My wife was involved in an auto accident last September which was not her fault — she opened the door of her parked car after confirming that no one was coming, and another driver came whipping around a corner and hit her door. Her insurance company found her liable for the accident and issued an SDIP surcharge, because the regulations state that the person opening the door is assumed to be at fault whenever an accident like this occurs (just like the person in back is assumed to be at fault whenever one car rear-ends another).
Everyone with whom my wife spoke about the surcharge told her not to bother appealing. Several people claimed to have waged unsuccessful appeals when they were not at fault. The prevailing wisdom seemed to be that the system is rigged against drivers. Nevertheless, I insisted that she appeal and even ghost-wrote her affidavit (we chose to appeal in writing rather than attending the hearing).
Today we received a notice that my wife “did demonstrate a showing necessary to rebut the governing presumption of the applicable standard of fault,” and the surcharge was vacated. Woohoo!
Here’s the affidavit I wrote for her which was successful at getting the surcharge overturned:
![[Digg]](http://blog.kamens.us/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://blog.kamens.us/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Email]](http://blog.kamens.us/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
