Expert: Anne - 1/30/2008

Question
I was recently in an accident with a local college employee who was driving a college vehicle. He admitted fault and we filed a police report but I have yet to hear anything as to how I should go about filing a claim. The department that handles incidents like mine only has one employee and they have yet to call me. My question is this, what type of insurance information is required to be in college owned vehicles. The vehicle I was hit by did not have any policy information in it.

Answer
Hello L,

Sorry to hear about your accident. Colleges are just like any other employer, they must have insurance on their vehicles or they will be personally responsible for the accidents of their employee (the doctrine of respondeat superior will apply). Most cities have regulations that requires them to do this. I am not sure if you have a private college or a state owned college. If it is private, then the private entity insurance company must pay or the college must pay out of pocket.

If you are dealing with a state owned college, then there is possible a "self" insured company out there. You will probably will not be dealing with a "normal" insurance company. Cities most often have a department that deal with this type of claim. They handle the claim themselves and settle themselves. This is perfectly legal as they have to post some kind of bond (most of the time a $1 million) in case they cause damages above that number.

The difficulty with this is that it is very hard to identify who is the insurance company and what processes do they follow. It seems like they "hide" so you do not make a claim. The best way is to try to talk to the supervisor of the person that hit you and follow her/his lead (i.e. I called lost prevention) until you get to the person that makes the decision. If after reasonable notice this does not happen, then you have to play hard ball (get a lawyer and present an intent to sue both driver and the school district). This should wake them up.

Good Luck,
C.Q.
http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advice.com