Why would an auto insurance company delay a ruling in an issue of coverage for their policy holder who was liable for a car accident? It has been several weeks since the “supposed” policy holder hit my car and the insurance company says it is still doing an investigation regarding an issue of coverage. The police report already ruled that their policy holder was liable for the accident 100%; there were injuries involved. I have uninsured motorist coverage, but I cannot move forward in terms of closing this until the other party’s insurance company verifies whether or not this person was covered at the time of the accident. I thought having computers was supposed to speed up the process. What benefit would an insurance company have in delaying the ruling?
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Go to site below and you will find all rules and laws and stuff you ever need. I myself get help from there many times.
the reason for delay can be for many reasons.
car not on policy
driver not on policy
policy either lapsed or not covered on the date of the accident.
if there is no coverage, it does not matter if the other guy is at fault since if no coverage, no payment is made; the 1st thing an adjuster does is verify coverage. once that is confirmed, they verify liability. if both confirmed, they will pay for your car damages and injuries that are owed.
if the other company denys coverage, then your uninsured coverage on your policy will cover you for your injuries and depending on your state and your policy may cover for your auto if you have uninsured property damage also. if not, then if you have collision, would be paid under collision.
another reason for the delay is that they have a contract with the other guy and have a duty to investigate this fully, otherwise if they dont, the other guy can sue the insurance company for bad faith. and believe me bad faith is like punitive damages and it pays big, so they wont deny until they cross all their “i”s and “t”s.
you on the other hand have no contract with them and they only owe you if they determine there was coverage on the policy and find the other guy at fault.
another consideration is that the police to not determine fault. the insurance company deems who is at fault, since the insurance company will be the one to pay if they cover this loss.
good luck
They don’t make rulings, they have “findings”. If they aren’t making the ‘finding’, that means they’re missing some information, or something is unclear.
Their policyholder isn’t liable, until a judge says they are, or until they accept liability. Police do NOT determine fault – they only offer an opinion.
If they say there’s an issue of coverage, there are several reasons why they still wouldn’t pay out, even if that car was at fault. Some of them are: The driver is an uninsured driver on the policy; the vehicle is an unlisted vehicle on the policy; the vehicle isn’t owned by the person who holds the policy.
The other person’s insurance company has NO duty of good faith towards you. If you’re in a rush to get this covered, put the claim through on your own policy.
Since you know there’s a problem (you just don’t know what it is), I’d strongly suggest, in the end, this is NOT going to end up being a covered claim, and you’re going to have to sue the owner of the car, and the driver of the car, in order to see any money.
For collision, file the claim under your policy. For uninsured motorist, you’re going to have to wait a while – meanwhile, file it under your pip or medical payments.
If it makes you feel better, injury claims are NEVER settled within two weeks – or even four or eight weeks. So you’re WAY early on looking to close. They won’t close ANYTHING until after all the medical and therapy bills are in, and the healing has gone as far as it can.
There’s no benefit to the insurance company, delaying anything – but two weeks isn’t really a delay here.