E
ElGenio
Guest
What is the name of your state? TX
Mine is lengthy, so please bare with me.
About a month I go, I rear ended a woman. From what I saw, I only broke her right tail light. She got my insurance information and driver license info and we went our seperate ways. A week later she contacts me giving me her estimate of about $1400, which included car rental for 5 days and damages to the vehicle which remain unknown to me. To make a long story short, my insurance, or should I say my mother's insurance, said they wouldn't cover the damages in the accident not because my name wasn't on the insurance, but because my mother had previously signed a form that would exclude me from being covered at all would I ever be in an accident. To briefly explain this previous sentence, my mother took me out of the insurance policy to save well over $1000 every 6 months. Besides saving money, if I were ever in an accident it would be covered by mother's insurance being that I am a third party driver, but in this case, being a third party driver really didn't matter since my mother had signed that form. Now, a month after the accident, the woman I rear-ended is threatning to take me to small claims. It turns out that she didn't wait at all to let the claim go through and paid the damages herself, or maybe it was the insurance. I've got several questions and concerns. 1) What am I to expect if she does go through with the threat (i.e. damages, attorney fees, court fees, length of time dealing with this matter, etc)? 2) Neither of us has any proof of the damages that occured that day, except for my cracked bumper, which brings to mind the possibility that she already had prior damages to her car and this accident would serve as a method of fixing them. This is the only thing that would explain her excessively high estimate for a broken taillight. Can I do anything about this? 3) My mother only speaks spanish. The form that would exlude me from the insurance was in english. Meaning that what my mother had to sign had to be translated to her by the insurance agency. From what my mother tells me, she was told that she had to sign a form "in order to take me out of the insurace policy," and never being told that by signing that form, it would completely exclude me from any type of coverage if I would ever use her vehicles. Can I take any action against the insurance agency? 4) Finally, I'd hate to be the type of person that would cheat somebody from money that is owed to them, so I will not do it. I admit to being at fault, but I still can't except the amount of damage to her vehicle, especially when from what I can remember, the vehicle would probably not even be worth twice the amount of damages. I am currently unemployed since I just finished my freshman year in college and didn't have any oppurtunity to work. Plus, I've got nothing in my name, being that I am only 19 years old. So my question here is, what can I expect to result from all this if she were to take me to court? Could my mother be in trouble in any manner? Would it be worth it to her to take any action at all? and finally, What would be the best advice you can give me in what steps I should take to handle this situation. Thanks alot for reading through all this and I apologize for any unecessary information. Thanks again.
Mine is lengthy, so please bare with me.
About a month I go, I rear ended a woman. From what I saw, I only broke her right tail light. She got my insurance information and driver license info and we went our seperate ways. A week later she contacts me giving me her estimate of about $1400, which included car rental for 5 days and damages to the vehicle which remain unknown to me. To make a long story short, my insurance, or should I say my mother's insurance, said they wouldn't cover the damages in the accident not because my name wasn't on the insurance, but because my mother had previously signed a form that would exclude me from being covered at all would I ever be in an accident. To briefly explain this previous sentence, my mother took me out of the insurance policy to save well over $1000 every 6 months. Besides saving money, if I were ever in an accident it would be covered by mother's insurance being that I am a third party driver, but in this case, being a third party driver really didn't matter since my mother had signed that form. Now, a month after the accident, the woman I rear-ended is threatning to take me to small claims. It turns out that she didn't wait at all to let the claim go through and paid the damages herself, or maybe it was the insurance. I've got several questions and concerns. 1) What am I to expect if she does go through with the threat (i.e. damages, attorney fees, court fees, length of time dealing with this matter, etc)? 2) Neither of us has any proof of the damages that occured that day, except for my cracked bumper, which brings to mind the possibility that she already had prior damages to her car and this accident would serve as a method of fixing them. This is the only thing that would explain her excessively high estimate for a broken taillight. Can I do anything about this? 3) My mother only speaks spanish. The form that would exlude me from the insurance was in english. Meaning that what my mother had to sign had to be translated to her by the insurance agency. From what my mother tells me, she was told that she had to sign a form "in order to take me out of the insurace policy," and never being told that by signing that form, it would completely exclude me from any type of coverage if I would ever use her vehicles. Can I take any action against the insurance agency? 4) Finally, I'd hate to be the type of person that would cheat somebody from money that is owed to them, so I will not do it. I admit to being at fault, but I still can't except the amount of damage to her vehicle, especially when from what I can remember, the vehicle would probably not even be worth twice the amount of damages. I am currently unemployed since I just finished my freshman year in college and didn't have any oppurtunity to work. Plus, I've got nothing in my name, being that I am only 19 years old. So my question here is, what can I expect to result from all this if she were to take me to court? Could my mother be in trouble in any manner? Would it be worth it to her to take any action at all? and finally, What would be the best advice you can give me in what steps I should take to handle this situation. Thanks alot for reading through all this and I apologize for any unecessary information. Thanks again.
