Fender Bender

Got into a fender bender in parking lot two days ago in raining Sacramento.
After backing out of my spot and getting ready leave, truck on other side of lane backed into my bumper.
I think he was also trying to run away and I caught up and kept honking at him and he reparked.
He said he thought he hit the curb and didn't realize he hit my car.

Damage looks like just cosmetics, and might be able to pop it back out.
I have Geico and he has Farmers, and not sure how to resolve with insurance company.
Do I work through my Geico, or only with his Farmer's insurance?

Sorry couldn't figure out how to post photo, but here's a link to it.


https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lMiHSNMJ6rV94UEVUIm8RNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

If you want it repaired right away, use your insurance and pay the deductible. You'll get it back once the other guy's insurance agrees to accept their party at fault.

The problem with this situation is that unless there is independent witness info to say that you backed up first and had shifted out of reverse gear at the time of impact, or the other guy admits he was at fault, you could be held 50% at fault.

RonDawg said:

If you want it repaired right away, use your insurance and pay the deductible. You'll get it back once the other guy's insurance agrees to accept their party at fault.

The problem with this situation is that unless there is independent witness info to say that you backed up first and had shifted out of reverse gear at the time of impact, or the other guy admits he was at fault, you could be held 50% at fault.

Click to expand...

When something similar happenned to me I was hit with the 50% because "parkings are very ambiguous about the flow of traffic".

I'd probably first check with one of the body shops around that do work on the cheap if they can fix it, last time it costed me about 120$, which is much less then increase in rate from having a claim.

Nuitari said:

When something similar happenned to me I was hit with the 50% because "parkings are very ambiguous about the flow of traffic".

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It's not so much that, but the fact that both parties were backing up at the time, and without an independent witness (or admission by one of the parties) it is not automatically clear would be at fault.

RonDawg said:

Nuitari said:

When something similar happenned to me I was hit with the 50% because "parkings are very ambiguous about the flow of traffic".

Click to expand...

It's not so much that, but the fact that both parties were backing up at the time, and without an independent witness (or admission by one of the parties) it is not automatically clear would be at fault.

Click to expand...

Darn it, he admitted fault at the time, and I should've recorded video with my phone.
I thought it would be easy to resolve since at the time he admitted fault and so I didn't think much of it.
Now I see that it's not that clear cut, and my wife won't be happy about that.
Hopefully he will admit to it again.
My collision deductible is $500 so might not be worth it to go through insurance.
Thank you for the advice, and will post update.

My car was hit at the exact same spot(but on the left side) during my summer vacation (in June) and the car was parked at the company's parking lot. The unknown coworker left a note. When I contacted him, he sent me pictures he took and it looked just same as yours. However the extreme heat in Sacramento popped that right back by the time I was back and it was barely noticeable after clean up, except some chipped paint spots and a minor thin horizontal line in the center of the dent. The estimated quote from the insurance was $700, which only include repair to the bumper and localized repaint. The adjuster refused to replace it with a new bumper and repair it proper way, I ends up just live with that minor defect and cashed the insurance check. The wax cleaned up most of the marks/scratches and the plastic tap are easy to push back, plus some touch up paint to fill the scrapped off spots.

If it ends up you'll have to pay for it, you might be able to wait until the summer (when the heat is in 100s) to see what happen or push back manually. Or maybe the heat gun can help if you can't wait that long, but I think you'll have to be careful. Because it is cold now and the plastic is less flexible. Just my 2 cents ...

Update on my fender bender:
My claim with the other party was denied.
It turns out that the parking lane was a one way lane, and I backed out the wrong way.

Basically, the other party's claims agent assessed that if I hadn't backed out the wrong way,
I wouldn't have been there for the other driver to hit me.
So as a result of me backing out the wrong way, it caused him to hit me.

I talked to my own homeowner's insurance agent, with is with Farmers.
And he said they incorrectly reviewed my claim.
That if you establish your space in the driveway lane then parked cars must 1st yield before backing out of the parking space.

So I will talk to my Geico claims agent and see what happens.

Without witnesses insurance usually assigns fault in a parking lot 50-50%. Years ago a kid cut through a McDonalds parking lot as I was backing up. Several years later I got a check for half of my damages.