How Many Impacts Did You Feel? - Uninsured Motorist Claim

All car accidents are not created similarly. Sometimes, a driver may feel a rear impact only to subsequently discover that the car behind them may have been pushed into their car by another car which effectively caused the 'chain-reaction' multi-vehicle accident. In this situation where multiple cars are involved, who is at fault? Well it all depends on which car initiated the accident.

Given that the front car driver generally presumes that that back car driver initiated the chain reaction and is at fault, the insurance company that insures the most rear vehicle, will usually insist on investigating the accident to ensure that their driver was wholly and solely at fault before before accepting liability for the accident. Their investigation process usually involves obtaining a recorded statement from the front car driver to determine how many impacts they felty during the accident. If the front driver only felt 1 impact, the conclusion is that the back car driver initiated the accident by colliding into the middle car and forced the middle car into the front car - hence they only felt 1 impact. In this scenario, the insurance for the back car will accept liability and cover all damages (property & injuries) up to their insured's policy limits if deemed necessary.

However, if the front driver felt 2 impacts, the conclusion is that the middle car initially collided into the front car and subsequently the back car collided into the middle car and forced the middle car to collide - again - into the front car - hence the front driver felt 2 impacts. In this scenario, the front driver has claims against policies from both the middle car and the back car, usually at an even 50% split.

If you need further assistance regarding a multi-chain reaction car accident, please contact us for a free phone consultation at your convenience.