16 year-old and wreck

[luvbskts]

My state=Indiana

My son was driving home from swim practice about 5:45. He slowed for the RR tracks and proceeded on. A 17 year-old was stopped at the stop sign. He said "I thought I could beat him" and tried to get acrossed the intersection before my son hit him. Clearly, he was wrong. My son hit his 89 Civic right behind the passenger front door. My son drives a 98 Concorde. My son pushed the other kid's car about 90 degrees. No one was injured. My son's car suffered about 1500.00 damage.
When we got there, the other kid's mother was arguing with the police that my son had to have been speeding. I'm questioning that. Not only was there minimal damage, the airbags did not deploy nor was the bumper even pushed in. The police also agreed that he was not speeding.
The policeman asked us to leave because he said that the other party was not going to like what he was about to tell them. Right after Scott hit him, the driver's young passenger, about 9, got out of the car calling my son all sorts of names. (not a smart kid, my son is 6ft 200 lbs and had 4 of his football/swimming friends stop by to make sure he was ok)
We received a call from their adjuster and then heard nothing back. We received a call from our insurance co, which I felt was odd since our agent wasn't going to contact them since it was reported that it was the other kid's fault-failure to yield the right of way.
Well, the other insurance co. is saying since Scott hit this kid in the center of the car, he's 20% to blame. I'm arguing that. The Concorde is almost as wide as the Civic is long, it wouldn't have mattered where he hit him, it was going to be the whole side.
My question is...if they won't budge and we end up paying the 20%, can we then sue the parents of this kid in small claims court?

[luvbskts]

Originally Posted by luvbskts

My state=Indiana

My son was driving home from swim practice about 5:45. He slowed for the RR tracks and proceeded on. A 17 year-old was stopped at the stop sign. He said "I thought I could beat him" and tried to get acrossed the intersection before my son hit him. Clearly, he was wrong. My son hit his 89 Civic right behind the passenger front door. My son drives a 98 Concorde. My son pushed the other kid's car about 90 degrees. No one was injured. My son's car suffered about 1500.00 damage.
When we got there, the other kid's mother was arguing with the police that my son had to have been speeding. I'm questioning that. Not only was there minimal damage, the airbags did not deploy nor was the bumper even pushed in. The police also agreed that he was not speeding.
The policeman asked us to leave because he said that the other party was not going to like what he was about to tell them. Right after Scott hit him, the driver's young passenger, about 9, got out of the car calling my son all sorts of names. (not a smart kid, my son is 6ft 200 lbs and had 4 of his football/swimming friends stop by to make sure he was ok)
We received a call from their adjuster and then heard nothing back. We received a call from our insurance co, which I felt was odd since our agent wasn't going to contact them since it was reported that it was the other kid's fault-failure to yield the right of way.
Well, the other insurance co. is saying since Scott hit this kid in the center of the car, he's 20% to blame. I'm arguing that. The Concorde is almost as wide as the Civic is long, it wouldn't have mattered where he hit him, it was going to be the whole side.
My question is...if they won't budge and we end up paying the 20%, can we then sue the parents of this kid in small claims court?

any help would be appreciated.

[GrandmaOH]

What does your insurance company say about your son being 20% responsible?

[luvbskts]

Originally Posted by GrandmaOH

What does your insurance company say about your son being 20% responsible?

Our agent says that she's never heard of anything like that. She said that normally if the party is found to be over 50% at fault that they pay 100%. The adjuster from our company is saying that this is the way it is and we can appeal but he doesn't feel it would do us any good. He ironically is friends with the adjuster from the other insurance company. We called our agent yesterday and asked about that. She said that our adjuster should've removed himself from this case. She said that she was going to do some checking to see what could be done.

Neither insurance company has looked at our car or taken pictures. I think it's such a low dollar amount that they just don't care.

[teflon_jones]

Don't accept the other insurance company's decision and file suit against the other driver in small claims court.