I have a young adult son. I have a car titled in my name only that he is the primary driver of. I have an auto insurance policy in my name that he is included on as an additional driver.
On Friday, my son was involved in a minor accident. There were no other people or property involved except for his car. Prior to making a claim, I wanted to get an estimate to determine how extensive the damage was and if it could be paid out of pocket or if we would need to make a claim. I asked my son to take the car to a body shop to get an estimate of the damages.
This weekend he was visiting his father (who's name has never been on the car or the insurance policy) and he saw the damage to the vehicle and thought a claim needed to be made. So he contacted MY insurance company and opened a claim on the car that is in MY name. Since his name is not and never has been on my insurance policy, I can only assume that when he contacted the company he lied about his identity and claimed to be my son.
What should I do now? Should I contact my insurance company and tell them the claim was opened by an unauthorized person? Will they be able to include a PIN or 'secret word' for additional verification since my son's dad knows all the general information they request to verify identity - address, birthday, etc.
Should I call and request that they close the claim with no payout? But then if I find out via an estimate that the damage is more extensive than we suspect, I will want to make a claim.
Should I just 'suck it up' and accept the claim was made since there is damage to the car?
Although I would have preferred that there was no claim made, the bigger issue to me was that he was able to do this and I would like to ensure that something like this does not happen again. I feel very violated that someone whose name does not appear on my policy was able to make a claim.
On Friday, my son was involved in a minor accident. There were no other people or property involved except for his car. Prior to making a claim, I wanted to get an estimate to determine how extensive the damage was and if it could be paid out of pocket or if we would need to make a claim. I asked my son to take the car to a body shop to get an estimate of the damages.
This weekend he was visiting his father (who's name has never been on the car or the insurance policy) and he saw the damage to the vehicle and thought a claim needed to be made. So he contacted MY insurance company and opened a claim on the car that is in MY name. Since his name is not and never has been on my insurance policy, I can only assume that when he contacted the company he lied about his identity and claimed to be my son.
What should I do now? Should I contact my insurance company and tell them the claim was opened by an unauthorized person? Will they be able to include a PIN or 'secret word' for additional verification since my son's dad knows all the general information they request to verify identity - address, birthday, etc.
Should I call and request that they close the claim with no payout? But then if I find out via an estimate that the damage is more extensive than we suspect, I will want to make a claim.
Should I just 'suck it up' and accept the claim was made since there is damage to the car?
Although I would have preferred that there was no claim made, the bigger issue to me was that he was able to do this and I would like to ensure that something like this does not happen again. I feel very violated that someone whose name does not appear on my policy was able to make a claim.
