accident - not a fault - why does my insurance co still record this as an accident

[greg88]

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Recently on the 401 my car was struck by an item that came dislodged from a truck. (Thankfully I was not on the bike). My car was struck and damaged. The driver of the truck stopped and we exchanged info, police report filed, fault clearly on the truck driver for a non secure load and the insurance company confirmed that it was not my fault and should not impact me.

I checked today with my insurer and they have recored this as an accident on my record and they use this information to identify risk trends. Is this normal? It seems as if this could be used against me in the future to increase my rates or to refuse coverage.

 

[GayManLoveIsOK]

if it's not at fault, it should say so on your file, but as an accident, it happened, so long as the wording is correct, but it shouldn't affect your insurance.

 

[nakkers]

Talk to your broker or agent for more details. There is a difference between what the police deem as fault and what insurance determine as fault.

Striking an object that has fallen from another vehicle may still have some degree of fault or responsibilty.

Because you made contact with an object and not another vehicle, they may determined the claim as a single vehicle collision. The vehicle being you, they may assign some fault for not being able to stop in time. Pure speculation on my part. Depending on your claims record and driving record, several insurance companies have accident forgiveness so, it's possible the claim wont affect your rates. Or shouldn't even be considered.

Just keep in mind because another vehicle doesn't properly secure it's cargo and it falls off, other drivers still have a responsibility to avoid making contact with the object. Again, a lot depends on the police report and circumstances too. Nothing is absolute.

 

[DoubleJ]

Your score/rating will drop a point but your premium should not go up! I took out my motor, transmission, engine cradle and the complete exhaust system on a 2005 Ford Freestar by hitting a semi truck split brake drum that had fractured on Hwy 6 south of Hamilton. Nowhere to go, either roll in the ditch or do a head on. $10600 worth of damage and no write off. Insurance fixed the damn thing even when the Ford dealer principle and their service manager recommended against it. Drove the critter for another 9 months and flogged it. Nothing but trouble after the accident. And will be nothing but a headache down the road to the new owner.

 

[short stop]

Data-entry error possibly?

It happened to me years ago with my old insurance company. A flatbed truck came into my lane and basically tore off the front end of my car. VERY MUCH not my fault.

Years later when I was applying for motorcycle insurance with SF I found out that the above accident had been listed as at-fault. I flipped out and called the old company, only to be told "oops. looks like that was a mistake". So for years I'd been paying a higher premium because of their stupid mistake. Not to mention it was like pulling teeth to get them to change it back. *sigh*

 

[Aleks Hara]

If they record the accident as Not At Fault, and it appears on the CGI Autoplus report as Fault: 0% (that's the report companies check to view your insurance history), you have nothing to worry about. If they recorded it as NAF, but described it as a Collision (Autoplus would show COLL under payout), then you might experience a slight inconvenience when shopping for insurance, as your new company would request a Letter of Experience from the previous insurer to make sure this was a NAF collision (since 90% of collision payouts are generally at-fault) - but none of this would impact your rates or coverages.

The general rule for determining fault in these cases (from the insurance liability point of view), is how the object struck your vehicle. If it was flying through the air, it cannot be deemed your fault - those are hard to dodge. If it was already on the road when you hit it, then it's automatically deemed a collision and you have to work out the fault and liability with the third party and most importantly your adjuster. As mentioned above, it's every driver's responsibility to keep a safe distance, and avoid any objects on the road - although sometimes that can be very tricky - if you swerve and go into the ditch or hit someone else, it's an automatic at-fault.

Lastly, it's always good to have that NAF accident documented on your record because it protects you when the third party reports it to their insurance company as a not-at-fault on their end. There's a section on the Autoplus report for "Other Losses" which shows losses reported by the Third Parties and involving you - The last thing you want is for there to be a loss showing the other party as Not-At-Fault and then nothing reported by you and your own insurance company - it would look like you were at-fault and didn't report it.

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