A Tuesday fender bender in Tempe, handled in eleven days

Most claims are not wildfires. Most claims look like Jamal Pruitt's: a dented bumper, a slightly sore neck that was fine by lunchtime, and a week and a half of a car being somewhere else. We asked Jamal if we could tell his claim from start to finish, because the ordinary ones are the ones most people will actually have.

6:52 on a Tuesday morning

Jamal is a respiratory therapist, and in June he was driving to a 7:00 shift. He was stopped at a red light on Rural Road at University Drive in Tempe when a pickup behind him did not stop. "I saw it in the mirror about a second before," he said. "Long enough to think, oh, this is going to happen."

Nobody was hurt. The other driver got out, apologized, and said he had looked down at his phone. They moved both cars into a parking lot, took photos of each other's license, insurance card and plate, and Jamal went to work. He was eight minutes late.

The log

Here is the claim as our system recorded it, with the times.

• Day 1, 7:20Jamal reports the accident online from the hospital parking garage. It takes him six minutes, most of it uploading photos.
• Day 1, 8:05A text confirms the claim, with a claim number and the name of his adjuster, Kristen Alvarado in our Phoenix office.
• Day 1, 10:30Kristen calls on his break. She explains his two options and he chooses one (below). She asks twice whether his neck is all right.
• Day 1, 12:15A rental car is reserved at a counter a mile from the hospital, paid directly by us under his rental reimbursement coverage.
• Day 2Jamal photographs the damage again in daylight using a link in a text from Kristen. An estimate of $3,860 comes back that afternoon.
• Day 3He takes the car to the shop he chose, Desert Line Collision in Tempe. The shop finds a bent tailgate hinge the photos missed and sends a supplement. Kristen approves it the same day.
• Days 4 to 10Parts arrive, repairs and paint. The shop texts him photos twice.
• Day 11Jamal picks up the car. We pay the shop $4,312, less his $500 deductible. He returns the rental.
• Day 49The other driver's insurer pays us back in full. Jamal's $500 deductible is refunded to his bank account.

The choice on the first call

When someone else causes an accident, you can go to their insurance company or to your own. Kristen laid out both:

• Their insurer. You pay no deductible. But you wait for them to accept liability, which can take days or weeks, and you deal with an adjuster who works for someone else.
• Your own collision coverage. We start the repair right away. You pay your deductible at the shop, and then we recover what we paid, deductible included, from the other driver's insurer. That is called subrogation.

Jamal works rotating shifts and did not want to spend his days off on hold. He chose his own coverage. A claim like his, where the other driver clearly caused the accident, does not count against him at renewal.

What slows a claim like this down

We asked Kristen, who handles about 120 auto claims at a time, what turns an eleven-day claim into a forty-day one. Her answer was mostly about the first hour.

• No information about the other driver. A photo of their insurance card and plate is worth more than anything else you can collect at the scene.
• Waiting to report. Memories fade and the other insurer's version of events gets in first. Report the same day, even if you are not sure it is worth a claim.
• Hidden damage. A rear bumper cover hides the reinforcement bar, the sensors and the hinges. Supplements are normal; a shop that finds more damage is doing its job.
• Parts. Some parts take weeks. This is the one nobody controls.

Jamal's car is back to normal, apart from a slightly newer-looking tailgate. His rate at renewal in December did not change because of the claim. And the other driver, he reports, has started leaving his phone in the glovebox.