Expert: Anne - 7/18/2008

Question
If one has an collision with pole today with no injury or damage to pole and no reporting to police, can he wait for 3-4 months before making a claim with insurance company. You will ask why would one will wait for 3-4 months. The reason is that the car is too old and not worth much. Although the damage to car is very small, insurance company may total it and then I have to buy other car now only, for which I don't have time and money. Is there anything I can do to not have my car totaled or can I wait for 3-4 months before making claims.

Answer
J C

Well yeah, you are in an interesting situation. You can wait three to four months (which no one should do unless the damage to your car is minimal, there is no damage to the pole, and there is no possibility of an injury). The problem with waiting is that the insurance company will be doing a lot of investigation on this claim (making sure it is legit). It can take a long time to do this (drag their feet). Check out this article for more information on that:

http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advice.com/when-not-to-file-an-auto-insurance.ht...

Regarding getting your car totaled or disputing a total loss check out this article (how to dispute a total loss)

http://ezinearticles.com/?Car-Total-Loss---Determining-And-Settling-The-Value-Of...

If you do not want to get the car totaled but fixed, check out this section:

http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advice.com/totaling-a-vehicle.html

I think what you should do is to call in and report the “incident.” Put it on the record that you had an accident but you are not pursuing a claim at this time. Three months later you can call and ask to have a claim rep open the claim. This way you can “refer” to when you first reported the claim. Putting the incident on the record will help you speed the process later on. It look more legit.

Good Luck,
Anne