Help: Legal Action for Insurance Liability

[A12]

Hey folks,

I'm trying to get some help as to where and how I could get started with implementing legal action for my accident case. I was involved in an accident about 1 month ago that was clearly NOT my fault. The other driver involved in the accident at the scene of the crime ADMITTED fault. However, once it went to insurance, stories happened to just change and now their insurance company GEICO is waiting on a witness so that they can resolve the liability issue. I told their representative it doesn't take a month to get in contact with someone and their response was that they can't resolve the liability issue until they have spoken to "this witness."
I've been driving my friends car for the past month and I'm fed up with it. Does anyone have experience as to what I can currently do to expedite this process? I am ready to hire a lawyer if that's the only way I can get this thing resolved.

Thanks,
Andrew

[MX5bob]

Hey folks,

I'm trying to get some help as to where and how I could get started with implementing legal action for my accident case. I was involved in an accident about 1 month ago that was clearly NOT my fault. The other driver involved in the accident at the scene of the crime ADMITTED fault. However, once it went to insurance, stories happened to just change and now their insurance company GEICO is waiting on a witness so that they can resolve the liability issue. I told their representative it doesn't take a month to get in contact with someone and their response was that they can't resolve the liability issue until they have spoken to "this witness."
I've been driving my friends car for the past month and I'm fed up with it. Does anyone have experience as to what I can currently do to expedite this process? I am ready to hire a lawyer if that's the only way I can get this thing resolved.

Thanks,
Andrew

Where's your insurance company? Are they of no help at all?

When you speak to the lizards at Geico, be sure to take down full names, dates, times. You may need to round up your own witnesses, if possible. If the person at fault and his insurer are trying to weasel out of this, then you probably do need a lawyer.

And don't throw the word "crime" around too much, even if the police cited the other person. Did they?

[froggy47]

Hey folks,

I'm trying to get some help as to where and how I could get started with implementing legal action for my accident case. I was involved in an accident about 1 month ago that was clearly NOT my fault. The other driver involved in the accident at the scene of the crime ADMITTED fault. However, once it went to insurance, stories happened to just change and now their insurance company GEICO is waiting on a witness so that they can resolve the liability issue. I told their representative it doesn't take a month to get in contact with someone and their response was that they can't resolve the liability issue until they have spoken to "this witness."
I've been driving my friends car for the past month and I'm fed up with it. Does anyone have experience as to what I can currently do to expedite this process? I am ready to hire a lawyer if that's the only way I can get this thing resolved.

Thanks,
Andrew

I have been thru this a few times & here is my 2 cents. Use YOUR insurance company to do the battle. You may have to bug them, prod them, annoy them, do it in a nice professional, factual way.

Sure you can pour money into a lawyers bank account to "scare them" or "get the bastards".

At the end of the day you will be poorer by that amount & probably end up with the same settlement.

Your insurance company will not reimburse u 4 the lawyer fees.

Document with facts, pictures, drawings, write down your memory of the event, words exchanged.

Find the witness, if u can.

If I witness an accident, I usually give my business card to the "not at fault" party in the hope that "What goes around, comes around"

Good luck.

[itrbruce]

I realize it is a little late now for this advice... but I will give it anyway.

After you are involved in an accident that is not your fault:
1) If the other party(s) admits it was their fault get them to write it down and sign it; they will never be more amenable to confessing their guilt than right there and then.
2) Go around to any/all the bystanders that you are able to talk to and get their name, phone #, and brief description of what they thought they saw. Eye witnesses can be fickle; they can change their minds, can think they saw something that didn't actually happen, etc. etc. So having as many as you can gives you the choice to use the ones that will help you and skip the others.
3) Try to get documentation (signed statement, etc.) of how many people were in all of the cars; get their names and numbers and have the other people at least sign something to that effect. You don't want people with injuries that weren't even there to make claims against you and you don't want the other driver to come up with a witness on his side that wasn't present.
4) If you can't get the person at fault to put it in writing and/or something seems fishy try to get the police to come and make a report. Remember that if anyone is injured (or dies) you MUST call the police to come and take a report.

Regarding 1&4, in one case I was involved in, I think the other person involved in the crash had some alcohol in him and so was very willing to write down that he was admitting fault as opposed to having the police come by and take an incident report.

[Frank S]

The same situation happened to my wife, twice: the red-light runner apologized profusely at the scene, but told their insurance companies it was the other way around. My wife is practically incapable of misrepresenting the truth, and even less able to understand how someone can change their story like that.

In both instances it became a "She said - she said" standoff, and the insurance companies decided each would pay for its own client's damages. I was angry that no fault was found, and told everyone in our insurance company's hierarchy about it.

The bottom line was, "It's the bottom line: much less expensive than to mess with investigations, witnesses, lawyers, courts."

I still get hot under the collar when I think about it.

Outcomes didn't affect our insurance rates.

Frank S