Originally Posted By: JTK
I've mentioned it many times here when this question comes up. A similar situation happened to me about 15yrs ago. A fellow ran a stop sign and passed in front of me from left to right. I skidded and attempted to avoid him, but smashed into his vehicle's right side, just before the right rear wheel-well. Even though the other guy admitted fault, his insurance would cover only 70% and I had to turn it over to my insurance for the remaining 30. A process they called subrogation.
My point is, don't ever assume the other party's insurance will cover all, regardless of the circumstances of the accident.
Did your insurance use subrogation against the other company to cover the 30% or did they pay the 30% on your behalf? Subrogation is when an insurance company goes after another one on your behalf if the other driver's company won't accept fault.
Sadly, when I worked in insurance the company really pressured adjusters to give both parties some fault, even if it was obvious one party was 100% at fault. They basically claimed that unless a car was completely stopped, the driver still had the possibility of "last chance avoidance". This really sucked with claims where the driver was hit head on by a vehicle who crossed over the yellow line, like you are supposed to be able to avoid that last second.
I've mentioned it many times here when this question comes up. A similar situation happened to me about 15yrs ago. A fellow ran a stop sign and passed in front of me from left to right. I skidded and attempted to avoid him, but smashed into his vehicle's right side, just before the right rear wheel-well. Even though the other guy admitted fault, his insurance would cover only 70% and I had to turn it over to my insurance for the remaining 30. A process they called subrogation.
My point is, don't ever assume the other party's insurance will cover all, regardless of the circumstances of the accident.
Did your insurance use subrogation against the other company to cover the 30% or did they pay the 30% on your behalf? Subrogation is when an insurance company goes after another one on your behalf if the other driver's company won't accept fault.
Sadly, when I worked in insurance the company really pressured adjusters to give both parties some fault, even if it was obvious one party was 100% at fault. They basically claimed that unless a car was completely stopped, the driver still had the possibility of "last chance avoidance". This really sucked with claims where the driver was hit head on by a vehicle who crossed over the yellow line, like you are supposed to be able to avoid that last second.
