A Day Without a Car. Back to Normal.

[canyonwalker]

Monday was a day without a car. Well, so were Saturday and Sunday and part of Friday. I didn't notice us temporarily being a one-car family over the weekend since we did mostly take it easy. On Monday, though, it hit me when I made (solo) plans to go out for lunch, walked down the stairs, and realized... there's no car in the garage!

The car was in a garage, just not ours. It was at the shop... where it had been for 10 days while the insurance company dragged its corporate feet. Actually, counting the weekend and Monday it was up to 13 days.

Solo lunch wasn't hard. I simply changed my plans to walk out to a restaurant 0.6 miles away. And while I was eating I got good news: my car was ready to pick up. (some_other_dave  gave me a ride later in the day to get it.) While that was good news it also pissed me off again because it put back into sharp relief how much foot-dragging the insurance company had done. They caused my car to sit, unusable, for nearly two weeks. Once they gave the green light to go forward the shop fixed it in half a day.

Money-wise, at least insurance agreed to pay for the repairs, less a $500 deductible. The damage, which was caused by a road hazard, is officially recorded as "Driver hit stationary object," though. That's gonna jack my rates for the next few years. 😡

Comments

[kjn]

That shows the dangers of using a classification system intended for one purpose for another purpose. "Driver hit stationary object" sounds like something that could be in a medical classification system, like ICD (though it does not currently contain such a thing). It sounds like a terrible category for say a register of road accidents or incidents.

[canyonwalker]

I think this is actually the classification system for automobile insurance claims, and it's poor. I challenged the insurance adjuster on the categorization. "I didn't hit a stationary object," I explained. "A piece of debris bounced up from the road and struck the underside of my vehicle, damaging it."

The adjuster explained that there is a classification for "Debris struck moving vehicle" but it's limited to things like rocks damaging the windshield. To me that's an arbitrary and misleading restriction. It's misleading because it uses common English words in ways contrary to how any reasonable person would understand them, and because the same plain reading of the words implies the driver is responsible for causing the accident.

But what can I do? I don't get to negotiate terms with them. It's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. And "leave it" really isn't even an option, as owning car insurance is required by law. So I can take it or... take it.

[kjn]

Seems like the system is working as designed then. Heads, the insurance company wins. Tails, you lose.

[canyonwalker]

It could be worse. It could be like utilities, where the government forces me to do business with a convicted murderer.