Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

Re: CA Auto Insurance Law

It's not clear who you are referring to here. You might be asking about the other driver or about your landlord.

You probably can't get anything from your landlord's insurer, unless the landlord's employees or agents were at fault. Your landlord is not the guarantor of your car's safety in the garage unless they assume such a responsibility -- and I don't imagine that very many do this.

If you mean the other driver, then I presume you know who it was. You can recover your actual expenses for repairs and any reasonable and necessary costs incurred as a result, including a rental car and replacement of contents. Of course, your recovery is limited to the amount of insurance the other driver has.

You can't get punitive damages from an insurance company unless the insurer itself commited a serious intentional wrong. California law forbids insurers to pay punitive damages on behalf of their insureds. Besides, even the driver himself probably wouldn't be liable for punitives unless he intentionally totaled your car.

Receipts are not necessary, but if you happen to have them they will be useful as evidence. Insurers are pretty good at estimating the value of things, since they do it all the time.

Look to your own insurance if you don't know who hit you. If you do know, go after their insurance. The landlord almost certainly has nothing to do with it.