Wrecks and illegals- don't mix.Follow

What did the police on the scene say?

You did call the police onto the scene of the accident, right? They should have done something right there and then considering that he was driving without a license or insurance. Anyway, that sucks. The illegal part is secondary though -- there's plenty enough native born drivers without insurance or valid licenses. Which is all your insurance company cares about, anyway.

Well, duh. You were cutting into his beatin' time.

What state are you in and what kind of insurance do you have? If you have "full insurance", your insurance should cover you for anything that happens including being hit by an uninsured motorist. If you are in a state with a "no-fault" insurance system, then it doesn't matter. Your insurance pays for your vehical regardless of fault and they settle the payment stuff on the backend (ie: you don't have to deal with it either way).

Be aware that insurance companies will attempt to ***** you if you let them. Make sure you file your claim with them. Don't let them talk you into signing off on something that is anything less then full payment for repairs to your car. I've known a couple people who've had to sue their own insurance companies to force them to pay up. You'll win, but sometimes they'll make you go through the time and effort just because they can...

You forgot to add "Then raise your rates at least 50% and say it's not because you were in an accident, it's just the way it is."


Also, don't insurance companies go through and just deny claims randomly, hoping that the claimer doesn't re-file, even if it was a legitimate claim? Or is that just Medical?

I hate this no fault system... at least in michigan... it's getting out of hand. I was 18 when I got my car, in 2001, it was a 86 Honda Accord (nice car... small but good mileage). The car cost me 400 dollars to buy, then about 400 to get it running well. (Muffler, Alternator, few other things).

I had PLPD (Personal Liability and Property Damage). It doesn't cover any damage done to me or my things, it basically just says "Yes, I have insurance, but it doesn't do anything, since your insurance pays for all your damages anyway).

Actually, I think if you fight it, you can get like... 200-400 dollars if you total your car, but ya, not much.

By the time I got fed up with my insurance company, I was paying 700 dollars every 6 months for this. 1400 dollars a year on insurance that did NOTHING. The car wasn't even worth that much. They then said "We'll be raising your rates even more!!" to which I said... Goodbye.

I had zero tickets, not even a parking ticket. I was in college, with over a 3.5 GPA. Never been in an accident at all, never been pulled over or even looked at funny by a cop.

I found a smaller company, that is currently insuring 3 cars for me, for 2400 a year, and one is nearly full coverage. Until of course, they raise the rates too for no reason. They started out at about 1500 a year.

Again. It depends on the laws of the state you are in. Most states with a no-fault insurance system also have limits with regards to how much/often they can raise your rates. I know that in California, you can't have your rates raised after one accident. They'll nail you on the second one though, but that's good incentive to be a defensive driver...



Insurance always costs more when you're in the 18-25 bracket. Unfortunately, you're paying for the average driving skill of people in that range, not just yourself. It's always been that way. It has nothing to do with no-fault.

Also. It's not that your insurance "does nothing". It prevents you from being sued for damages should you cause an accident. A lot of people tend to forget that insurance is primarily designed to protect you from lawsuits, not to fix your own stuff. This is (or can be) one of the benefits of a no-fault system. It means that your stuff gets paid for regardless of who's fault it was. Under a normal system, your car only gets fixed if either you paid extra to cover your own car *or* the accident was the other guys fault and he had coverage. If not, you had to sue for damages and hope for the best (and that was always messy).

While I'm also not a huge fan of no-fault, it's not for the costs involved. The "problem" occured when states began requiring auto insurance of all drivers. Previously, you could decide to have insurance or not. If you wanted to take the risk that you'd not cause an accident and end up having to pay for someone's damages, you could choose not to buy insurance. As a result, insurance costs were based directly off the individual involved. Once state laws mandating insurance got involved, this all changed. Now, if you were a law abiding citizen, you had to buy insurance. This both increased the number of people covered but *also* increased the rate at which claims were made. Lots of people would choose to just pay for their own damages rather then make a claim under the previous system simply to avoid dealing with the companies. Now, everyone felt that since they were legally required to pay for insurance, they'd make sure to make a claim anytime they were in a minor fender bender. This in turn resulted in an increase in costs and legal actions by and against insurance companies. No-fault systems are designed to reduce the legal actions, so that a greater percentage of the money in the whole insurance system goes towards paying for damages rather then paying for litigation.


It's not an ideal solution, but once you decide to mandate insurance for all drivers, it's a relatively unavoidable result. No-fault under those conditions does reduce the end cost to the consumer.



Again. You have to remember that you're not paying insurance on *your* car. You're paying based on an average amount you might cause in damages to someone else. So yeah. Even though your own car is maybe worth a few hundred bucks, they're going to charge you much more for insurance. It has nothing to do with your own vehicle's value, but rather with the age bracket you are in and the statistical likelyhood you'll cause X amount of monetary damages over Y amount of time.

That's pretty weird that your rates keep going up as you get older, and with nothing on your record. In Pennsylvania my wife and I get our rates lowered every 6 months or so it seems. We pay 2700 a year for two late model cars and my motorcycle with full coverage on them all. My wife is 21 and I am 23, I do not know if me having a Class A CDL license makes any difference or not but I like how our insurance works.

Edited, Jan 3rd 2007 1:00am by jegzus