Accident with an Uninsured Driver

Suing the driver and/or his mom is the only way you're going to be able to get him to pay for damages. However, I suspect if they can't afford car insurance they probably won't have any money to pay even if your brother gets a judgment against them.

Anyone who drives on the road and has a car of any value, must have uninsured motorist coverage on their vehicle insurance. That is the only way to protect you if you get hit by an uninsured driver. It costs more in premiums to have that coverage, but if you don't, you find yourself in the situation your brother was in.
He only had liability to protect him in the event he hit someone else.
That's not the case.
Uninsured motorists are the biggest scary thing, next to drunk drivers, in my opinion. They have no coverage. There is no insurance company to sue. That's why an uninsured driver rider on your policy is so necessay and imperative.
Your brother may be able to sue in civil court, but judgements can be really hard to enforce if the other person has nothing.
The other person's license, etc, will likely be restricted, but that won't help much. People drive on restricted or suspended licenses all the time.
Again, uninsured motorist insurance is vital.

At least your brother is okay and it wasn't a collision on the road. That could have been tragic.
Check junk yards and body shops to see if they can get his car repaired and give him estimates.
He may or may not ever recover monetarily.
Keep in touch with the police to make sure the reports are all filed correctly for the civil case.

I wish you the best.

My husband was hit years ago. All witnesses agreed that he had his right turn signal on and the woman decided to go around him on the right side. Her insurance refused to pay us because no tickets were issued so no fault. We ended up suing her to get our money. It cost about $115 then for a suit of $1580. We never got paid though because she did not show up in court and when we submitted forms to force her to pay, she had moved with no forwarding address. It would have cost us a lawyer and court costs that we might have been able to force her to pay to have DMV give us her address to serve her. But another trip to the courts and hassle. Your brother could try the small claims courts, naming both mom and son as defendants since she also had no insurance.
One thing that your brother should hold onto, on Federal Income Tax forms, there is a spot to claim loss. He should record everything about the car and estimates to repair it. I cannot remember what it is called-I have to see the form. It is for personal property loss. If he is not able to get them to pay up, he can take a deduction on his form. We found out about this too late to claim on ours, there is a time limit.
Oh, also, I was hit by an uninsured motorist once. I filed the police report. She left the scene of the accident and I followed her and got all the info. Not known if there was insurance or not. Illinois requires the local police to report a motorist that leaves the scene of an accident and has no insurance. I was told by the state police that the town should have submitted paperwork detailing my accident report, as well as the car inforamtion, to the State Police. The state police would have then worked with the secretary of state to suspend the driver license of the owner of the car as well as refuse to renew the plates. In my case, the town did NOT follow through so I was not able to sue--they also moved. The damage to my car though was only about $300.

Mama H is correct. Unfortunately, uninsured drives put the burdens on us as the ones with the insurance.

You can sue (you'll want to find out what your small claims regulations are in IL), but chances are, he'll have to cough-up the money to replace or repair his car.

It's an unfortunate risk of being on the road - especially when he did nothing wrong. But, without a civil case against the other driver, I don't think there's any other solution. He may even be criminally liable since he fled the scene. It is illegal to drive without insurance, but whether that can recoup the cost of damages is not known to me.

Good luck.

Years back an uninsured driver totalled one of my husband's cars. We had to take them to small claims court, they were ordered to pay the value of the car (around $3000). They did pay up, if they had not, my husband could have pursued further action against them such as getting wages garnished... the downside is that this takkes a lot of time (it took about a year until they paid the final installment that my DH agreed to). You can contact the person who caused the accident and settle with them out of court, that way you would be able to recoup your money sooner.
Good luck!

If they have no insurance and your brother doesnt have uim or collission, the only recourse you have is civil court. But that costs to file suit and if they don't own anything and dont have any money there's not much you will be able to get. It's little help, but you can report them to the state as having no insurance and they will get a ticket and maybe get thier license revoked.

Hard lesson to learn about car insurance. He has to sue the driver & the car owner in small claims court. Probably won't get anything since it doesn't sound like they have much, but if your bro wins he can do a few things like put a judgement on their credit, put a lien on their home, ask for licenses to be revoked & possibly have wages garnished. Good luck

I work in Will County with low income individuals. Will County offers legal aid that is sometimes free, sometimes a sliding fee scale depending on your income. They will usually at least talk to you over the phone once for free to get you started. I know you don't live in Will County, but if your brother does, he could start there or maybe there is something similar in the county where he lives. I'm sorry to hear about the situation. Unfortunately there are a lot of uninsured drivers out there! Good Luck to your brother!

Dear H.,
I just updated my car insurance--and I got both the underinsured and ininsured because of that same thing. If your brother doesn't have it--then i don't think there is much you can do. If it was parked at your house then he might be able to get homeowners (yours) to pay. Has he talked to his insurance agent yet?
My husband ran into my mother's (parked) car while he was pulling out of our driveway (forgot she was there and didn't see it). Our homeowner's insurance covered her completely b/c she was parked at our house and my husband ran into her. We didn't even have to contact our car insurance.
I don't know of any other options. Not sure if suing is worth it--if they can't afford insurance--how are you going to get money out of them? Good luck--hope he gets coverage someway!

K.

Call your insurance company- even though you only have liability ours was wonderful to us and answered our questions in a different kind of matter. They can direct you to the right resources. Unless I am just lucky that I had such a nice insurance group they should all be able to at least tell you lawyers to contact (perhaps even their own?)

He needs to contact his insurance company and find out what they can do. Usually the insurance company lawyers get involved to get the other driver to pay. I would start with that first.

I'm sorry your brother is in this situation. The only thing he can do (that I know of) is take both the driver and his mom to small claims court. It may take a while to get the money, your brother will probably have to stay on top of it but the courts can garnish the mothers or drivers pay checks.
You could probably claim it under your home owners insurance but then your premium would go up for having a claim and some companies might even drop you after making a claim (horrible!).
Good luck!

Did you brother file a police report? When my husband was hit by an uninsured motorist driving someone else's car, the state garnished the driver's wages until the amount was paid. We even got our deductible back. It did take several years.

my husband truck was hit by a uninsured driver what we do is take all the information of the driver (license.plates,car,phonenumber,address)and he pay for all the repairs it took about 2 months to get everything done but i think my husband was lucky the other driver take full responsability.
good luck

Check with your insurance company. They should be able to guide you through the process. Mom has to pay and that is the bottom line.

Does your brother have insurance? You file the claim with your company - they choose to pursue the person who hit the car. That is why we carry uninsured motorist.

MMH

Our parked car was hit by an uninsured person driving someone elses auto, that was uninsured. We (about 3 women) stopped him from leaving and called the police. They gave him a ticket and my husband and I went to court, the judge asked us why we where there, you have insurance, what?? I told him we wanted to make sure that he got the ticket and that we followed through. Of course he did not show up in court and they issued a warrant for him, who knows if they ever found him, but our insurance company tried to get money from him too, never got a penny!

Sue is the option. Procure a police report of the accident and the arrest from the police. Get three estimates of repair in writing. Go to your county court house and ask for guidance to file a claim. Small claims for which you can present without a lawyer vary in limit from state to state. Ask about the local limit for small claims. Fill out the forms and present the filing fee. If the limit is beyond small claims money limits, file in civil court. You can still represent yourself. The likelihood for someone who does not carry any form of insurance will pay a claim, respond in court or negotiate with you outside of court is unlikely. Even with a suit the money may not ever be seen. Call the offenders and talk if you think that it will settle your emotions but don't expect it to settle the issue. God's Peace and well wishes to you all.

My mom got into an accident with an uninsured driver a few years ago and never got any money out of them.....

Hi H.,

My brother and his wife were hit by an uninsured, drunk driver some years ago - while riding in the back seat of a friends car. The friend did not have uninsured or underinsured motorists insurance. My siser-in-law fractured her skull and had other injuries. She has never fully recovered and has been on disability ever since - which we, the tax payers, are providing. They tried to sue the woman who hit them but she literally had nothing for them to go after. I work in the insurance industry and see these kinds of things all the time. I wish we had a better solution for making sure everyone who owns a car has the proper insurance but that will probably never happen. So, in the meantime, protect yourself and purchase the uninsured/underinsured motorists coverage. A sad side note to my brother's story is that he and his first wife were also hit by a drunk driver, but she didn't survive. Can you imagine how he felt when he thought he might lose his second wife the same way - all because someone chose to drive while drunk?

Glad you brother was not in the car and hope you find a solution.

PS I forgot to mention that my sister-in-laws initial medical bills were covered by the friend's insurance, however, their insurance company had no recourse in recouping their expense - and I'm sure that this greatly affected the friend's future premiums. This is the vicious circle of insurance. It always ends up going back to the good folks who are paying for insurance and trying to do the right thing.