Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

In terms of the original accident, let's face it -- YOU backed into the parked truck. While the truck was in a red zone and thus partially at fault, it was parked. YOU backed into him. You had the "last clear chance" to avoid the accident and thus likely would be regarded as the one primarily at fault. (You are not suggesting that there was an emergency that required you to leave at once making the accident unavoidable -- and of course you could have asked the improperly pared truck driver to move the truck or called the police and asked them to give him a citation.)

Where both parties are partially at fault it gets tricky, and if the negligence was equal, in theory at least, neither party collects. If one party was a bit more negligent than the other, the less negligent collects but the damages he or she recovers would be reduced to reflect the proportionate negligence.

However, here you said there was NO damage to the truck, and thus ANY claim by the truck owner would seem to have been fraudulent. Filing a fraudulent claim is, of course, improper and also is a crime. However, getting a prosecutor interested in going after the guy is likely to be a fool's errand -- they have more important fish to fry.

Normally your insurance company should have contacted you when it received notice from the other party of a claim for the accident, and given you a chance to explain. I'd be ticked if they failed to call me in such circumstances. However, if the amount of the claim was very minor, and given that there was an exchange of information, and there were photos and you had failed to report the accident on a timely basis, the adjuster may have been sloppy or unable to reach you right away and might have concluded it is cheaper to pay the claim and close the file than wait around.

As it is undisputed that YOU backed in to the other vehicle, it seems you would be primarily at fault for the accident. While I can understand that you are ticked off at AAA surcharging you as it would up paying nothing to the truck owner, you are missing something. AAA did incur administrative and adjuster costs for an accident your negligence caused.

While I have no idea what AAA's rate filings provide, in some circumstances and in some states it might have been justified in surcharging you. In any event to have a lawyer assist you get the $450 surcharge back -- even if you are entitled to it -- would likely cost many times more than the surcharge.