State Farm Insurance Demands Reimbursement From Toyota For Damage Caused By Sudden Unintended Acceleration
State Farm Insurance, and other insurance companies, are in a unique position when it comes to recognizing trends and patterns regarding car wrecks. As one of the biggest, if not the biggest, auto insurers in the country, State Farm handles an enormous amount of claims related to crashes, including property damage and injuries to persons. Estimates are that the amounts involved for all insurance claims could run into the tens of millions of dollars.
Apparently, they began to take notice as early as 2007 that sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) could be the cause of many of the crashes involved in its claims. This is important because if a car manufacturer is at fault for the crash, and not the State Farm insured, then the car manufacturer is responsible for the damage caused to the vehicle, property and/or persons who State Farm's insured hit seemingly because of his or her negligence. If the car manufacturer is at fault, then State Farm would not be responsible for paying for the damage.
State Farm was suspicious that SUA was causing some of the crashes involved in claims involving its insureds, it paid out on those claims, and now they want reimbursement from Toyota, which they are alleging is the true at fault party and therefore, responsible for the crashes and resulting damage.
When State Farm initially demanded reimbursement in 2007, it sent a copy of its letter to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA replied stating that they had looked into these complaints already and closed its investigation.
This could have an effect on consumers in a couple different ways. First, if insurance companies are reimbursed by Toyota, their insureds would be entitled to have any deductibles paid returned to them. Second, if the insurance companies cannot get the money back from Toyota, drivers of Toyota vehicles could face higher costs for insurance.
