From time to time I am asked questions from the general public. Here are a couple of questions and answers:
Q: I live in Michigan and was involved in an accident 5 days ago. My mini-van was totaled. I was rear ended on the highway. It was late night, around 3am and raining. The other driver's car was totaled as well. He admitted to the police that he just didn't see me. My question is can I still sue the other drivers insurance even though I had no insurance at the time of the accident. I am on disability right now and have no money to buy a new car. I need transportation to get my children to and from school and my doctor's visits
~ Yolonda
A: Unfortunately, if you are driving your own uninsured vehicle in Michigan, you are barred from making a claim for damages against another driver, even if the other driver was 100% at fault for the crash.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: If I refuse surgery, does my auto insurance still have to pay wages as long as I'm disabled?
I was injured in an auto accident in Nov. 2010, and have a ligament tear in my left wrist as a result. I have seen three different doctors now, with the second one performing an unsuccessful surgery. The third doctor recommends another surgery, but I have surgical anxiety and would not like to go through ANOTHER surgery on the wrist. My insurance company has been paying my wages since the accident, covering the period of time which I was and still am injured. My question is, if I refuse surgery, is my auto insurance still responsible for paying my wages as long as my doctor declares me disabled? This is taking place in Michigan. Anyone who has had experience with this type of situation before? Okay, firstly, I'm not trying to collect payments for the rest of my life. Secondly, I shouldn't say the doctor recommended surgery...he said it was an option. In Michigan, there is a three year cap on wage payments. I can't believe that the insurance company would be able to force me to undergo surgery in order to pay me. I was terrified of surgery the first time, but thought it would get the job done. Since it didn't, I am skeptical of another surgery. This was not Worker's comp. It was an auto accident in which the other driver was 100% at fault. Does that change any opinions?Thanks in advance.
~Ryan
A: No. If you don't follow recommended treatment they'll stop payments. Otherwise, they'd be paying you to not work the rest of your life.
________________________________________________________________________________
Q: Is it legal for them to sue us? About a little over a year ago, my husband and I were involved in a four car accident. What happened was we were driving around a little bend on our highway in Michigan and right when we got around the bend we noticed cars sitting in a standstill but when my husband put on the brakes we hit a sheet of black ice on the road and slid from one car to another, bashing three separate vehicles then sliding to the side of the road. Luckily enough no one was injured except the vehicles. There had already been an accident before us, then we got in an accident and another accident occurred just past us. So it was a snowball effect. Anyway because there were so many accidents it took the officer nearly an hour just to talk to us. My husband told him our side of the story in which case the officer started to argue saying why was he going so fast for the road conditions. Actually he had been going a decent speed because of the conditions outside so he was watching his speed carefully and we were going about the same speed as everyone else, extremely slow but that patch of black ice really took us for a ride. Long story short the officer, which was a state officer didn't end up giving anyone a ticket that day. He asked us if we could still drive our car and about an hour and a half after the accident occurred we were heading home. Well we felt good that we at least hadn't received a ticket even though the drivers side door was all smashed up and looked crappy and the windows wouldn't open or close but we could still drive. Well, not long ago we received a summons outside our house saying we are being sued by all three parties, all from State Farm. It seemed kinda fishy to us all of them being from the exact same insurance company and all suing us at the same time. Kinda odd. We haven't said anything except we did call the number and they was us to pay $7000 for the damages to the three cars. It gets weirder, we have State Farm too now and so we are being sued by our own insurance company. They said we can pay $3500 now and $3500 next month but we're not sure this is legal. No one was issued a ticket or an accident number or anything and they got the dates all wrong and everything. Do they have a case on us? Can they sue us when we didn't even get a ticket? How would they have known all our information? We're really unsure what to do and would love some legal advice.
Thanks so much!
~Angelica
A: First of all I am not an attorney so I can not give legal advice. I can only provide you with the information in your policy. The rule insurance companies follow is that you must be in control of your vehicle at all times. If you slide on black ice, you lost control. It wasn't the other vehicles fault as they were stationary.
Your insurance company will be able to provide you with defense that is separate from the bodily injury limits you have on your policy. Hopefully this is only a nuisance suit where the payout will be under your aggregate limit for all injured. I always recommend carrying no less that $500,000 per person and $500,000 aggregate for all injured persons A ticket doesn't have to be issued for you to be labeled at-fault by the insurance company. The fact that you hit stationary vehicles would label you at-fault.
Ronald Dwyer is an independent insurance agent licensed in Michigan for Home - Auto – Business Insurance. He can be reached at rondwyer@roninsureme.com or 248-390-6345. His website is http://www.roninsureme.com or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dwyerinsurance / Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronalddwyer
