, my rate would be even higher than with Geico. He suggested I call the Lexis/Nexis people; they might be able to get the claim reclassified. L/N, unfortunately, are all automated, and all I could do was order a copy of my credit report.

My deadline for renewing the car insurance is January 2, and you know every shop in the immediate world will be closed or the essential people will be on vacation this week and next. What can I do? Do I need to get a lawyer to get this straightened out? Anybody else been through this? Help!
 
Call Geico and work your way up the ladder.
Nothing to lose and you are between a rock and a hard place.
Insurance shopping with a fresh accident on your claim history is not a good thing.
You may also want to file a claim with the state insurance commissioner, or at least use this as leverage when dealing with the lizard.
Find a good independent agent or insurance broker and see what you can do with finding insurance with a good company.
 
You hitting a curb is a collision accident, not comprehensive. Comprehensive covers things such as hail, theft, fire, falling object.
 
Originally Posted By: exranger06
I don't see how this qualifies as a comprehesive claim. I would think this falls under collision.


Unless the curb moved into the car or fell its a collision. Your agent is clueless.
 
Originally Posted By: madRiver
Originally Posted By: exranger06
I don't see how this qualifies as a comprehesive claim. I would think this falls under collision.


Unless the curb moved into the car or fell its a collision. Your agent is clueless.


Learned that one the hard way. Always was under the assumption that Collision was if *I* did something stupid. Turns out, collision is also if anything collides with the vehicle - vehicle or not.
 
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
Call Geico and work your way up the ladder.
Nothing to lose and you are between a rock and a hard place.
Insurance shopping with a fresh accident on your claim history is not a good thing.
You may also want to file a claim with the state insurance commissioner, or at least use this as leverage when dealing with the lizard.
Find a good independent agent or insurance broker and see what you can do with finding insurance with a good company.

I've tried brokers, but (again unfortunately) I live in the state where insurance amounts make members of the Mafia turn away in disgust.

As I expected, Geico refuses to change my determination. My problem is that they did not tell me, in writing, what the final determination of the claim was. If they'd told me that in September, I could have disputed it, or gone shopping then. Now I'm running out of time. I suppose I could pay one month's payment while exploring other options.
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
Call Geico and work your way up the ladder.
Nothing to lose and you are between a rock and a hard place.
Insurance shopping with a fresh accident on your claim history is not a good thing.
You may also want to file a claim with the state insurance commissioner, or at least use this as leverage when dealing with the lizard.
Find a good independent agent or insurance broker and see what you can do with finding insurance with a good company.

I've tried brokers, but (again unfortunately) I live in the state where insurance amounts make members of the Mafia turn away in disgust.




As I expected, Geico refuses to change my determination. My problem is that they did not tell me, in writing, what the final determination of the claim was. If they'd told me that in September, I could have disputed it, or gone shopping then. Now I'm running out of time. I suppose I could pay one month's payment while exploring other options.



You may just have to pay it.
See my second post, unfortunately it qualifies as an accident.
Find a good independent agent that represents an array of companies.
See how long you need to stay with the lizard before you can make a change to a good company.
Focus on the quality of the companies you are looking at and look for the best compromise between quality of company and cost.
It could be worse.
They could have cancelled you.
 
You could offer to geico to give them back all the money they paid out on your claim if they'll let you off the hook for the rate increase.

I had someone rear end my wife's car and they were already up the creek with a couple claims. They reimbursed their ins co.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
You could offer to geico to give them back all the money they paid out on your claim if they'll let you off the hook for the rate increase.

I had someone rear end my wife's car and they were already up the creek with a couple claims. They reimbursed their ins co.

Really? I'm waiting for a call from the Underwriting department -- Claims swears they have no determination on the rates. Would they really do that?
 
I know what I wanted to ask. The Esurance guy suggested I drop the $5000 medical payments item -- that I'd do better to put in a health insurance claim rather than through the car insurance. Does that make sense? If I drop that, increase my deductibles, and skip the rental car, I could save, Geico says, about $120 for 6 months.

ETA: By the way, Geico quotes "state law" as the reason they couldn't accept my payment for the entire thing, not after the claim was entered and paid and all. Not that I'd want to do that -- we're talking a couple of grand here -- but I suppose it was worth asking about.
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
I know what I wanted to ask. The Esurance guy suggested I drop the $5000 medical payments item -- that I'd do better to put in a health insurance claim rather than through the car insurance. Does that make sense? If I drop that, increase my deductibles, and skip the rental car, I could save, Geico says, about $120 for 6 months.

ETA: By the way, Geico quotes "state law" as the reason they couldn't accept my payment for the entire thing, not after the claim was entered and paid and all. Not that I'd want to do that -- we're talking a couple of grand here -- but I suppose it was worth asking about.


In NY if a person gets into an accident and medical care is needed, its the car insurance that pays. And even if health insurance does initially lay out the money they will try to recapture payments from the car insurance company. So I am not so sure its a good idea to drop this coverage, but I may be wrong.
 
And this is the reason you should never file a claim for the small stuff. I have only filed one claim in my life for a totaled Harley.
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
I know what I wanted to ask. The Esurance guy suggested I drop the $5000 medical payments item -- that I'd do better to put in a health insurance claim rather than through the car insurance. Does that make sense?


This guy is so full of it, it is running out of his ears.
No, that is not a good idea.
Second piece of bad info this guy has given.
Forget the Esurance guy and find a good independent agent.
For the time being, if increasing your deductibles and skipping the rental car make your car insurance more affordable, do it.
 
It's basically over. Suck it up and pay the new rate, you'll be hard pressed to find anything lower. This is your lesson in never filing a small claim, especially when it's your fault. I tapped the bumper of a car once, the claim was only $750 but the woman immediately filed it with her insurance so I didn't get a chance to offer to pay it out of pocket. My premiums went up by about $300-$400 a year for the next 5 years before it went off my record. That's the cost of having an accident.

Everyone else here is correct, you hit a curb and did damage to your car, that's a collision. Comprehensive is when a tree falls on it or you get hail damage or it catches on fire.
 
Not to go on too much of a tangent, but comprehensive also covers a technical but important case. You get into a collision with another person, that person disputes the fault is his, and you need to get your car repaired because it's not safe to drive.

If you have comprehensive, a claim is made under comprehensive until fault is determined and you get your car repaired now. If you drop comprehensive and get into the above situation, you either pay out of pocket and risk partial denial for repairs once fault is determined, or you have the car sit in your driveway until fault is determined.
 
Right; I wasn't thinking of dropping the big coverages, just upping the deductible. The car is only 5 years old and worth fixing. If I were driving something older or rattier, that would be another story.

(God, I hate this state.)
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
(God, I hate this state.)


Then don't move to Illinois.

Paul... $2400 may not be a small claim, but as you've now found out... they're going to do what they can, to get most of their money back from you.

I was hit by someone else in 2009, and MY rates went up anyway. At first, it appeared that the other driver was uninsured, so I started the claims process with my insurance company. Guess what, that was a "claim".

Even though the other driver's insurance company finally accepted responsibility for the accident after about a week.... I had still filed a "claim" with my insurer.

Figure out how much pain (as in $$$) that you can tolerate on your next claim, and raise your deductible to that number.
 
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