What should I do if I was in an accident over 10 months ago and now I am being sued?
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What should I do if I was in an accident over 10 months ago and now I am being sued?
I was in a grocery parking lot and the weather was bad. No tickets we’re given the other person was in the store our insurance info was exchanged. I spoke with their insurance co and my insurance co gave all the info to my carrier. Did everything I was suppose to do. I had full coverage, I heard nothing more from either company after my carrier said they’d take care of it well this morning I had a sheriff serving me a summons cause their carrier is trying to sue me for close to 4k. I contacted my carrier this morning unable to get a hold of my adjuster, so I spoke with another and she told me the other carrier snubbed their offers and told me to fax the summons with the claim number on it to them since the court date is in about a month.
Asked on December 30, 2014 under Accident Law, Illinois
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 9 years ago | Contributor
Follow-up with your insurer: if you had applicable coverage which was in force (e.g. you had been paying your premiums), which appears to be the case from what you write, then your insurer should, now that you have been sued, defend you and, if the other side wins the lawsuit, pay any judgments against you, up to the policy limit. However, you want to make sure they are doing this, so you need to actively follow-up with your insurer to make sure that they are in fact defending you.
If they do not for some reason, then you need to either hire your own attorney to defend the case or you need to either defend or settle it yourself (such as if it's for such a small amount that it would cost more to hire an attorney). In this event, you might also have a legal claim against your insurer for breach of contract (not honoring their obligation to defend or indemnify [pay for] you), but the first thing is to defend the current lawsuit against you, before looking at a suit against your insurer.
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