Should I call my auto insurance? (only my car, only liability coverage)

March 11, 2019 12:41 PM

After a car accident, I foolishly called my (liability only) insurance and started filing a claim. Should I follow up with them on the claim?

I was recently in a car accident.

Fortunately, no other cars involved, only my car was damaged. Unfortunately, it was totaled (my personal assessment). It was towed to a junk yard and I signed over the title to the yard. It was old, wasn't worth much, it was the extra "beater" car anyway, and I felt it was too damaged to be worth fixing.

When the highway patrol stopped by in the aftermath of the accident, they told me to call my insurance to get help with a rental (I was far from home). I kinda knew better, but I was a bit dazed, took the advice, and was basically laughed at on the phone by my insurance. I have liability coverage only, so they weren't going to help me with anything.

I had to get off the phone anyway to deal with towing and police paperwork, etc, so the claim was started but never finished. A few days later I got a voicemail form my insurance wanting to follow up on the claim.

I assume that nothing good can come from talking to them. I'm not going to get any help from them (since I didn't pay for that level of coverage) and I no longer even have the car. I suspect my rate will go up, though it's probably too late to keep that from happening.

Is there any reason I should call my insurance back?

posted by bigtex to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Best answer: Well you need to call them to remove the car from your insurance. They probably need some info from you to close the claim. I don't know what bad outcome you expect from the call?
posted by muddgirl at 12:48 PM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

They also will want to close out any potential medical claim. You can just tell then you aren't filing a claim and want to remove the car from your policy, as you have signed the title over to someone else and no longer own it.
posted by rich at 12:57 PM on March 11, 2019

Since you only have liability coverage, your insurer is going to eventually deny the claim anyway. But, yeah, you should simply call them and cancel the claim.

You didn't cause any property damage to wherever you crashed, did you? Like hitting someone's fence or whatnot? That might change the calculations a bit.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:11 PM on March 11, 2019 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I had a claim one time that ended up getting voided (I think that's the world they used? maybe canceled?). No actual repairs ended up happening -- my insurance and the other driver's insurance both found the other party at fault, and the damage was minor so I didn't care about repairing it -- so my insurance company never had to pay for anything. When I talked to my insurance company later to discuss my rate/coverage, the woman I talked to referenced that accident being on their records but not counting towards my accident history.

I really don't think (unless there was damage to other property) that your insurance is going to ding you for this one since they never had to pay out anything.

Call them, tell them you want to cancel that claim since there wasn't any relevant damage for them to cover. And then take the car off your policy. I hate talking to pretty much anyone on the phone, but I think this'll be an easy call.
posted by katieinshoes at 1:55 PM on March 11, 2019