car accident Archives — Beating Broke

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to travel with our then three-year-old to visit my alma mater. We were driving around, seeing the sites when we were rear-ended. The driver, a man in his thirties like us, was apologetic and gave us his license, name, and number. And then he said that he wanted to pay for the damages himself, bypassing auto insurance.

Our Experience Bypassing Auto Insurance

I don’t know the details of why this man wanted to bypass auto insurance. I assumed he already had some claims on his insurance and didn’t want to add more. Not only would that raise the price of his insurance, but if he had several claims on his insurance in a short time, his insurance company might drop his coverage.

My husband and I lived five hours from my alma mater, so all communication was done via phone.

Getting an Estimate

I went to a local repair shop and got an estimate for the damage. The total came to $1,462. I got a copy of the receipt and sent it to the man who hit us.

He didn’t ask for a second opinion. He accepted the quote and promptly sent me a check. However, when I received the payment, he had transversed his numbers and sent us $1,642, $180 more than the estimate.

I notified him about the overpayment, but he didn’t want to hassle with anything. He told me to keep the extra money. At this point, I think he just wanted to get the repair done.

We Were Lucky

Looking back, the man who rear-ended us was lucky because my husband and I are honest. I knew that the man was trusting us, so I went to a shop we had used for repairs before and that I trusted. I didn’t try to milk the man for more money.

We were lucky because the man who hit us was motivated to keep this accident off his insurance record and get the process over and done with. He paid us promptly.

Would I Do It Again?

Would I bypass auto insurance again? It depends. I recognize that I could have had an issue with the man not paying, but I didn’t. He was honest.

Still, when you bypass auto insurance, you take a risk. If I just had a minor fender bender, I may take that risk again. However, I would write down the other driver’s auto insurance company and policy number, so I would have recourse if he failed to pay.

If the accident was more than a fender bender, no, I would not bypass auto insurance. The repair cost would likely be higher than a thousand dollars, and I wouldn’t want to risk losing that much money. Also, a more significant accident would require calling the police. Then an insurance claim would need to be filed.

Have you ever bypassed auto insurance? If so, what was your experience?

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MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Unfortunately, losing an engine in the one car wasn’t the end of our car trouble. It was, by far, the worst of our car trouble, but, certainly not the end.

Because the engine in the other car was gone, we are down to just the one car. We’re carpooling. For people with office jobs, carpooling isn’t such a big deal. For us, it’s a bit of a problem. In order to do her job at her business, my wife needs a car to transport her clients as well as to meet her clients at their job sites or for job interviews. Not having a car is not an option for her. Because the company is still very young, they don’t have the financial ability to have a company car. Which means that they have to use their personal cars.

So, everyday, we have to coordinate my getting to work, the kids getting to daycare, and then the reverse of that at the end of the day. Still not a huge deal, right? Until you consider that my wife’s job isn’t just a 8-5 sort of job. As the owner of the business, there are meetings and things that she has to attend out of town, and after hours. Just in the first week that we were doing this, she’s had to be late to meetings so that she could leave long enough to pick up the kids, then me, and then drop us off at the curb in front of our house. An inconvenience at the least. Luckily, everyone has been pretty understanding so far. But, the longer we are without that second car, the more chance there is that she’ll have to be late to or miss a meeting with someone who won’t be so understanding. And if that happens, it means lost work for her and the company, which means lost revenue.

But, I’ve gotten off on a bit of tangent.

Because we have an increasing need to use the second car, we needed to put new tires on it. We’ve known that it would need the tires, but because it was the car that I was driving to work and back, it wasn’t a priority. I drive less than a mile total each day, so dealing with bad tires wasn’t a big deal. Now, with my wife driving the car every day and putting more mile on it in a day than I normally did in a month, the tires became a big deal. Especially in the dead of winter. So, new tires it was. A planned expense, but a rushed one that came before we were truly prepared to do it.

To finish it all off, the day after we put the new tires on the car, my wife came home to pick up a couple of things for a meeting she had later in the day. The neighbor across the street had a friend come and pick her up for an appointment, and, while backing out of the neighbors driveway, backed right into the side of the car. The better part of the drivers side door is now concave, and the drivers side mirror is shattered. Luckily, the other driver has insurance, so we’re hoping that it will pick up the damages. But, because the other car is in the shop until further notice, we’ll have to wait until it gets out to send the other one in for repairs. And we’ll be carpooling still. Just in the other car.

And that, my friends, is our January in cars. Here’s hoping for a less turbulent February. I’d say a less turbulent 2011, but I don’t want to jinx it…

photo credit: majcher

Shane Ede

I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.

You can also connect with me personally at Novelnaut, Thatedeguy, Shane Ede, and my personal Twitter.