Your automobile claim is underpaid or denied by an insurance company for couple of reasons:

- The claim being submitted is never covered by any policy. This condition is seldom occurs.

- The claim was not fully covered by your insurance policy. This situation is the most common.

- The claim is mishandled by the insurance company. This situation occurs enough that you need to be aware of the problem.

Here are a few of the common problems you may encounter during this process and what you can do to solve them when you involved in a collision:

Most of the insurance companies have relationships with body shops that they have found to be easy and already established long term relationship to work with, as well as reasonable in their estimates and in negotiating costs. In most states, though, you have the choice to pick the right shop for your car repair, and you can always demand that your insurance company work with that shop.

Some shops are known to charge high repair bill. It will be beneficial if you avoid those shops by keeping repair costs reasonable and obviously keep premiums down.

The adjuster will always demands you to get two or three estimates. Getting one estimate is reasonable and gets it from your preferred body shop. If it is fine, getting a second estimate helps keep shops honest. If you prefer not to get a second estimate, you may have the right to refuse and request that the insurance company send an appraiser to work out a repair price with your shop, especially if your car is not drivable. As for a third estimate, reject the suggestion as it is not right of the adjuster to ask that from you.

Another tip is that never file a small claim for an accident you cause without knowing the total impact on your insurance rates, unless there is even the smallest injury. If there is case of injury, always file the claim, or you could void your liability coverage for that injury. An experience and good agent will look at the whole family driving record when deciding to report a small claim. Of course sometimes a minor accident, combined with a speeding ticket from two to three months ago, will jump your rates $1,500 over three to four years. Under such circumstances, you may not even report a $2,000 accident. It may be cheaper, in the long run, to pay for it yourself. If you do have a terrible driving history, it may make sense not to carry collision coverage or to have high deductibles. The question is why you want to pay for coverage that you are not going to use and benefit from?