Fw: [SJTU] Lesson to learn from car accident

[Daniel]

Hi, peers:

 

Share with you the mail from my mentor.

 

Take care.

 

Daniel

----- Original Message -----

From: kx

To: WANG Bin - EMBA Shanghai Fall06 ; Zhiyong Jiao ; Daniel

Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 2:19 AM

Subject: Fwd: [SJTU] Lesson to learn from car accident

Hi, our new drivers in Texas:

Here is a story that could be useful for your future.

Take care,

Kefeng

Dear Friends,
 
I was recently involved in a minor traffic accident which turned into a nightmare and I would like to share this with you so that you will learn from some of my mistakes.
 
I was driving into my neighborhood at regular speed which is about 10 or 20 MPH and a pick up truck jumped out of the back alley between two rows of houses at about 10 or 20 MPH while the driver was looking at the wrong direction with mobile phone on his ear and not even slowing down.  The low impact of the right hand side (or passenger side) of my vehicle didn't generate too much damage and I didn't feel any injury at the time.  The driver was nice and apologetic.  So we got off our cars, survey the damage and I got his insurance information (policy number, policy holder name and phone numbers) and the driver's name and phone number.
 
After I wrote all those down, he said he wanted to settle privately if possible so that his rates wouldn't go up.  Plus, this Vietnamese college kid didn't want to get into trouble with his parents which I understand.  So I went got an estimate from a body shop which was about $2600 damage that beyond what he could afford.  So I filed the insurance claim with his Nationwide insurance company.  After a week, nothing happened and when I called again, I found out that the case was under investigation, not for whose fault it is in this accident, but for the case if his vehicle was under coverage or not when the accident happened.
 
I immediately realized that I was in the middle of the insurance mess of:

1. Possibly being hit by an uninsured motorist.
2. Possible insurance fraud of that driver who tried to get on the insurance after it happened.

So I called my insurance broker who advised me to report to my Allstate insurance company claim office just for the record.  Then Nationwide called me afterwards saying that they accepted the liability and their driver was covered and offering me to repair the vehicle at their cost.  They even located a Service King shop for me and had their designated contact there called me to set up an appointment to take my car in.  However, at the same time, their investigator still called me and set up an appointment with me to talk about the accident.
 
I need to emphasize here that all conversations were recorded, i.e. the one with Nationwide, with Allstate and with those investigators.  The following week, one of the investigators called me telling me that Nationwide was not going to fix my car and I have to pay for it myself.  On the phone, he was charging me for not being straight forward with them implying that I was lying to him.
 
I immediately flipped from a nice guy mode to a tough guy mode telling him that I was a nice guy because he was a nice too when he came talked to me.  But now if he wanted to be a jerk, I can be one too because I have done nothing wrong.  My blood was boiling and I took off and ran over him on the phone like a train and he had an ear full.  He then tune down his tone quite a bit trying to be helpful instead of being a total jerk.  I continued the conversation in a civilized fashion and demanded apology from him.  I politely asked him to think using his big fat brain that what kind of incentive I would have to lie to him when their driver hit me (and admitted hitting me at his fault) and everyone around the table agreed that he is at fault.  After my persistent lawyer style assault on him (you all need to watch those Law and Order show more often), he became a nice guy again which made me believe that he might have been an ex-cop.
 
Now my vehicle is repaired by my own insurance company under the uninsured motorist policy with $250 deductible which I shouldn't even paying if he had insurance.  So this is the lesson that learned:

1. After the accident happened, always have police come over to write a report.  If the police found out that he was uninsured, he will be in bigger trouble.  The police is more experienced to examine those papers and can possibly check the validity of it with their own means.  If no one is injured and the police doesn't want to come and the 911 operator doesn't want to send one over, tell him how you feel when the accident happened --- your heart is racing.  My heart was racing in my case but I thought it was normal so I didn't bother calling 911.  Usually, racing heart and short of breath could be a sign of heart attack and usually the police and everybody will be on scene within 5 minutes for that.
2. No matter how charming the other driver is, write down the license plate number and his driver's license number because my insurance company asked for it which I didn't have.  They have those computer generated questions which looks for every little piece of information that you could possibly have from the accident scene.
3. If you have a camera on your phone, take some pictures of the accident scene.  I should have done that with my phone.  If you don't know how to use that camera, go practice tonight so that you will know how to use it, but don't forget to delete those test pictures to leave some memory for the real pictures ;-)  Also, make sure your camera lens is clean when you take the pictures because many phones are usually in your pocket or purse or suitecase which is a dusty area for lenses.
4. If you don't feel being injured, don't say that you are ok but inform them you don't feel any injury AT THE MOMENT because many minor accident injuries cannot be felt until later.  10 years ago when I was rear-ended by someone, I didn't feel the neck pain until the next day when my Vietnamese coworker reminded me that it could be the result of the accident.  This time, I didn't feel my hip pain until two weeks later which I am not sure if it was from the accident or not until my doctor told me that it could have been the case.
5. When you get the insurance information from the driver, make sure it is an insurance card with an expiration date on it.  Otherwise, it could be fake or just a bill from the insurance company instead of a real insurance card.  I think I was probably presented a bill because the size that paper was letter size and I couldn't find expiration date on it.
6. Get uninsured motorist coverage on your policy if you don't have it because you never know what's going to happen to you.  Accident is not something that you can predict and that's why it is called accident instead of planned event :-)  I was lucky that I have that coverage since day one.
7. Get rental car coverage on your policy if you don't have it for collision coverage just in case you run into someone.
8. Get a witness if possible, even from passing by cars, and write down their name, number, and most important --- the license plate number, because he/she could be giving you fake name and number just because he/she is not interested in being your witness although he/she saw it all.
9. Write down everything and record everything yourself if possible.  Keep all voice mail messages and emails if there is any.
10. Toughen up your personality and toss the Chinese Confucius teaching culture mindset out of window for a moment and adopt the American culture because if you try to be a nice guy in situation like this, they (the insurance company, investigator, police, etc.) all will think that you have something to hide or have done something wrong.  Be reasonable but don't try to be too nice.  This is a culture difference and I know it is kind of hard to learn but you need to learn it!  This is America!  You don't have to be a jerk or asshole but you need to be tough.  Instead of saying "I think it is his fault", say something like "It is his fault!".  This is a language culture difference and you all need to be aware of that.
11. No matter what happens, call your own insurance company.  I was under the assumption that the other insurance company which is Nationwide was going to pay for everything and didn't call my Allstate company until much later on.  Right after I called Allstate, things started moving much more smoothly.  I guess this is also the culture difference.  We the Chinese try not to bother anyone and get things taken care of.  However, the Americans believe that we paid the insurance company and so they are hired to do the work and they shall do everything for us.  This is why you always hear "EXCHANGE insurance company information when accident happens" from insurance companies/brokers so that both parties can call the insurance companies and give statement and let them sort things out instead of yourself.  If you don't do so, they will either try to squeeze you, out run you, out flank you, or think you have done something wrong that you didn't want to talk to your insurance company about.  Another thing to keep in mind is that insurance companies have protocols between them to figure things out so you don't have to worry about it too much.

Drive safely.
 
Robin