Am I pretty much stuck with what GEICO's offering?

Captain_Tenille — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 10:26:17 -0800

Back in June, a 20 year old soldier drove his truck through my house. Mercifully, my family and I were not there at the time, but he drove through my office, the hallway, and my daughter's room, so needless to say there was a lot of damage. We didn't have renters' insurance at the time (although we do now!), so we had to deal with his insurance company (in this case, GEICO). The other day, they sent us the proposed settlement. Unfortunately... ... his property damage coverage was only $10K, so our claim, the landlords' claim, and the landlords' insurance claim all had to come out of that. I'm going to find a lawyer today, obviously, but I was hoping I might be able to get an idea of what I would expect to hear. Are we pretty much screwed, or do we have much of a chance to get more out of GEICO?

Possibly complicating matters somewhat is that the City of Olympia has kindly filed a restitution order against the guy, but I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm also trying to get a hold of them before I go to a lawyer so I can have that information when I talk to one. Any ruling against the dude who actually drove through my house, though, is likely to be a moral one, since he's only a PFC. Assuming the Army hasn't thrown him out, his wages can be easily garnished, but you can only get so much blood from a turnip.

I repeat, I'm going to talk to a lawyer; I would just like to have a better idea of what I should expect to hear.

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Am I pretty much stuck with what GEICO's offering?