A woman in Philadelphia says her neighbor just laughs every time he sees her now, because his insurance company refused to pay a claim on her car that he hit. The company told her that the man won’t answer his phone, so there’s nothing they can do. Update: Right after I posted this, the OP emailed with an update. See the bottom of the post.

Here’s her email:

I live in Philadelphia where there is street parking. One morning, I was taking out the trash and I saw someone trying to parallel park his giant new Ford Expedition directly in front of my house. He parallel parked his hitch directly into the hood of my Honda Civic.

I got his license and insurance info. His insurance company, Access General, sent out an adjuster, who came back with an estimate of $764.

Then I get a call from the Access General insurance adjuster. He says that the dude who hit me won’t return their calls, so they don’t have any responsibility to pay the claim. And there’s nothing else they have to do b/c there’s no police report (the police wouldn’t come for a parking incident). The adjuster tells me to call my insurance company.

I call my insurance company. Because it’s below my $1,000 deductible, they won’t go after it either.

So isn’t that a nice loophole! You can hit someone’s car and just not return the insurance company’s calls with no penalty to your coverage. And you get to screw the person you hit in the bargain.

Apparently the only thing I can do is take the jerk to small claims court. The worst part is – this dude works across the street from me. So I see him all the time and he just starts laughing.

If anyone has any suggestions, they’d be welcome.

Yeah I’d say small claims court. Any other ideas?

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Update: The OP writes,

After I sent the post to Consumerist, the insurance company called back and said suddenly they were able to reach the guy!

Now he’s saying that he wasn’t involved, despite the fact that I have photos and witnesses and how did I come by his insurance and license info? So I guess it’s off to small claims court. I’ll try calling the police, but as far as a sudden slashing of tires — then he’ll break my windshield and so on and so on.

Anyway, thanks for the advice and I’ll let you know what happens..

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