Car Accidents: Friendly Reminder

Good advice. Some lady crashed into my parked car in our apartment complex parking lot. She tried to flee but the security guards stopped her and got her info, at which point she fled. I took pictures of everything - close-up, angled, etc. It turned out that we had the same insurance company: USAA.

The next day I emailed the lady but didn't include the photographs. Her son, another lawyer, emailed me back a snarky email with pictures that his mom had taken from the side of the car she didn't hit.

I wrote back with my pics attached and informed the son that the whole thing was caught on the apartment's surveillance camera. Soon enough, USAA let me know that she had admitted fault.

From all outward appearances, this lady was an upstanding citizen, probably like the guy who hit you, justpeachyy.

Another time I saw a work van pulling out from a parallel parking spot. There were cars parked in front and in back of him. His back rear panel caught the car parked in front and started grinding like mad. The guy's windows were down. His van buckled up a bit. He knew he was hitting this parked car. Instead of stopping and mitigating the damage, the guy decides to just floor it! In the process, his van rips off the entire front bumper and bends up the side panel as well. The dude finally breaks free and just takes off.

That's Puerto Rico in a nutshell.

All that said, I saw four people hit by cars when I was stationed in Panama: 3 died.

USAA told us they wouldn't do auto insurance in Puerto Rico anymore. Any information you have about how long you've had the policies, etc. would be very welcome!

Thank you!

@Kathryn3000. That's a terrible shame. They're by far the best insurance company out there. I last used them several years ago, first on the mainland US, then in PR, finally in the UK. Sad to hear they're leaving PR.

They don't offer policies in Switzerland but not for the reasons they're pulling out of PR (rife fraud and associated high accident costs, I imagine) but because there are so few US vets here and no active military (except for a squad of Marines at the embassy). Switzerland is neutral, which is easy to be when you're nearly completely surrounded by friendly NATO countries.

Kathryn3000 wrote:

USAA told us they wouldn't do auto insurance in Puerto Rico anymore. Any information you have about how long you've had the policies, etc. would be very welcome!

Thank you!

I believe that you have to be active duty military in order to get USAA coverage - we used them while in PR and they were fantastic.

They're open to veterans and dependents too.

When were you in panama?  What branch?

We have both our stateside mortgage and our auto loan through them because Vic was a Marine. But when we tried to get auto insurance last year, they told us it wasn't available.

Doesn't surprise me that they were the best insurance company, NomadLawyer. We've been pleased with them with everything else.

Hi, Kathryn. I was in Panama from 1996 - end of 1999. 5/87 INF (Light), US Army. Was one of the last US military to leave. Great unit and great duty station, regardless of the jungle deployment side-effects (parasites, trench foot, strange viruses, black palm, etc.).

As you may know, generally speaking, insurance companies are regulated on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis. In the case of US insurance companies, each insurance company must receive a license to conduct business from every state (including PR) in which they want to operate. So if an insurance company does not offer policies covering a jurisdiction like PR, it is for one of several reasons: (1) the costs of offering policies outweigh the benefits (fraud, frequency of claims, etc), (2) the costs of getting a license from the insurance regulator outweigh the benefits (e.g., USAA offers policies in the U.K. because the number of eligible policyholders present in this country justifies the cost of getting the license, while USAA doesn't offer policies in the Republic of Ireland because not enough potential elegible policyholders reside there), or (3) the jurisdiction has imposed insurance laws or regulations that don't allow the company to be profitable regardless of whether the insurance claims costs are favorable and the ratio of insurance license costs vs number of potential policyholders is favorable. In the case of USAA and PR, they must be pulling out for either reasons 1 and 3 above, as 2 is satisfied.

Whoops. Meant "Hi, Mary"

NomadLawyer wrote:

Hi, Kathryn. I was in Panama from 1996 - end of 1999. 5/87 INF (Light), US Army. Was one of the last US military to leave. Great unit and great duty station, regardless of the jungle deployment side-effects (parasites, trench foot, strange viruses, black palm, etc.).

As you may know, generally speaking, insurance companies are regulated on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis. In the case of US insurance companies, each insurance company must receive a license to conduct business from every state (including PR) in which they want to operate. So if an insurance company does not offer policies covering a jurisdiction like PR, it is for one of several reasons: (1) the costs of offering policies outweigh the benefits (fraud, frequency of claims, etc), (2) the costs of getting a license from the insurance regulator outweigh the benefits (e.g., USAA offers policies in the U.K. because the number of eligible policyholders present in this country justifies the cost of getting the license, while USAA doesn't offer policies in the Republic of Ireland because not enough potential elegible policyholders reside there), or (3) the jurisdiction has imposed insurance laws or regulations that don't allow the company to be profitable regardless of whether the insurance claims costs are favorable and the ratio of insurance license costs vs number of potential policyholders is favorable. In the case of USAA and PR, they must be pulling out for either reasons 1 and 3 above, as 2 is satisfied.