Amazon Tried Not to Pay a Woman After Driver Totaled Her Car | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Tried Not to Pay a Woman After Driver Totaled Her Car

jalopnik.com

63 pointst2350 comments

I’m naive to how American laws work, but why is Amazon involved at all?

When a company car hit me, I got insurance information from the driver and then the insurance companies dealt with each other. I was made whole in days.

That's how it typically works in America as well. I'm thinking the victim here didn't have collision insurance, so their insurance company wouldn't be involved in this claim.

Even if they did, it wouldn't matter unless they have what under most policies is considered "comprehensive coverage" (aka comp). Unless you buy a better policy, most jurisdictions only require you to have a collision/liability policy... where if you hit someone, the insurance company pays for the damages.

If someone hits your car while it is parked, your insurance company would only be involved if the driver doesn't have insurance. And even then, ONLY if you have a policy which covers it. If it's a hit-and-run, and you don't have comp, you will be out of luck. (This happened to us once...)

Collision insurance and liability insurance are different. Collision insurance covers your car if you're in a moving accident, while liability insurance covers other people's property. Comprehensive covers your car if you're in a non-moving accident. In the US, I'm not aware of any states that require collision or comprehensive, though nearly all require liability. Lenders tend to require both collision and comprehensive though.

I think the article is written for the anti-Amazon headline. It refers to "Amazon’s insurance company" partway through.

(There is some responsibility for Amazon -- if they don't want articles like this, they should choose a better insurance company.)

It scares me more to think that the auto insurer is being like this and not Amazon.

Is everything a high anxiety uphill battle when it comes to insurance in the states? They don’t just profit by volume and are, ultimately, a very boring industry?

> They don’t just profit by volume and are, ultimately, a very boring industry?

In my experience this is the case in America.

If you want to experience almost every negative emotion, look into hurricane insurance practices, procedures, and results in Florida.

I've had longer delays in the UK. My car was damaged by another driver. I sent my dash cam recording to my insurer and then both insurers dithered for months until I threatened to get the government ombudsman involved.

I've had nothing but good experiences dealing with my home and auto insurance companies, though I've not had either my house or my car completely totaled.

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with my insurance carrier (USAA) and nothing but outrageously poor experiences with other insurance companies of at-fault drivers.

This is kind of standard though, same for health insurance.

If you're only making small claims that are easily covered by your own premiums, there tends to be no problems and good customer service.

It's when the reason for having the insurance in the first place (catastrophic losses or unaffordable bills) happen that the insurance companies stop being your friend.

Eh, I've had damage to my house due to a tree falling during an extremely unusually windy storm that easily ate up a few years worth of premiums.

The insurance company came out, took some pictures, and cut me a check as soon as I had a few quotes on cost to repair the damage.

Due to the size of the claim, however, they were required to put both my name and the bank that held the mortgage on the check, and they were a royal pain in the ass to deal with. I ended up paying the contractors out of pocket to keep them working while the bank and I played paperwork tag through the mail just to get them to sign the damned check.

I loved having my car totaled. I was able to sit on it for a few weeks because I was borrowing another family member's unused vehicle. There was some dickering involved because they wanted to pay low-end blue book, but I found a comparable vehicle on craigslist and got another $1000 out of them. About 2-3 days after I agreed on the value, I got a check in the mail.

If my house was totaled it would not be so fun.

The description of the incident was their driver destroyed her parked car. They determined it was totaled and sat on it for TWO months. Having dealt with insurance companies you are tied to the behavior and efficiency of the adjuster at that firm. I had a situation where we burned through the 1st one quitting the company with zero notification, then an another who did nothing either.

In this case, publicly going to Amazon via the press was the right call and forced the resolution of the issue.

Beyond that Amazon, as a company is known for treating its employees poorly, more so the warehouse workers, drivers and also the tech side of the house. It is what it is.

You're overloading the word "they" here. In this sentence,

> The description of the incident was their driver destroyed her parked car.

"their" refers to Amazon. In the second sentence,

> They determined it was totaled and sat on it for TWO months.

"They" refers to Amazon's insurance company.

I'm not normally one to defend Amazon's business practices, but in this case, I don't see how they did wrong by this woman. If I, acting as a private citizen, did the same thing and totaled someone else's parked car, would it be my fault if my insurance company dicked around for 2 months before paying them? No, it would not. Nor would I be liable for any amount over and above my insurance deductible, because that's the point of having insurance.

Amazon is probably self insured and uses commercial reinsurance to cover what they cant cover.

The article does specifically refer to "Amazon's insurance company." Here's the reference in context (italics added by me for emphasis):

> It sounds like an open-and-shut case. Dooley didn’t do anything wrong. The Amazon driver hit her car in her driveway. Amazon is responsible. And at first, it seemed like things were going to go the right way. Amazon’s insurance company paid for her rental car and later determined that the car had been totaled, so she was supposed to receive a check.

Amazon bears the responsibility here. They chose which insurance company they use to fulfil that responsibility.

While you're correct that the same would also be true between two laypeople, Amazon is a far more powerful and sophisticated actor than a layperson can be expected to be.

I get what you are saying. But, you seem to be making a moral argument here, whereas I'm making a legal statement. I certainly agree that Amazon should have just paid the woman at some point and dealt with the situation with their insurance company themselves. Of course, that's assuming she attempted to contact Amazon at some point (which seems likely but isn't stated in the article).

> Nor would I be liable for any amount over and above my insurance deductible, because that's the point of having insurance.

If your insurance is dicking me around (and you seem like you've got assets), I'm going to take you to court, and if you can't get your insurance to do their job, it's on you.

That said, lawsuits are a giant pain, so two months of delay isn't enough to get a lawsuit going... When possible, I also try to go through my insurance, so they can deal with your insurance, because at least my insurance has an interest in giving me timely information. Can't always do that though.

It is an Amazon Delivery Truck, owned by Amazon, and insured by whoever they use. Whoever the insurance company was they were slow walking resolving this when it was clear they hit her parked car in her driveway.

The Insurance company dropped the ball, and by going to Amazon it forced the hand of the insurer to pay up after burning 2 months of time.

True. This might just be a sloppy jalopy of an article. Insurer drops the ball. Get Amazon’s attention via a reporter and suddenly someone at Amazon is calling their counterpart at the insurer asking WTF?

Florida allows self-insurance if you post a bond.

Large companies are usually self insured by posting a surety bond with the state they operate in.

In this case Amazon was their own insurance company - now if her insurer was involved or not is a matter of how she chose to approach the issue, and whatever coverages she has.

Wow really? That sounds like a horrible setup. It would really help for an insurer to be at least arm’s-length from the fleet employer.

Why it just costs more. The insurers profit is removed from the issue.

You only need insurance if the loass would materially effect you. Amazon and most Fortune 500 companies are big enough to self insure definitely for small amounts like motor. Often buildings are self insured and only put out for reinsurance if very big e.g. a whole skyscraper.

Because insurers decide if who is at fault and to pay or not. This system is creating bad incentives since the entity at fault and the entity deciding who is at fault are the same on one side.

The problem with American society, as your comment reflects, is that culturally every discussion always goes back to money.

But money, while quite a good proxy for many things, reduces the human experience to a simplistic model.

It's like game theory: beautiful in a lab, but a parody of life interactions IRL.

You have to shape the system so that the emerging behaviors take in consideration justice, happiness, sustainability, etc.

> Because insurers decide if who is at fault and to pay or not.

In my experience, insurers decide the other party is at fault, unless they are proven wrong. As such, there's no reason for a company to _not_ self insure, if they have the bankroll for it.

Friend of mine works for company with Cigna healthcare.

BUT the company is self-insured. They just let Cigna manage the plan and the ruleset.

I would assume the same happens here.

It's possible Amazon self insures. A lot of large companies do and in my experience, it's a nightmare for their victims.

The title doesn't seem to reflect the actual content:

> They made her wait more than two months while they decided whether or not they were originally right about the car being totaled. Maybe they were going to try to fix it.

So it sounds like Amazon was dragging their feet figuring out if they were going to pay for replacing a totaled car or pay for fixing a near-totaled car. Then a reporter got involved and the expedited it.

That doesn't exactly reflect well on Amazon, but it also doesn't sound like the headline ("they tried to not pay at all") was actually the case.

If they want to provide evidence that they were pushing a reasonable process forward I don't think there's anything stopping them.

And for anyone who wants to know more about why this might happen - look into Delay, Deny, Defend, the strategy McKinsey proposed to help Allstate increase its profits.

Two months is an awfully long time to go with no working car and no money to buy a new one. This could be a substantial hardship.

Tip from my old boss. If it's 100% the other parties fault first sign of push back from the insurance company go out and rent a car.

This tip is useless when you carry just liability insurance.

Not necessarily, you can add a loss/damage waiver.

After 2 months of waiting, it is a reasonable conclusion that they were hoping that if they just waited long enough, they would never have to pay.

This certainly isn't the behavior that I'd expect out of a customer obsessed company like Amazon aims to be. Certainly someone failed miserably at the first leadership principle, Customer Obsession.

https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-...

Is insurance weird in Florida? In most states I know of your insurance takes care of you and then hashes out the details with the other vehicle's insurer. At least that's what happened in the few situations I or family members have had.

Florida has one of the highest rates of uninsured motorists (about 1 in 5 drivers are uninsured) so perhaps the woman did not have insurance herself.

If you have collision insurance, you can submit through your insurance and let them subrogate the claim against the at-fault driver. If you don’t, as is common for an older/lower value car, your insurance has no obligation to help you.

I would avoid letting your insurance "take care of you" if your car is totaled. Insurance companies push through these transactions fast and loose, of course to their monetary benefit and your detriment. For instance, my insurance company's proposed settlement offer to take care of my totaled vehicle was about ~$5k less than the what I negotiated with the at-fault driver's insurance company.

I'd recommend reviewing up your local laws and negotiating accident settlements with insurance companies yourself unless there are physical injuries involved or need to take someone to court.

i am confused that there is any need to negotiate. in austria or germany the insurance pays exactly the amount for an equivalent replacement car (minus the value of the totaled car, if any)

The insurance claims representatives interfacing with customers follow a script and will often select car price comparisons lower than your specific cars value. In the US, the insurance company should also pay exactly what the equivalent replacement car is worth, but if the customer isn't paying attention it leaves room for them to profit. If the customer complains with supporting evidence, then the insurance will act in accord with the law, but if the customer is unaware or doesn't care, then that's a win for the insurer.

I imagine similar situations occur in Austria or Germany, wherever people and profit are involved really.

i don't know. i am pretty sure if that happens the customer is able to complain and get it fixed.

what you are saying sounds like that if you don't pay attention in advance or you trust your insurance company you loose out.

that should not happen.

They've done far worse and tried to disclaim responsibility for fatal accidents caused by their over-worked and exhausted truckers under the pretext they are independent contractors:

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-deadly-toll-of-a...

This is an insurance company issue, not an Amazon one.

Isn't Amazon self-insuring its fleet?

I believe they offer an option to go through them, but it isn't mandatory.

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