The Auto Insurance Review Site

*What Not to Say on Your Insurance Claim Form…*

**Filling out an auto insurance claim form is usually an irritating,
complicated job, which involves relating details of a nasty incident you
fervently wish had never taken place. The fun factor is basically up there
with tasks like washing the dishes or choosing which  credit
card to apply for.

However, in this mundane activity can creep certain element of humour when
you read some of the more bizarre claim reports that have been submitted. A
trawl of the internet has revealed some of the best excuses around for
claiming on the insurance.

We suggest that you don’t try these at home…

*Other people’s fault?*

All too often, the accident is not the claiming driver’s fault. Some people
out there should never have been allowed behind the wheel. Yet some reports
say just as much about the claimant as they do about the others involved in
the accident. One report argued that the bus they crashed into when backing
out of their driveway was in the wrong, as it had come along the road “five
minutes too early.” Another person ranted over the “invisible car” that
came out of nowhere, crashed into their vehicle, then magically
“disappeared again”. Spooky stuff…

Or how about the claimant who tried to argue that the collision was the
fault of the “stationary truck”? Nice try!

*Backseat claimers?*

Sometimes, the fault allegedly lies with the claimant’s passengers, other
‘presences’ inside the vehicle or even the vehicle itself. Passengers have
distracted, encumbered and endangered the driver, putting themselves into
jeopardy as they did so. That’s what the driver believes, in any case. One
claimant blamed his frisky girlfriend; another pointed the finger at a
nagging mother-in-law.

Another tale of woe centered on an annoying fly buzzing round the car, and
someone else suggested a much darker force was at work; in the guise of
Voodoo (yes, that was a genuine excuse). However, the one thing everyone
filling out the insurance forms is sure about is that the accident was most
definitely NOT their fault.

*Unidentified Colliding Objects?*

Vehicles travelling at speed don’t make great cushions – when they crash
into something, it will cause damage. Fact. There are an astonishing number
of ways that a vehicle can crash into something when out on the road.

Stories of hedges springing mysteriously up in the middle of the road, or
signposts materialising without warning have been put forward, as has the
assurance that the driver only crashed into a tree because he drove into
the wrong driveway. A rather worrying example complained of human beings
“obscuring” the lamppost that an insured vehicle crashed into…

*Pedestrian power?*

Automobile versus pedestrian… the result is a no-brainer. You’d have
thought. Yet while the vehicle will undoubtedly do more physical damage,
the pedestrian can unknowingly have the last laugh, thanks to claim reports
such as one that told of a ‘sad faced’ old man who bounced off the bonnet
of the car. Or the pedestrian who ran for safety so fast that the driver
“had to swerve several times before he got him.” Do they get extra points
for that one?

Then, there was the more sinister assertion that it must have all been the
pedestrian’s fault, as the driver recognised him as someone who “had been
hit several times before.” Unlucky? Less fortunate than the pedestrian who
inadvertently caused an accident in which he was not involved after a
driver claimed to have lost control of the car when he was “waving to the
man he hit last time.” Ouch.

*Self-harm*

Automobile accidents can be extremely nasty, bringing with them injuries,
from the superficial to the severe. Not a laughing matter. Until you read
claim excuses that can make you wince. One driver reported a nasty head
injury after putting his head through what he thought was an open window.
Another failed to report any injuries to the police at the scene of the
accident, but removed his hat a while later to discover “a fractured skull.”

Finally, unfortunate phrasing led one claim report to reveal that the
driver had fallen asleep at the wheel after apparently “driving for forty
years.” Wouldn’t like to see his fuel bill…

*One last question*

Many of these excuses have had a ring of truth to them, but seem too
strange to be taken seriously. Yet, we found one excuse that summed up the
reason behind probably most of the accidents happening on our roads. The
aggrieved claimant stated that the accident would never have happened…
“if the other driver had been paying attention.” How many of us would love
to have written that down, but were too much of a coward to do so!

Safe driving, everyone…