How To Handle Your Property Damage Claim After a Car Accident.

Hey everyone, this is Attorney Adam Smallow from the Law offices of Adam Smallow in Maryland, and today we’re going to be chatting about how to handle a property damage claim after a car accident with or without a lawyer. If you’re not injured in a car crash, uh, and you don’t need a lawyer, you can try to handle this on your own and I’m going to give you a little bit of the lay of the land, some tips, and pretty much how it works in Maryland. So let’s get started. Some of those frustrating calls we had named today with our clients are at the beginning of these cases with respect to properly damaging their vehicle. And these are people that that morning or the day before their car was working great and now it’s not, they have work needs, they have family needs, they have different host of needs for their vehicle, and they want to know when this case process is going to start, and dealing with these insurance companies can be very frustrating the first couple of days trying to give our clients the answers they want. So let’s get started on the two types of property damage claims. The first one is a repairable property damage claim. That’s when your vehicle is hit, it’s a little damage, a lot of damage, but it can be fixed. And the first tip here is never take your vehicle to the other person’s insurance company. They’re a certified collision center. You’re under no obligation to, in fact, it is your right to take it to any body shop or dealer or anybody you know that you think does a good job. If you don’t know anybody, ask a friend or family member so you can get it done right, get that car fixed right at the first time. Another aspect of a property damage claim where the vehicle is repairable is you can under certain circumstances make what’s called a diminished value claim. Connolly Carfax, the car comes back, it looks the same, but we know that if you’re going to sell it or do something with that vehicle down the road, it has lost value by virtue of being in a car accident. It depends on the make and model of the vehicle, the newer the vehicle, the higher quality of the vehicle, the higher price of the vehicle, the better shot you have in making a diminished value claim. The second type of property that I’m just saying is what’s called a total loss claim. That’s when your vehicle is totaled and you don’t have it any longer and I don’t know people have sent them a value with these cars, imposing these vehicles but the bottom line is you now have to get a new vehicle and the insurance company is going to give you a less than fair market value for your vehicle and that’s a frustrating number. A lot of times our clients call us to let us know what they’re receiving. There’s not much we can do on the front end. There’s not much room for negotiation, especially since we need to get our clients back in a vehicle or get them in a vehicle. But it’s something we do focus on the frustration and anything being in subdealing with the property damage claim among other aspects for personal injury cases when we try to settle these cases at the end. In both of these situations, the total loss claim, the total loss or the repairable vehicle, you will get a rental car. With a repairable vehicle, it’s mostly for the amount of time your car is in shop till it’s back. But for the loss, it can be a quick period of time, 7 to 10 days, and you have to go get a new car that can really be frustrating. And we love to get our clients’ property damage claims handled very quickly in the beginning of these cases. But it’s often not up to us. It’s the insurance companies that do everything in their power to slow it down. Particularly in Maryland, where we have what’s called a 1% rule or contributory negligence, All it takes for a claim to be denied in Maryland is for a client to be one percent at fault for the collision, which is it can’t put that into words. Nevertheless, insurance companies use that all the time often in bad faith to deny claims. So the other insurance company is waiting to make a liability determination. They may use the 1% rule for liability. They may wait for a police report to see what the police officer says about the version of events if there’s a dispute, or if there’s not a dispute. Speaking with their insured, and you can imagine that they’re insured, the one who caused the accident isn’t so eager to pick up the phone and say, hey, how are you? I caused an accident. Let’s get to work here. Let me tell you what happened. We’re just, you know, dragging the feet, insurance companies about what they’re best at doing, or it can be a combination of all these things. So that’s what slows down the property damage process in Maryland. We push hard to get them resolved, but we get a lot of push back from the insurance companies. A couple solutions, especially if you’re doing this on your own, you can wait for the insurance company to get the process going, make liability determinations, do their thing, and you may be waiting for days, weeks, a month or more. You can SS for a manager supervisor, we do this all the time with these insurance companies. We may have a new adjuster, one that is just difficult to deal with, one that may not know what they’re doing, and when we get to a manager supervisor, oftentimes we break through and we’ll get a property damage claim moving for example and get our clients into a rental car and get that process going on on other different aspects of a personal injury case. You could file a Maryland insurance administration complaint online, the Maryland type of Maryland insurance administration and there’s actually a very quick online form that is responded to. I would only say that for a courageous situation, that’s never really the answer. You’re not going to get you very far often. So focus on dealing with a manager or a supervisor if your property damage claim is being delayed and you’re frustrated and you think that your version of the accident is correct with the other vehicle being 100% at fault for the collision. So that is property damage 101 in Maryland. Definitely welcome your comments on YouTube and see if you have had similar frustrating experiences after a car crash and trying to get your car fixed or if you’ve had good experiences. Also, we have a bonus giveaway and we’ve got our high-tech law of Adam and Smallow Waterbottle, it’s high quality. If you would like one, all you have to do is email me at www.AdamNationalInjury.com, let us know your name, your phone number, email address and home address and we will ship on out to you. Lastly, I want to thank you for checking this out today and I hope this was productive. I hope this was helpful, if you’re dealing with property damage rates after a car accident. So if you have any questions, even if you’re not a client, you can always call it off. Visit (410) 449-7900, and I wish everyone safe driving. Be well, and we’ll talk to you soon.