Hi Guys,
Just need some help. Someone has sued for car rental fee after 3.5 years. I just need help on three things.
Is there a statue of limitation of 3 years for this?
Should I just pay?
Should i hand this to my insurance?
Person Sues for Car Rental after Accident
Lcheapo123 on 03/07/2020 - 09:04
Comments
I have insurance and dealt with the damages. I called them up so and they never dealt with the car rental as they never heard of it and only the car damage
You mean the other party didn’t claim against your insurance for car rental?
Provide them with the claim number and refer it to your insurer.
i just got the claim from the court. Should I call the lawyer and then hand them the claim or I should tell the lawyer to ask tell them to use the same claim as last time
@cheapo123: Contact your insurance company tell them that you are being sued arising from an accident that they have paid out already and they have to take care if it.
If you were insured at that time, yes.
If you were not and only insured now, no and you should pay up.
Insured since I got the car. Insurance dealt with damages but not car rental. I assumed they left it out or forgot
Check your then policy regarding this matter. I've had several different experiences all from different insurances.
Experience 1 - I requested a rental car after a not-at-fault accident and insurance only said they'd cover the repairs.
Experience 2 - I requested a rental car after yet another not-at-fault accident and insurance provided me a rental, I don't know where those costs went to and I didn't care.
Experience 3 - yes, another not-at-fault accident but it was multi-car. The car I was responsible for paying (the car I hit from being hit) for claimed rental against me personally, and I ignored it initially. The repairs were covered by my insurance and they advised (off the record) to ignore the rental car claim.
The analogy I liken the experience 3 to is if you were to buy a roast chicken for dinner from the supermarket and it turns out to be bad/off. Let's say you couldn't return it in time before it closed, so you had to order pizza instead. When you go back the next day, the supermarket will only refund or replace you the chicken, they're not going to compensate you for the pizza.
There are however lots of variables and other considerations on this matter, such that I'd advise you to speak to some legal advisor on the matter.
With my experience 3 above though, I pushed the insurance to pay the rental because the car I was pushed into had a baby seat such that I know losing a car with family is a big hit. I discussed with my insurance to put those costs on the at-fault vehicle/insurance.
Your talk of pizza and roast chicken is making me hungry :(
It's nearly lunch time here in Melbourne. But no pizza places are open, so I'm defaulting to asian.
The damage in a motor vehicle repair claim is usually made up as follows:
Repair cost of the damage caused or the market value of the vehicle, whichever the lesser
PLUS towing costs
PLUS hire car costs, lost wages or profits (called “demurrage”)
LESS salvage value (if market value of the car is claimed)In most Australian jurisdictions, insurers have 6 years to chase you (except in the Northern Territory, where it is 3 years).
https://mva.financialrights.org.au/dtop/i-dont-agree-with-th…If you have an insurer, hand off to them.
I might hand it off to them, Im just going to weigh whether is worth it as the claim is just over the excess.
Haven't you already paid the excess for that incident?
So what happens if you have a car fully insured from the first day, have an at fault accident with a settled claim, then dispose of the car and end the insurance. If the other party in the accident then pursues you 3 years later for extra damages you no longer have insurance on that car. What to do?
That's not how insurance works. Your policy covers you for the term of the policy itself and any claim would be based on the date of the incident, not the date of the claim being reported.
e.g. insurance policy starts 1st July 2015 and ends 30th June 2016. Accident happens 3rd March 2016. Car disposed of and sold 30th June 2018. Other party pursues you on 3rd July 2020 and you lodge a claim same day, your insurance for 2015-2016 is still valid because the incident happened while the policy was valid.
Ok I did not know that.
Is this the general rule for most insurances? (Eg - public liability, professional indemnity, etc.)?
It should be, yes. Essentially you're making an agreement with the insurance company "I will pay you $X and you will cover me for things (that will be listed in the policy) that happen between dates Y and Z"
Disclaimer: While I've worked in the personal insurance industry for 15+ years, I don't know every single policy type out there. I can reasonably think that some liability policies, for example, might contain an in-built limitation like "claims arising from 10 years of the date of incident" but I have no way of knowing for sure. Take this with a grain of salt.
@beeawwb: Thank you for this info.
Seems like old policy documents should be filed rather than thrown away.
statue of limitation
LOL ignore it. 3.5 years? Piss off.
What do you mean by 'sued'? In what format has this presented itself to you?
Don't ignore it. Very bad advice.
Simply refer whoever you are taking about OP, to your insurer you had at the time of the incident.
No, not bad advice, depending on if they are actually being "sued" or someone has just decided to send a LOD.
I'd say this is accurate - is it simply a letter of demand seeking compensation/costs, or is it actually a legal letter saying that you must pay. Or is it a bluff letter too.
@Porker: Regardless of the author of the 'demand', it's up to the insurer to determine its liability.
If the OP does not forward 'it' then that opens a can of worms re: reducing potential liability.
@cheapo123: Ignore it. The claimant has already had their claim settled. This is not what "being sued" is. They're just trying it on.
When you get a letter from your state/territory's small claims tribunal e.g. VCAT or from a lawyer, THEN do something about it.
If you've already settled the case then they cannot sue for damages arising from the same incident.
This is not actually true. Even after the claim has been paid, consequential losses can still be claimed up until the statute of limitations expires.
You're probably dealing with one of our competitors. The reason why we would sue is because your insurer won't agree to the rates we charge.
Now we always pursue to settle amicably, come to a negotiation, but if your insurer doesn't, then we send it to our legal dept. The way the law works is we have to put our client, the party suffered, and you, the negligent party on the court documents, as it involved you two.For the record, everyone is entitled for a replacement vehicle if they are not at fault due to the negligence of the other party.
So … Every collision involves negligence does it?
A car does not crash itself does it?
@Forfiet: Can be attributed to human error either through software or hardware.
It's like the race engines I used to work on blew up, well we did everything right but they still blew, either through metallurgy process or other factors, at the end of the day, it always follows a human trail.@he11bent: I was addressing the word 'negligence' and the implied attributes of 'gross' 'willful' and Defences such as 'Contributory' 'Comparative' to culminate in the assumption of risk…
"A car does not crash itself does it?" is such a generalisation, that it invites me to pull a jv and troll :P
It was like the driver wanted it to crash randomly :) It was willful act on the part of (insert car company here) and the owner…
But, I do understand what you meant… Just poking fun :)
@he11bent: I was just about to edit my post on how all of what I wrote was a bunch of full circle gibberish… But I'm glad you got the general idea of my rant.
Negligence means failure to take proper care of something. Pretty much all collisions are as a result of a driver failing in some way. True mechanical faults are pretty rare and even most of those could probably be negligence in maintenance.
They won't agree to the rates you charge because they're hideously inflated compared to the cost of a rental car from a standard rental company. Thanks to the duty to mitigate losses, your chances of actually successfully getting paid what you're asking is about zero if the defendant has an even slightly competent lawyer.
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let your insurance company handle them.
Is there a statue of limitation of 3 years for this?
You can claim up to 7 years after an accident
Should I just pay?
First thing to check if it is legit. There are known scams going around. If it is indeed true then hand to your insurance. It might be the other party’s insurance suing as it has been 3.5 years.
Should i hand this to my insurance?
Were you insured by the same company as you are now? If it was a different company and you had a claim then to repair your own car, call them. If not you are probably on your own.
Same company for the last 18 years. We called the court, it was legit, I have to hand in the form to them anyway so most likely.
What he11bent touched on is pretty on point.
More than likely the third party has taken on a rental car that is of a higher value than what their car originally was. EG. They had a Toyota Yaris, they've gone to a rental company and hired out a Toyota Kluger.
Your insurer would have settled a certain amount that they would cover (as per previous example - the different between the cost of renting a Toyota Yaris over a Toyota Kluger) and the remainder is being targeted directly at you.
I would speak directly to your insurer and advise them of this letter, as it seems the rental company has lost money from the third party hiring the car or is scraping back the difference of costs between what was settled with your insurer and what is owed.
I did this. They are now looking at it now and will take care of it.
Hey any update?
Find out first how much your insurance premium is for a Tesla. I hear replacement cost is an issue. Also google car reliability for Tesla.
I assume you made an insurance claim at the time? If so definitely hand to your insurance company they will sort out. No 3 year statute of limitations here but if dealt with by insurance it’s likely they would have settled the claim in its entirety at the time.