Insurance coverage terms vary state to state. Here's my story. Just about 2 years ago, I had a guy turn left in front of me on my motorcycle. He was stopped, then as I was about 6 feet away from him, he decided to go. I hit the right side of his car between the headlight and wheel. The police said he would be found "at Fault", for the accident. I contacted my insurance company, and his. It turned out my bike had a bit over 10k worth of damage. The guy I hit only carried 5k worth of property damage coverage. His company contacted me and said I would have to use the "uninsured /underinsured" rider on my policy to get reimbursed for my damage. My ins co didn't want to pay because the other guy was considered at fault. It took about 3 months of them going back and forth before I received a check for the bike, which was considered totaled due to its age and parts availability. Luckily, I only got a bloody nose out of the whole ordeal so no real physical injury. At this point I was happy to have this whole thing over with. Since then, My insurance rates were not affected, and it says on my policy in the history part that I was not held to be at fault for the accident. Some people have told me to sue the guy, but if he has nothing, that's all I would get. There's a formula ins company's use to determine fault, so everyone on the planet isn't held up in court arguing about who's fault their accident was. They study the accident report then assign blame. It moves claims along. BTW, this was my first accident in 50 years of riding / driving. The way I looked at it, after paying for ins coverage for 50 years, at least I'm getting a little bit of my money back. I learned alot from from that whole mess.,,