This happened to my oldest daughter out-of-state. Short story - she was driving 5-10mph over the speed limit on a 50mph road minding her business. Douchebag drives up next to her, kind of spooked her, she said she decided not look at him and continue driving. He drops back behind her, a couple of car lengths. She proceeds to get into the left turning lane and he follows. She starts to get a weird feeling and thinks douchebag is following her, so she quickly moves back into the right lane and heads right instead of left to the grocery store. This was a mistake on her part, she's 19 and was scared, no pics. I told her she should have continued to the grocery store, public place with lots of people.
He follows her into the right lane, which really freaks her out. She starts speeding to try and get away. He comes up quickly and rear ends her. She finds a safe place to pull over, mistake #2. He pulls over with his car at an angle in front of hers, I guess thinking he was blocking her in. My daughter is scared and decides to call 911. He comes up to her window screaming I am trying to teach you a lesson, as if he is the police. At this point my daughter is crying hysterically while on the phone with 911, she is scared. 911 tells her to lock the doors and roll up the windows. She gives 911 the license plate, description of the car and douchebag. On the 911 call you can hear him admit to rear ending my daughter's car. Douchebag sees the call is 911 from the dashboard screen and leaves the scene.
Police show up a few minutes later, take my daughter's statement and they have someone follow her back to her apartment. Police tracked dickhead down and he tells them he was trying to teach her lesson and denied hitting her car (even though there is damage, minimal, but still there). Police decide to write it up as an incident and let the insurance companies handle it.
My wife and I happen to be flying up the following week to visit her. We stopped at the police station asking for the officer's direct supervisor. The officer walks out, not his supervisor and we start asking him why this is not treated as a hit and run or road rage. He explains the dickhead denied hitting her and there were no witnesses, no one stopped to offer assistance. His two choices were to ticket them both or let the insurance companies handle it. We politely ask for his supervisor. His supervisor was a lot more understanding and willing to look into the situation. He said he would look at the body camera footage and listen to the 911 call. He did say he was leaving for vacation and wouldn't be able to review it for two weeks, so we are waiting on his findings.
My questions are this, should I contact his insurance company and file a claim or what to see what the police may or may not do? If filing a claim is there any sort of way of extracting a few extra dollars from the insurance company for my daughter without getting a lawyer? I am not asking for 10K but maybe an extra $300-500 for her.
Short version - dickhead rear ends my daughter, yelling at her, she calls police, he leaves the scene - police write-it up as an accident - my daughter doesn't want him to get away with it, how does she handle it with dickhead's insurance