![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
...considering how important that car isn't. It's never pleasant to wake up to police officers ringing the doorbell (even when they are polite, and even when it's 11am.) Early this morning, a snowplow hit my car and knocked it sideways down the icy slope of the parking lot. The police wanted to give me the accident report, which includes the snowplow's insurance information. There is quite a lot of damage, including a missing window, and I don't know if the car is drivable. I am not brave enough to try.
I buy my insurance through Dan, a friendly and helpful insurance agent in Somerville. The actual insurance company that collects most of the money (minus a commission for Dan) and presumably pays claims is a huge corporation I've never dealt with, other than sending them checks and reading some of their boilerplate. The corporation has a phone number they claim is available for reporting claims 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They say customers are required to file claims as soon as possible. When I called the number, I got a recording that they were closed for the holiday; to file a new claim, hang up and call [same number I had just called.]
So I called Dan's office in Somerville. Dan answered the phone, which was surprising. He was friendly and helpful, which was not. He's sorry about my car being damaged. He'll deal with the insurance company for me. He'll have an adjuster call me and make an appointment to assess the damage, before having it repaired. Apparently, the insurance company needs to have one of their employees (or maybe contractors) check things out before they can agree to pay for it. Dan suggested I have the window glass repaired in place. This may or may not make the car drivable, but it will prevent further damage if it can be done before the rain starts tomorrow. He gave me the number of a local place that repairs car windows.
The car window repair dispatcher talked about the damage, and started to set up an appointment to fix it. Then she asked about the status of the insurance claim. She warned me that if they repair the window glass before the insurance adjuster does the damage report, the all the claims for structural damage can be denied (not just the glass damage part.) Yet if I wait, and don't do anything until the insurance adjuster is available Monday, the inside of the car will be soaked. If they don't want people acting without authorization, the people with authority had damn well better carry pagers. Even on weekends. Even on Boxing Day. *Somebody* should even be available on Yom Kippur, for crying out loud. Accidents happen all the time, even if snowplow-related accidents only happen a few months out of the year.
I am very upset. Can anybody local help? I have no idea if it's possible to drive the thing to a garage (if I had the garage, or the driving skills, because I think it's marginal), or to pallet wrap it somehow? This is way beyond my experience as well as my physical ability.
I buy my insurance through Dan, a friendly and helpful insurance agent in Somerville. The actual insurance company that collects most of the money (minus a commission for Dan) and presumably pays claims is a huge corporation I've never dealt with, other than sending them checks and reading some of their boilerplate. The corporation has a phone number they claim is available for reporting claims 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They say customers are required to file claims as soon as possible. When I called the number, I got a recording that they were closed for the holiday; to file a new claim, hang up and call [same number I had just called.]
So I called Dan's office in Somerville. Dan answered the phone, which was surprising. He was friendly and helpful, which was not. He's sorry about my car being damaged. He'll deal with the insurance company for me. He'll have an adjuster call me and make an appointment to assess the damage, before having it repaired. Apparently, the insurance company needs to have one of their employees (or maybe contractors) check things out before they can agree to pay for it. Dan suggested I have the window glass repaired in place. This may or may not make the car drivable, but it will prevent further damage if it can be done before the rain starts tomorrow. He gave me the number of a local place that repairs car windows.
The car window repair dispatcher talked about the damage, and started to set up an appointment to fix it. Then she asked about the status of the insurance claim. She warned me that if they repair the window glass before the insurance adjuster does the damage report, the all the claims for structural damage can be denied (not just the glass damage part.) Yet if I wait, and don't do anything until the insurance adjuster is available Monday, the inside of the car will be soaked. If they don't want people acting without authorization, the people with authority had damn well better carry pagers. Even on weekends. Even on Boxing Day. *Somebody* should even be available on Yom Kippur, for crying out loud. Accidents happen all the time, even if snowplow-related accidents only happen a few months out of the year.
I am very upset. Can anybody local help? I have no idea if it's possible to drive the thing to a garage (if I had the garage, or the driving skills, because I think it's marginal), or to pallet wrap it somehow? This is way beyond my experience as well as my physical ability.
