A North Carolina State college student learned that the hard way after he was in a crash.
Liam Scott can't open the passenger side door fully on his car. It's not major damage but enough that Scott needs it fixed. This damage happened after an accident in Raleigh's Cameron Village parking lot.
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"I saw another car turning out of the spot, sort of diagonal for mine, coming right at me and so I laid on the horn for, you know, the couple of seconds and took her to get to me and didn't make a difference and I got hit," Scott said.
Police responded and according to the report, the other driver was found at fault. Scott turned the claim in to that driver's insurance company and got a call from one of their adjusters who asked several questions.
"She was asking me questions, one of the things she asked was, could you have moved out of the way, and I said something along the lines of, I mean I could have moved, but she was going to hit me either way and also you know gunning it forward or backward would have been dangerous for everyone else around us because it was really busy parking lot," Scott said.
About a month later, Scott got a denial letter from the insurance company.
"They told us that they weren't going to write the check, since I was partially at fault since I said I could have moved out of the way, even though the whole statement was, I could have moved out of the way, it wouldn't have made a difference it would have endangered people around me. They still used that bit of sentence to justify not paying out," Scott said.
He said he felt the adjuster took his words out of context, so he contacted Troubleshooter Diane Wilson.
"I didn't want to lose this because I felt so unjustified," he said to Wilson.
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Wilson got in touch with Kemper and a representative said: "Due to privacy policies, we aren't able to share specific details on this claim. The matter has been resolved."
Scott said his claim was paid.
"I was ecstatic," he said, and he added that he got the check, and said now he is going to repair the damage to his car.
This is a good reminder to be very careful with your words when you talk to an insurance adjuster. What you say could affect the claim as North Carolina is one of the few states that is an "at-fault" state for car accidents. If it's found a driver's actions contributed to an accident in any way, the claim could be denied.