I was driving home from work one day (in daylight) and was struck by a car driven by an Allstate insured who turned left in front of me in an intersection. I was going straight and clearly had the right of way. He clearly thought he could "floor it" and beat me so he would not have to wait any longer to turn. The cause of the accident and whose fault it was were so obvious that I did not call the police (a big mistake), but just exchanged insurance info with the other driver and filed a claim.
My car is older and completely paid off, so I did not have collision insurance on it, and I had to file my claim with Allstate. The other driver did $4,000 worth of damage to my car, while he barely had a scratch, because his right front bumper struck the front left panel of my car as he made his illegal and dangerous turn. I thought it was a no-brainer! Then I got word from Allstate that I am 50% responsible because "both drivers ran a red light" (completely and utterly false, I might add).
It has now been more than 3 months, and I have had to buy another car because I cannot afford to get the damaged one fixed, and Allstate is refusing to pay me more than $600 for damages. By the way, they even tried to file a counterclaim against my insurance company, and it went to arbitration, where they lost because, wait for it, their insured turned left in front of me!
So now I am going to take them to small claims court. Unfortunately, in my state (Arizona) you can only collect $2500 in small claims, and no lawyer will take my case without a bigger retainer than that, so I will not get all the damages covered, but I will bet you that I will get more than $600! Also, you are not allowed to bring a lawyer to small claims court, so it will be one of the people from their office that I have been dealing with for 3 months against me, and I like those odds.
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