Unethical Practice

[Malibu]

We live in NY and a claim was filed by our neighbor stating we hit her parked car, which we did not, however to be on the safe side, we notified our insurance company of a possible claim and that the damages to their vehicle was from a previous DWI accident the neighbor had.
A few weeks later, our insurance company's vehicle was seen at this residence, which tells us they did indeed file a claim. When the adjuster inspected their car, we "assumed"
the adjuster would come and speak to us also, inspect our
vehicle for damage. We heard nothing from our insurance company, we called for days, our calls ignored and unanswered. Finally, we did manage to talk with the adjuster, to our surprise she was rude, nasty, and told us based on the "problems we were having with our neighbors, we did indeed hit their vehicle" and that the neighbors have a video tape of this, which is enough for her to settle the claim with them. We did not hit their car, the video tape is bogas we know this, we have not seen it to dispute, we have not been told anything about the settlement at all..is this the practice of insurance companys?

 

[racer72]

You made a couple of mistakes. You should have never notified your insurance company, if you did nothing wrong, they had no reason to be notified. And when the agent became rude, you should have told them you will take your business elsewhere. You should have let your neighbor call the police and file a report if she felt you caused the damage. The police would have investigated and if they found you did not cause the damage, case closed. But by calling your agent, you all but admitted guilt. You need to contact your agent and ask them what proof they have that you caused the damage. Do not accept "the neighbor is having problems with you" as an excuse, it is not one. Tell them if they can not provide positive proof, you wish to challenge the claim. You agent is suppose to work for you, not against you. Then I would go looking for another insurance company.

 

[Malibu]

Re: Racer72

Thank you Racer72 for your quick response.
The mistakes you noted..first...they did call the police and claimed a hit and run occured. Upon our arrival home
a few minutes later, a police officer was at the home of
our neighbor. The officer told us that we hit their car,
we said we didn't, the officer then said she was shown a
video tape(I mentioned this was bogas, because it was)and
that their 16 yr. old son saw us hit it, that was enough
for the officer, however..no inspection of either vehicle
was made by the officer, a report was given to us, all it
stated was the date, the names of the parties involved, the
witness's name(just theirs, I was a witness also, but that evidently didn't count)and that was all that was on that piece of paper. This is why we went to our insurance company, to notify them that we have no doubt these people would file a claim even though we did not hit their car.
As for the insurance adjuster, we did tell her following
her rude behavior we will find another company, her reply was, this is your choice, but we are still paying the claim.