"Am I an idiot" question....regarding auto accident and insurance

[Bettie]

So, my 17 year old son made a driving error, which caused an accident in December.

I am fully recovered, bills were paid by auto and health insurance. We owed less than 200 dollars at the end of it.

I was fortunate that I was not gravely injured (anyone who suggests a Prius isn't a safe car is wrong, it protected me from worse injury).

Yet, my insurance company keeps calling me and asking if I want to make a pain and suffering claim....against said 17 year old son. He asks me if I want a lawsuit....against my child.

I keep saying no. That is part of what makes insurance more expensive for everyone. I told him no today when he called and that I know that this is his job, but to stop calling.

So, am I an idiot for not signing up for the "free money"?

I think this may be why we're not wealthy...

[Ocelot II]

1. They're looking for a subrogation claim to get some of *their* money back.

[Bettie]

2. Well, they should be honest about that

we've been paying insurance for years (like, over 30 years, a lot of money) and this is the first claim we've made, ever.

[Ms. Toad]

6. That only makes sense if parent and son are insured by different companies.

Otherwise, they are subrogating their claim to themselves.

And, in my experience, they don't ask if I want to sue - they demand information from anyone else who might possibly be liable before they will pay at all. I've had way too many medical claims which were accidents, pure and simple, which they insisted on harassing other innocent parties for. Friends invited my daughter over to ride their horse. The horse literally slipped out from under her so she ended up dropping hard on top of the horse - the hospital wanted to go after the friends to recover for my daughter's chipped ankle. I fell while walking down the sidewalk breaking a rib - they wanted to go after the city. And on and on.

[Ocelot II]

10. Or the insurance the OP is referring to isn't the car insurance but the health insurer's agent,

trying to get some of its payout back from the person who caused the accident, the usual subrogation situation. But it's possible that they were separately insured for auto liability; car insurance for someone that young is expensive, so maybe he had a separate high-risk policy from another company. Otherwise why would the agent try to get the OP to sue her son?

[Bettie]

13. It is actually my insurance company

and my son is under our policy. Everyone who lives in our house is listed on all of the vehicles (and it isn't cheap), we have comprehensive coverage to ensure that if we need it, it's there. Both health and auto paid without a fuss at all, except that I had to get the auto insurance to send a form to the health insurance. It all went much more smoothly than I thought it would...which is why this flummoxed me.

Ah well, he's sending me a letter saying I declined to pursue the pain and suffering thing.

[Ocelot II]

14. That is odd, then.

[Ms. Toad]

15. Health insurance doesn't normally apply to pain and suffering.

It isn't a covered condition. (They are definitely the main offender for physical injuries)

[Submariner]

3. An UBER driver took me home

last August after getting my car T-boned and totaled by a red light runner. Witnesses saw everything and cops said I was 100% not at fault.

When the Uber guy saw my destroyed car, and realized that I said I suffered no injury, and didn't take an ambulance to the hospital, he went totally nuts that a blew the million dollar deal. "You could have cleaned house with an injury settlement".

That was a good education in what's going on in the auto accident scam business raising our rates.

[Bettie]

4. Exactly what I was thinking

This guy has been calling me since January....each time I tell him no, not interested, but he keeps saying "you could get money!" as if that is my primary consideration. I'm happy to be recovered and alive.

ETA: Also, glad you were able to walk away without injury!

[flvegan]

5. Your 17 year old has their own auto insurance/liability policy, rather

than being on your policy? Does this 17 year old live with you?

[Bettie]

7. Nope....he's on our policy

and lives with us.

This is part of the reason I am perplexed by how this all works.

I believe after the first call, when I was in a lot of pain and still not super mobile, my response was "what the actual fuck? Why would I sue my child? Who does that?".

[flvegan]

11. Suing a 17 year old dependent, living at the residence, on the same policy

makes absolutely no sense to me. Maybe that's something in your state, but here in Florida, that makes no real sense.

It might also be just the adjuster needing to "click a box" that the insured didn't wish to pursue any action against the individual "responsible" for the accident, without considering anything else. Wouldn't be the first time for that.

[off-the-clock]

12. Something trump would do. The spread of crazy evil.

But maybe there is a commission involved for the person on the phone.

[Ms. Toad]

8. I keep the pain and suffering in my back pocket, in case I need it as leverage.

When my daughter was little and we were just scraping by (both cash flow and time), a very young driver turned left in front of me and I couldn't stop in time. No one was injured (aside from the freaked out teenager), but because my car was older the repair costs were within $100 of the value of the car.

At the time I had no extra money to replace the car, and no time to go searching for one, so I wanted to keep my car. The insurance company just wanted to total it and be done with it. I told them all I wanted was for my ER visit bills to be paid (just to be checked out, since it was a pretty hard hit), and my car repaired. They insisted it had to be totaled. I threatened to get an attorney involved - and warned then that doing so would cost them more money because I would also make a claim for pain and suffering (the only way to get the attorney's costs covered - and it did re-activate a long-standing back injury). They apparently thought I was bluffing.

$8000 in my pocket, plus a few thousand more for the attorney, and my car repaired - I wonder if they ever regretted their decision not to find $100 to justify not totaling the car (newer tires, upgraded radio, recent major repair, etc.)

[Bettie]

9. Isn't it weird how they are so insistent on weird stuff?

I guess it's all about which line on the spreadsheet it goes on.