by chris11 » Sun May 10, 2009 03:47 pm
I honestly thought that the other driver would notify my insurance if they wanted to file a claim. There was no damage to her vehicle, but Geico says that she has hired a laywer and is suing for pain and suffering, and they will not cover me, because they were not notified until 250 days after the accident. They said that her insurance may cover her claim since they will not. We did call the pollice and get a police report at the time of the accident. What can I do?
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 05:00 pm Post Subject:
Call the adjuster and ask them where in the policy it states that you have less then 250 days to notify them of the claim. At _best_ they will tell you that it states you have the responsiblity to inform them of the claim promptly. If they do, ask them how notification changed anything 250 days later. If they cannot show that it changed anything (and it would not) then they should not be denying the claim for late reporting.
Have the issued you a written denial? If not, then they have not denied the claim. Perhaps they told you that they _may_ not cover the loss due to late reporting.
You can also tell them you saw no damage to the vehicle and no complaints if injuries at the time of the accident so you did not see where you needed to report anything.
None the less, they won't be able to deny you coverage for late reporting unless they can show that their rights were affected. Have they issued you a reservations of rights letter? They have 30 days to issue this from when they realize that there is problem with coverage.
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 05:30 pm Post Subject:
Yes, they have issued a written denial.
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 05:33 pm Post Subject:
What is the reason for the denial in the letter? Late reporting? If so, is the policy quote with a specific time or is a specific time frame mentioned?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 02:27 am Post Subject: insurance
I'm very curious, OP..why din't YOU report the accident to your OWN Insurance company? I understand it's now 'after the fact', but,..I'm just wondering if they ( the other Insurance company ) can 'get you' for some kind of fraud. I don't know if they actually can or not,..I'm just 'outting it out there'. Can someone 'enlighten' me of what CAN happen in a case like this?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 03:21 am Post Subject:
I'm not the OP but I can take a guess... the OP did not want to report it as there was no damage seen to either vehicle (I doubt that is true though). That is, why report an at fault accident if nothing will be paid. It's required in the policy to report all accidents but we live in the real world where that does not happen.
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 06:08 am Post Subject:
Hi Tcope, can the insurer impose a time limit for the insured to turn-in the claim?
Yeah, one is required to file the claim at his earliest to help the adjusters get the facts correctly and any delay in doing so would make their job hard. But I'm not aware of any time limit though.
Also, I wonder, why the other driver didn't contact the OP's insurer all this time?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 12:11 pm Post Subject:
Hi Chris111,
It might well be that the other driver didn't report it since there was no apparent damage caused to his vehicle. Later on if any of his pains and sufferings are being identified as the effects of the accident, then I see no reason why he shouldn't pursue it. Again, I don't think I've ever come across any time-limit regarding filing such claims. That's why it becomes interesting for me to know what all are being mentioned in your denial letter. Would you care to share a bit?
Steven
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 03:30 pm Post Subject:
Hi Tcope, can the insurer impose a time limit for the insured to turn-in the claim?
Not that I know of. I've never seen a policy that gives such a time limit for "late reporting". They usually state that the insured needs to report the accident "as soon as possible" but 1) if there is no damage, is there a "accident"? and 2) what is "as soon as possible"?. What the carrier would need to show is that the late report caused them some harm. Without this the clause (request to report as soon as possible) makes no difference. If the carrier cannot show that they were harmed in any way by the late report then that stipulation in the policy does not apply. Also, it's not as simple as the carrier say if they knew about it the person would not have obtained an attorney or the claim would have been less. Their burden of showing they were harmed is _much_ greater then just an assumption. In about every case, a denial for late reporting is just not going to hold up in court. The insured also then takes on the _huge_ risk of a Bad Faith claim. In the OP's case what the injured person's attorney should do is either refer the OP to a Bad Faith attorney now (so that the injured parties attorney can collect from the OP's carrier and throw a few bucks to the Bad Faith attorney) or file suit against the OP, win, and then refer the OP to a Bad Faith attorney to pursue a Bad Faith claim against the OP's carrier (the Bad Faith attorney then takes a percentage of the Bad Faith settlement).Really what I'm saying is if the carrier denied the claim for late reporting they are really making a bad decision.
If the OP wants to post _ exactly _ what the denial is for then I can post some more info.
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 05:21 pm Post Subject:
Ask the reason of denial.
The OP has stated that a written denial was already sent out. This contains the information as to why it was denied.r u waiting for some miracle to happen?
The claim has already been reported... so the OP is not "waiting" for anything. The OP wanted to know what he/she could do as the claim has been denied.Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 09:35 pm Post Subject:
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