Property Damage - Who is going to pay for my car?
When people are involved in an accident in Kentucky, in addition to having personal injuries from your accident, you might also have other pressing needs like: who is going to take care of getting my car fixed? Generally, personal injury attorneys do not like to get involved in handling property damage claims and leave this up to the client. This leaves many people wondering what their options are.
There are basically two options: 1) Have your own insurance company take care of the property damage or 2) Have the other driver’s insurance company take care of the damage. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options. Hopefully, this, and future blog entries will help those involved in automobile accidents in Kentucky make an informed decision. This entry will describe the plusses and minuses of using your own insurance company to fix your property damages. A future entry will discuss using the other driver’s insurance company to get your car fixed.
Your own insurance company: In order for your own company to help you with the damage to your car, you must have this type of coverage on your policy. Many people have what they think is “full coverage” on their car. However, you must specifically have coverage for “property damage” to your own car in order for your company to assist you with repairing your car after an accident. The advantages to this option are that your own company will be much more responsive to your request to have the car fixed, and this means that in general it will be done more quickly than going through the other driver’s insurance. Another advantage is that, usually, in order to make the claim you simply need to call the agent who sold you the insurance instead of having to track down what insurance the other driver had and going through the entire claims process.
There are disadvantages as well. Most property damage policies include a deductible. Many times this deductible is $500 (although it can be more or less). The deductible is the amount that you must pay towards fixing the damage before your insurance company has to start paying. This means that you must pay the $500 to the body shop before you insurance company pays a dollar. Many people just don’t have this money to spend. Fortunately, at some point in the claims process, if the other driver’s insurance company determines that the other driver was at fault, then they will reimburse your deductible and send you a check. However, this reimbursement process may take several weeks or more than a month.
Hopefully, this entry has answered some of your questions about handling your property damage after an auto accident in Kentucky. Future entries will address the other driver’s insurance paying for your property damage and other topics related to property damage in a personal injury accident. For more information on your options regarding property damage, please contact the experienced attorneys at Bahe Cook Cantley & Jones PLC. While we do not typically handle these types of claims, we realize that this is part of the accident process and are happy to try and answer your questions.
