3.
“A coworker accidentally backed his company truck into my personal car while it was parked. He alerted our local manager and me immediately. We took photos, filled out the incident report, and yada yada. Everyone in our office was in agreement about what happened — that it was an honest accident, and the company’s insurance should cover the cost of fixing my car. But then the HR director got involved. First, he tried getting me to assume liability since it was my personal vehicle that ’caused’ the accident. Mind you, when the accident happened, my car was parked in the lot, and I was inside at my desk. When I pointed that out, the HR director backed down and said he would file the claim. Next, I got a call from a hostile insurance adjuster from my company’s insurance demanding that I provide my insurance information, or else they would pursue legal action.”
“It turns out the HR director had filed the claim saying that I had run into the parked work truck with my car and tried to flee the scene, but was witnessed by a coworker who reported me. I informed the adjuster what had actually happened, emailed her the photos, and signed the incident reports and witness statements that we had filled out, and she changed her tune pretty quickly and said she would get back to me. The next day, I got a ‘settlement agreement’ from HR asking me to accept $1,100 for repairs, and I was asked to sign a form releasing the company from any further responsibility. I had only just dropped my car off at the body shop and hadn’t even gotten the estimate back yet. I declined and was told that I either had to accept their offer or be out of luck.
At this point, I reached out to my own insurance and told them what had happened. As I went through the sequence of events, I could hear my agent getting almost giddy about all the blatantly illegal tactics HR had tried on me. In the end, they processed my claim and pursued my own company’s insurance through subrogation. He also mentioned that they would likely seek additional damages for the falsification of statements in the initial claim. Don’t fuck with USAA.
In the end, the damage ended up costing over $4,000 to fix, but I didn’t have to pay a cent — not even my deductible. I don’t know if the HR director experienced any consequences, but there was a comment in our finance VP’s year-end report about needing to ‘reduce extraneous costs due to reporting delays and inaccuracies in liability claims.'”