Thank Goodness for car insurance

Yep, that’s what I said and what I meant.

I, like many others out there in the land of driving, have always cursed the insurance companies for having to pay them every single month without getting anything in return. I have literally gone years without filing a claim (read my entire driving history, not to say I haven’t had accidents, but I have never filed a claim on my insurance) and have always felt so wronged in having to pay for anything. Well ladies and gentlemen, my time has come to call upon the powers (of insurance) that be and have them return my life to a %100 better because I (yes, me) got into an accident today.

Yes, it’s shocking, I know. Believe me, I was shocked too (though not as shocked as the guy I hit). The fact is that it happened, and to top it all off, it was my fault. I was coming out of the parking lot on my way home from work and was going to make a right turn (a RIGHT turn!! into a clear lane!) and for whatever reason, I turned really wide and ran smack into the car that happened to be turning into the parking lot. (His bad luck. That is a terrible way to start the day.)

It was raining (freezing) cats and dogs, (of course, it can’t be sunny and 72 for me to get in an accident now can it?) and I got out and apologized profusely. I gave him my insurance and got his insurance as well. (I didn’t make him get out of his car because I felt bad enough about hitting his car that I didn’t want him to get soaked as well.)

The cars both sustained enough damage that they will have to be repaired by a professional. I was lucky enough (as lucky as you can be in a car accident) that only the front driver side fender, bumper and lights on both cars were damaged and the wheel wells were left intact.

The guy was obviously mad (he had  every right to be) and I was lucky we didn’t have to involve any witnesses or the police. I took full responsibility and later he called and left me a message and sounded much more calm and even wanted to confirm that I was alright. ( I saved that message just in case, as he says that he was not hurt at all and you never know how things like that can turn around on you given the right opportunity.)

As soon as I got home I told my husband about what happened and then called USAA to file a claim. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about the whole filing a claim thing because you only ever hear bad stories. Boy was I pleasantly surprised when after about thirty minutes the agent on the other end of the line tells me that everything has been processed and should go through automatically and all I have to do is make sure to pay the deductible to the repair shop once they are done fixing my car.

They set up the rental car, which is covered by insurance for the length of the repair, as well as calling the repair shop to call me to make an appointment to drop off the car. I also don’t have to do anything about the other driver because my insurance covers his entire repair with no out of pocket expenses on my part (except that he works at Frontier and odds are that I will run into him again eventually (no pun intended)). The very best part is that I have accident forgiveness and my insurance rate won’t go up as long as I don’t have another accident in the next three years.

Not even 20 minutes after I hung up with my insurance agent I get a call from both the rental place and the repair shop. I will be dropping off my car tomorrow after work and Enterprise will bring me the rental car as soon as the repair shop calls them. Now that is fast! Plus, the repair shop USAA works with has a lifetime guarantee on all their work and just happens to be the latest and greatest in repair shops (huh? Oh, most technologically advanced with the latest equipment.)

The very saddest part of the whole thing is that normally wen I pull out of the parking lot I always, ALWAYS take a left to the airport exit instead of the right to the stop sign. I decided that it might be safer this time to take the right because of all the rain and just before I made that decision (and consequently hit that car) I thought I should not change my routine. Well, routines are routines for a reason and had I followed my instinct I would have gotten home a half hour earlier and with my car intact.

The point of the story though is that I am extremely happy with my insurance company and the way they handled my predicament. (Although I do take a tiny bit of pleasure in that they will have to pay for everything and it make s all those years of payments to them seem more worth while.) So for anyone looking to change insurance company’s or just looking for a good one, I would definitely recommend USAA. It sucks to have to pay them every month, but in the end it is definitely better than paying out of pocket.

In this photo you can see the intersection where I come out of the employee parking lot and the blue line is the way I normally go, the green line is the way I decided to go. The red circle is exactly where I hit the car, which, had I gone the other direction, I would have completely missed.

You can see the cracked light and the damage to the bumper. Oddly enough, all my lights are still in working condition, it’s just the glass (plastic) covering that is busted. I did not know my fender was metal until I actually looked at the damage. You can see the semi twisted silver just to the right of the light.

I think the grill of the car will escape unscathed as well as the wheel well. My car is still very much drivable and the damage is purely cosmetic as it doesn’t affect the legality of driving it on the road. All the lights still work as does the turn signal. Even the fog lamp escaped unscathed.

The other car looks much the same as mine except that his car was a compact four door car similar to a Dodge Neon. Where the damage is located on my car was the actual height of the other car. Interesting little fact, when you hit another car as slow as I did ( I had barely started to accelerate before I threw on the brakes) it sounds the same as when you stomp on an aluminum can to crush it. ( I kid you not, that was the exact thought that went through my head as I crushed the front end of our cars together.)