Let’s talk today about private property in the accidents. Of course, an accident on private property can happen on a driveway, it can happen in a park, it could happen at the zoo, any private parking lot. The main thing is that even if the accident happens on private property, the person who caused the accident cannot technically- typically be given a citation for causing the accident, but that does not mean that you should not try to report the accident to the police department and actually get a written report.
In fact, you should always get a written police report, because if you don’t have that, the insurance company may try to deny your claim on that basis alone. The accident report is going to be beneficial to you for a number of reasons, and primarily for the information that it contains. It will contain, of course, the name and address of the other driver, it will contain the other driver’s information and it would be, like I said before, just a real good piece of proof that the accident did happen and that was documented by the police department.
If you have been involved in an accident on private property, even though the accident was not your fault, you still should go ahead and notify your own insurance company about the accident. There’s a legal reason I’m telling you to do that. First of all, if it turns out that the other driver has no insurance and then you’ve not reported the accident to your own insurance company, then legally speaking, depending on the time frame your own insurance company, if you have full coverage insurance they could actually refuse to pay your claim.
If you’ve been involved in an accident on private property and have any questions about who you should call or what you should do in that circumstance, please feel free to call my office at 770-792-1000.