USAA Auto Insurance Lies, lies and more lies

I have been to small claims court on numerous occasions. Always as a plaintiff.....always won.....NEVER COLLECTED THE JUDGEMENT. Put a lien on wages....they quit their job. Put a lien on their bank account, they open another somewhere else...this is a young girl in her 20's with a beat up piece of crap car...you think she has the funds to be able to pay a judgement?? She tried to claim personal injury to get the funds to fix her car. 

You try to collect!! Process server after process server. Chasing them around the town or state until you have run into numerous road blocks. 

If you know someone who would like to send us the $959 to repair our vehicle...let me know.
- I gave you the answer. If you think you have a case then take them to small claims court. You don't need an attorney, and it will cost you under $100 to file, likely under $50.  If you prevail the other party is responsible for the court costs as well.

To again bring up a couple of things. There are always 3 sides to the Story.  Your side, their side, and somewhere in between is the truth.  You say that the officer laughed when she said you were going 50MPH. Well I can also bet that the officer at least chuckled when you said you were going "slowly" by the pumps. Because the amount of damage does not indicate that. If you were truly going slowly the damage would have been significantly less, and there would have likely been no damage to the other car's door.

There is another reason your statement is problematic and may have just destroyed your claim. The other party could claim that you were so focused on looking for an open pump you were not paying attention and didn't see her open her door.  Where had you truly been going slowly and paying attention you could have stopped in plenty of time. As all the damage shows is that by the time the door was open wide enough to hit your car you were already past the front of the car.

Good Luck...

She was "parked" at a gas station on a Wal-Mart lot. We were slowly driving past looking for an open pump. The lane allows two way traffic on it. We would have avoided an open door if it had been open. Obviously we were a doors width away from her car and yes her car door was pushed forward.

She told the police that we were doing 50 mph.....after having turned on the lane 100 feet back. The cops laughed. They said they could not assign fault as it was on private property. If you know someone who would like to send us the $959 to repair our vehicle...let me know. 

You are right pictures don't lie, but all your picture says is that you have some damage to the passenger side.

It is confusing how you got into a situation where not only you were driving by a car close enough for that door to hit you, but also at a speed fast enough to cause the damage that you are claiming. How did this actually happen?

What extent of damage was to the other parties door? With this amount of force it would seem that that door would have had extensive damage, if not being totally ripped off of that car.  Are they coming after you for damages?

As to the Insurance company, I am not going to go into what they said they would do or not do. However, if you feel that you are not at fault then your insurance company is partially right. You need to file a suit.

However, if they aren't currently coming after you for damages, this may force them to then do so to counter  your lawsuit.  So you need to take that into consideration.  But if you do file, I would file a suit directly against the party that hit you in small claims court. You don't need to fix the damage first, but should have at least a couple of estimates for the repair cost. If you can prevail in court the other party will be responsible to pay you(and I would bet that their first action would be to tell the insurance company to pay the claim).

Good Luck

In case you missed it, there is NO FRONT damage which would have occurred if the door was already open! Bot repair shops have told us there is NO WAY the door could have been open. It could only happen if she opened it just as we were passing.

And you are missing the point! USAA kept saying to get measurements and they would review the claim.....they had no intention of doing that! 

That would be some pretty incredible timing if they managed to open the door just in time to hit the leading edge of your fender.  It's pretty obvious the door was open as you drove past.  But that's also fairly irrelevant to the question of whose fault it is -- they could have opened it half a second before your car passed by, in which case you would not have had time to react.  But suffice to say, if you don't have the money to pay for the damage here (which looks to be very minor), you really don't have the money to sue an insurance company.