Got rear ended by uninsured motorist in Houston - what to do (rental car, rental)

[Htown2013]

Got rear ended by an uninsured motorist. Have police report saying other driver at fault.

Unfortunately the other driver, who has been in the country illegally for over a decade, presented the police with lapsed or falsified insurance, so the police did not know the other person did not have active legally required liability insurance at the time of the accident.

The other insurance said the at fault driver was not current on the policy and was not covered.

It took a week for the other insurance to get back to us saying that person wasn't covered.

Thankfully nobody was hurt and the damage on our vehicle appears to be isolated to some minor cosmetic scrapes and a few dents on the center of the rear bumper, as far as we can tell.

What do we do now? We do have uninsured coverage, not sure what the deductible is. But our insurance is already sky high, far higher than anyplace we've lived in the country. We don't want our insurance to go up even more than it normally would for something not our fault.

Should we get a quote for bumper repair/replacement before going through uninsured motorist, to better quantify extent of damage and determine if it's worth it?

I don't have experience navigating this type of thing.

[atadytic19]

Lol it seems Insurance in Texas is optional. If you made it this long without being hit my an uninsured driver consider yourself lucky.

Best bet will be to get that quote and sue the other driver for your deductible if it is worth the insurance increase. You are lucky they waited for the cops to arrive. Usually they high-tail it outta there.

Sometimes the uninsured will tell you they know a guy who knows a guy who can do it for peanuts but those scenarios are always a disaster.

Sue them and put a lien on whatever they got

[Bornhouston]

Find out how much your uninsured motorist property damage deductible is and file for your damages through your own coverage. Your insurance company will go after the uninsured driver to recoup your deductible and the amount that is paid out for the damage to your vehicle.

You are paying for the coverage already you might as well use it. Your insurance company knows what they are doing and based on your post it does not seem like you know a lot about insurance. I wouldn't take on the burden of trying to handle it myself, let the professionals that you already pay handle it.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

It’s things like this that make me consider living car less as soon as the opportunity presents itself

[gwarnecke]

Sorry you're dealing with this.

I don't have any good advice to offer - just dropped in to commiserate as I was involved in a four-car pileup last week (last car to be hit) and am struggling with the at-fault driver's unresponsive and unhelpful insurance co. Don't even have a rental car yet.

I know the residents of every major city insist that their city has the worst drivers, but in Houston I think the facts and my personal experience back it up. If my car ends up being totaled I'm half-considering just taking Ubers everywhere, or buying myself an old hoopty. No point in driving anything nice in this city.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Unfortunately, you cannot do anything. I have been in Houston 40+ years, and I have been rear ended 5 times. All five times, it was an illegal alien, no papers, and magically, no addresses. I even had a constable apologize to me and he said right off the bat, they won't be able to do anything.

On that incident where the constable said nothing would come of it, he got his hopes up and told me the driver had no ID at all, not even from his country. He said if he has no ID, they could arrest him, but low and behold, he said he "forgot" he had his passport in the vehicle, from Panama.

One time I was hit on I-10, the guy had no home address, so he told the police. How TF can someone not have an address. Because his car became disabled, he had to get someone to pick him and his friends up (no one had an ID), and his wife shows up in a minivan! I asked the officer why not ask her where she lives, he said he could not, she was not involved.

Fortunately I carry an 'Uninsured Motorist' provision for this. Another time, the person had purchased insurance, then cancelled it. Nothing happens to these people, it makes me wonder why I fret about causing an accident when in reality, nothing can happen to you in this city!

'Sorry this happened to you, BTW. Your insurance won't go too far to find out either, not worth their time, when one is here in the country illegally, they can get away with a lot. How ironic.

[Htown2013]

We do have uninsured motorist coverage. I think the deductible is either $250 or $500 - have to check.

I drive extremely defensively for this city. My biggest gripe is the full speed tailgating and then slamming on the breaks in traffic. I've never seen anything like that except for here.

This would have been far worse had I not allowed double the space in front. The illegal behind me was going really fast that even with the space allowed, it couldn't be avoided, but damage was reduced.

It appears to be two cosmetic bumper dings in the main bumper cover and a dent in the lower center bumper cover, which appears to be its own piece. This is all the bumper cover. The underlying metal bumper appears to be undamaged.

We do have uninsured motorist coverage. I just want to make sure filing uninsured coverage won't cause our insurance to go up far higher than normal.

[Htown2013]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

Lol it seems Insurance in Texas is optional. If you made it this long without being hit my an uninsured driver consider yourself lucky.

Best bet will be to get that quote and sue the other driver for your deductible if it is worth the insurance increase. You are lucky they waited for the cops to arrive. Usually they high-tail it outta there.

Sometimes the uninsured will tell you they know a guy who knows a guy who can do it for peanuts but those scenarios are always a disaster.

Sue them and put a lien on whatever they got

I'd be surprised if they have a positive net worth and I suspect they participate only in the "underground" economy.

[Htown2013]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

Unfortunately, you cannot do anything. I have been in Houston 40+ years, and I have been rear ended 5 times. All five times, it was an illegal alien, no papers, and magically, no addresses. I even had a constable apologize to me and he said right off the bat, they won't be able to do anything.

On that incident where the constable said nothing would come of it, he got his hopes up and told me the driver had no ID at all, not even from his country. He said if he has no ID, they could arrest him, but low and behold, he said he "forgot" he had his passport in the vehicle, from Panama.

One time I was hit on I-10, the guy had no home address, so he told the police. How TF can someone not have an address. Because his car became disabled, he had to get someone to pick him and his friends up (no one had an ID), and his wife shows up in a minivan! I asked the officer why not ask her where she lives, he said he could not, she was not involved.

Fortunately I carry an 'Uninsured Motorist' provision for this. Another time, the person had purchased insurance, then cancelled it. Nothing happens to these people, it makes me wonder why I fret about causing an accident when in reality, nothing can happen to you in this city!

'Sorry this happened to you, BTW. Your insurance won't go too far to find out either, not worth their time, when one is here in the country illegally, they can get away with a lot. How ironic.

We do have "uninsured motorist" provision with either $250 or $500 deductible. Is it worth using that?

The damage looks around $1k, but who's to say the shop won't do some BS and say it's like 2 or 3x that. Don't know how much it costs to replace bumper covers these days.

[Htown2013]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

Sorry you're dealing with this.

I don't have any good advice to offer - just dropped in to commiserate as I was involved in a four-car pileup last week (last car to be hit) and am struggling with the at-fault driver's unresponsive and unhelpful insurance co. Don't even have a rental car yet.

I know the residents of every major city insist that their city has the worst drivers, but in Houston I think the facts and my personal experience back it up. If my car ends up being totaled I'm half-considering just taking Ubers everywhere, or buying myself an old hoopty. No point in driving anything nice in this city.

Good grief! That's terrible! Hope you're OK. The newer cars have good safety features, but always purchase new safe cars well below our means, and keep them for a while (Honda or Toyota) since don't want to be flashy with unwanted attention, plus all the terrible drivers and door dingers in the city.

Sorry you're in this situation. What are you planning to do?