As you may know, Robin and I were rear-ended by someone about three weeks ago. The car’s fine, we’re fine but needed some medical treatment, the other driver’s fine. Pretty minor, but there’s permanent emotional trauma caused by, first, having to deal with the guy who hit us who became confrontational when we asked for his insurance information and, second, his insurance (Pemco, btw) who keeps trying to downplay what happened.

Essentially, we were turning left, the light turned yellow while some cars ahead of us continued to turn, we stopped since it was red *before* we got to the intersection, the dude rear-ended us and told us that he thought we’d run the red. When we pulled over to trade info, he kept saying that it wasn’t necessary because there was no damage, while we kept explaining that we have no idea if we suffered bodily damage because back and neck injuries can take a while to manifest. He then became confrontational when we insisted on getting his insurance info and kept saying that he could see that we weren’t injured. We got that sorted out after a little bit of yelling back and forth. The next day it was clear that our backs and necks were tweaked. Over the next couple of weeks, I have gotten better on my own while Robin has gone to the chiropractor and massage therapist a few times. The dude’s insurance agent called me up and tried to make a deal with us stating that it wasn’t an accident since there was no damage to the vehicles and that we didn’t suffer real injuries since they weren’t permanent. She kept saying “let’s nip this in the bud before it gets serious” and then said that she would have to escalate the issue and contest our claims to injuries if we did not agree to her deal.

Let me just say, for the record, that I think it’s preposterous for vehicle injuries to matter more than people injuries. If, by definition, we did not suffer an accident, does that mean Pemco is saying that the dude deliberately hit us? Did he accidentally hit us or deliberately hit us? If the former, then it’s an accident! If the latter then I need to press some criminal charges against the guy. It’s even more preposterous to consider injuries as only counting if they are permanent. So, if I had broken my arm, according to Pemco, I wouldn’t have suffered an injury because it’d eventually heal. WTF?

Anyway, we called our insurance agent and explained this situation at which point our insurance (Progressive, who we love, btw) pointed out that we shouldn’t be talking with the Pemco person at all since Progressive is paying for our medical bills and is going to attempt to recoup the costs from Pemco directly in an act called subrogation.

I tweeted the ridiculousness of the situation this morning and had a brief talk with Moses about it: