Motor Vehicle Accident And Insurance
Graham McKenzie is the content syndication coordinator for Carinsurancesa.co.za, a leading South African car insurance portal. For more information visit: http://www.carinsurancesa.co.za
Many a times, we land up in a situation where have just met with a motor-vehicle accident and realize that the party at fault does not even have an insurance. If you find yourself in such a situation, there is no need to panic as a few steps as discussed below can make your life easier.
The first and foremost step in case of an accident where the opposite party does not have insurance is to turn to your own motor insurance provider. Your insurer is unlikely to increase your rates, if the accident took place because of the negligence of other party. Many insurers send a representative for inspection of your vehicle, who would then adjust your claims accordingly. However, some of the insurers require you to contact an authorized agent for motor vehicle repair, mostly a repair shop to give an estimate. In either case, the costs for repair of your vehicle will be paid for by the company. This payment is less by the deductible for your insurance coverage and more the deductible, cheaper is the insurance. The general deductible is around $500; however, some people have deductibles as high as $1000 while some have pretty low deductible of $100 to $250.
Once the vehicle has been restored to its original shape, the insurance company gets the authority to exercise its right of subrogation. Under this process, the insurance company, after paying you the insurance amount can actually ask for the money spent on repairs from the defaulting party. This process does not entail a legal battle. However, some people choose the legal path wherein you have to appear before the court of law and give the details of the accident. Insurance companies generally try to reclaim the deductible from the same process. However, more often than not, subrogation is not an easy process as it becomes difficult for the insurer to claim money from the offender, who did not have insurance in the first place. In such cases, more often than not the other party also lacks sufficient monetary resources to make contribution under the scheme of subrogation. The person might not even have other assets to claim from. However, the mechanism has proved to be successful at a number of occasions.
The subsequent step then would be to claim for uninsured motorist benefits, in case you were injured in the accident. These benefits are made available to the customers on their automobile insurance policy. The advantage of this scheme is that you become eligible for receiving insurance amount from your company notwithstanding the fact that you were hurt by the negligence of a driver, who did not have a valid automobile insurance at the time of accident. This benefit under the uninsured motorist benefit scheme would include any kind of hurt and pain or even the lost wages and mesne profits that you have suffered due to the accident. This benefit has been suggested to all drivers as it is not only cheap but also gives you sufficient coverage when needed the most.
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