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Amazon Tried Not to Pay a Woman After Driver Totaled Her Car
- Waterluvian 3y agoI’m naive to how American laws work, but why is Amazon involved at all? When a company car hit me, I got insurance information from the driver and then the insurance companies dealt with each other. I was made whole in days.
- piperswe 3y agoThat's how it typically works in America as well. I'm thinking the victim here didn't have collision insurance, so their insurance company wouldn't be involved in this claim.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nvahalik 3y agoEven if they did, it wouldn't matter unless they have what under most policies is considered "comprehensive coverage" (aka comp). Unless you buy a better policy, most jurisdictions only require you to have a collision/liability policy... where if you hit someone, the insurance company pays for the damages. If someone hits your car while it is parked, your insurance company would only be involved if the driver doesn't have insurance. And even then, ONLY if you have a policy which covers it. If it's a hit-and-run, and you don't have comp, you will be out of luck. (This happened to us once...)
- piperswe 3y agoCollision insurance and liability insurance are different. Collision insurance covers your car if you're in a moving accident, while liability insurance covers other people's property. Comprehensive covers your car if you're in a non-moving accident. In the US, I'm not aware of any states that require collision or comprehensive, though nearly all require liability. Lenders tend to require both collision and comprehensive though.
- Symbiote 3y agoI think the article is written for the anti-Amazon headline. It refers to "Amazon’s insurance company" partway through. (There is some responsibility for Amazon -- if they don't want articles like this, they should choose a better insurance company.)
- Waterluvian 3y agoIt scares me more to think that the auto insurer is being like this and not Amazon. Is everything a high anxiety uphill battle when it comes to insurance in the states? They don’t just profit by volume and are, ultimately, a very boring industry?
- nvr219 3y ago> They don’t just profit by volume and are, ultimately, a very boring industry? In my experience this is the case in America.
- jimmygrapes 3y agoIf you want to experience almost every negative emotion, look into hurricane insurance practices, procedures, and results in Florida.
- throwaway8689 3y agoI've had longer delays in the UK. My car was damaged by another driver. I sent my dash cam recording to my insurer and then both insurers dithered for months until I threatened to get the government ombudsman involved.
- zdragnar 3y agoI've had nothing but good experiences dealing with my home and auto insurance companies, though I've not had either my house or my car completely totaled.
- sokoloff 3y agoI’ve had nothing but good experiences with my insurance carrier (USAA) and nothing but outrageously poor experiences with other insurance companies of at-fault drivers.
- IOT_Apprentice 3y agoIt is an Amazon Delivery Truck, owned by Amazon, and insured by whoever they use. Whoever the insurance company was they were slow walking resolving this when it was clear they hit her parked car in her driveway. The Insurance company dropped the ball, and by going to Amazon it forced the hand of the insurer to pay up after burning 2 months of time.
- Waterluvian 3y agoTrue. This might just be a sloppy jalopy of an article. Insurer drops the ball. Get Amazon’s attention via a reporter and suddenly someone at Amazon is calling their counterpart at the insurer asking WTF?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoFlorida allows self-insurance if you post a bond.
- Aloha 3y agoLarge companies are usually self insured by posting a surety bond with the state they operate in. In this case Amazon was their own insurance company - now if her insurer was involved or not is a matter of how she chose to approach the issue, and whatever coverages she has.
- Waterluvian 3y agoWow really? That sounds like a horrible setup. It would really help for an insurer to be at least arm’s-length from the fleet employer.
- pasc1878 3y agoWhy it just costs more. The insurers profit is removed from the issue. You only need insurance if the loass would materially effect you. Amazon and most Fortune 500 companies are big enough to self insure definitely for small amounts like motor. Often buildings are self insured and only put out for reinsurance if very big e.g. a whole skyscraper.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoBecause insurers decide if who is at fault and to pay or not. This system is creating bad incentives since the entity at fault and the entity deciding who is at fault are the same on one side. The problem with American society, as your comment reflects, is that culturally every discussion always goes back to money. But money, while quite a good proxy for many things, reduces the human experience to a simplistic model. It's like game theory: beautiful in a lab, but a parody of life interactions IRL. You have to shape the system so that the emerging behaviors take in consideration justice, happiness, sustainability, etc.
- RHSeeger 3y ago> Because insurers decide if who is at fault and to pay or not. In my experience, insurers decide the other party is at fault, unless they are proven wrong. As such, there's no reason for a company to _not_ self insure, if they have the bankroll for it.
- ntac 3y agoIt's possible Amazon self insures. A lot of large companies do and in my experience, it's a nightmare for their victims.
- duringmath 3y ago[flagged]
- pixl97 3y agoWhich is why we tend to put more and more regulations on individuals/companies that destroy things that belong to others, because they want to shirk their obligations.
- fishtoaster 3y agoThe title doesn't seem to reflect the actual content: > They made her wait more than two months while they decided whether or not they were originally right about the car being totaled. Maybe they were going to try to fix it. So it sounds like Amazon was dragging their feet figuring out if they were going to pay for replacing a totaled car or pay for fixing a near-totaled car. Then a reporter got involved and the expedited it. That doesn't exactly reflect well on Amazon, but it also doesn't sound like the headline ("they tried to not pay at all") was actually the case.
- civilized 3y agoIf they want to provide evidence that they were pushing a reasonable process forward I don't think there's anything stopping them. And for anyone who wants to know more about why this might happen - look into Delay, Deny, Defend, the strategy McKinsey proposed to help Allstate increase its profits.
- CydeWeys 3y agoTwo months is an awfully long time to go with no working car and no money to buy a new one. This could be a substantial hardship.
- 3y ago
- gumby 3y agoIs insurance weird in Florida? In most states I know of your insurance takes care of you and then hashes out the details with the other vehicle's insurer. At least that's what happened in the few situations I or family members have had.
- hamandcheese 3y agoFlorida has one of the highest rates of uninsured motorists (about 1 in 5 drivers are uninsured) so perhaps the woman did not have insurance herself.
- sokoloff 3y agoIf you have collision insurance, you can submit through your insurance and let them subrogate the claim against the at-fault driver. If you don’t, as is common for an older/lower value car, your insurance has no obligation to help you.
- tyjen 3y agoI would avoid letting your insurance "take care of you" if your car is totaled. Insurance companies push through these transactions fast and loose, of course to their monetary benefit and your detriment. For instance, my insurance company's proposed settlement offer to take care of my totaled vehicle was about ~$5k less than the what I negotiated with the at-fault driver's insurance company. I'd recommend reviewing up your local laws and negotiating accident settlements with insurance companies yourself unless there are physical injuries involved or need to take someone to court.
- em-bee 3y agoi am confused that there is any need to negotiate. in austria or germany the insurance pays exactly the amount for an equivalent replacement car (minus the value of the totaled car, if any)
- tyjen 3y agoThe insurance claims representatives interfacing with customers follow a script and will often select car price comparisons lower than your specific cars value. In the US, the insurance company should also pay exactly what the equivalent replacement car is worth, but if the customer isn't paying attention it leaves room for them to profit. If the customer complains with supporting evidence, then the insurance will act in accord with the law, but if the customer is unaware or doesn't care, then that's a win for the insurer. I imagine similar situations occur in Austria or Germany, wherever people and profit are involved really.
- miked85 3y agoThis is an insurance company issue, not an Amazon one.
- konschubert 3y agoIsn't Amazon self-insuring its fleet?
- miked85 3y agoI believe they offer an option to go through them, but it isn't mandatory.
- fmajid 3y agoThey've done far worse and tried to disclaim responsibility for fatal accidents caused by their over-worked and exhausted truckers under the pretext they are independent contractors: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-deadly-toll-of-amazons-trucking-boom?rc=6k0bdw https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-deadly-toll-of-a...