Car Insurance Damage Limitations? Rentals?

[GJ4E-]

Hi, I really couldn't find the answers to this question online so I thought of going here. This goes for people who have experienced dealing with car insurance companies after going through an accident. So the story goes: I park my car outside my house in the morning and by night time my car is wrecked. Turns out my neighbor backed up into my car with a pick up truck, and apparently she hit 2 other cars as well. We exchanged insurance and id's, so I have the drivers information down. (Scroll down to see direct questions and pictures of my car)

 

This is the part where I'm stuck in: their insurance company is saying that there are limitations to to the total cost of the damages, so I might not even get fully payed off the damages! My damages are well over $1000, since it's BMW and parts for my car are way overpriced. So basically, since I wasn't the only person that got hit, the driver gets a limitation on how much she can pay in total. Is that even legal? I feel like I'm not going to get a fair price.

 

Also, i'm getting various of different opinions on what I should do about rentals. After doing some research, car insurance companies try to save as much money possible. The first targets are: car rentals. I actually had to shut down a job offer since my car is deemed unsafe to drive. I also have night classes in college so I have to share a car with my mom who works full time, which complicates sharing the car at the right times. I need to rent a car and when I brought it up to the other person's insurance, they went back to the first point. That since I wasn't the only car involved, they're saying that I have to go to my own insurance when clearly the other person's insurance should be the one's providing. Are they trying to rip me off from rentals? Should I demand rentals and threaten to sue?

 

Questions: Since there's more than one car involved, do car insurance companies have the right to limit damage costs? Does this give the car insurance the right to deny me rentals?

 

[damon8r351]

Insurance coverage only covers a certain dollar amount of property damage per incident before the costs devolve to the person found to be at fault. For instance, my policy covers up to $25,000 worth of property damage to vehicles other than my own. So if I have an incident that causes more than $25,000 worth of property damage, my insurance will only cover the $25,000 and the remainder of the costs has to be settled between myself and the other people involved. So your neighbor probably caused more damage than her policy can cover divided over the other cars. If she's found to be at fault, you can probably take her to court if she refuses to work something out. That is, if you don't mind the sheer pain in the ass of taking someone to court. As for rentals, insurance covers property damage to other cars and bodily injuries to other motorists, it doesn't typically cover rental costs for other motorists. If you want insurance to cover rental costs, that's covered in the part of your own policy that applies to your car, yourself, and your passengers. And it's actually an optional thing, so you need to check your own policy to see if it's even in there. Also, rental car coverage only extends to a certain dollar amount, if you exceed the coverage then it comes out of your pocket. What I'd recommend is calling your own insurance company to find out what you can do.

Edited February 25, 2016 by damon8r351

[Quikdrawjoe]

You should remove the license plate numbers from your pictures.

 

California minimums:

 

$15,000 for bodily injury to one person in an accident
$30,000 for bodily injury to more than one person in an accident
$5,000 for property damage resulting from an accident

 

So she has to be covered for at least $5,000 worth of property damages. Hopefully, she has higher coverage (like Damon is covered for $25,000) which means it would be more likely her insurance would be able to cover all three cars that were damaged.  You should contact your insurance company about the accident and they'll handle the remuneration from her.  For example, I was in a crash last year (got rear ended at a stop sign). I called my insurance company and the other driver called his.  We had the option of paying our deductible and having our taken immediately to get fixed or waiting for his insurance company (since he was at fault) to sort it out.  We decided to wait so our car was towed to an auto body shop and we got a rental car through our insurance company (covered by our insurance as an additional option I had chosen we bought the policy).  Once the car was fixed his insurance company was billed.  If we had chosen to pay the deductible we would have received a check from his insurance company our maybe ours to reimburse us (since he was at fault).  

 

tl;dr  Avoid talking to other people's insurance companies, let your insurance handle it.  Rental car is an option when buying a policy and is never covered by the other person.