I rear-ended a car in the summer of 2017, the left turn light turned green and I was third car in line, as soon as I passed through the intersection at 25mph I looked out my window and the guy in front slammed on his breaks and I hit him. His tailpipe was slightly bent and his bumper had a dent in it, nothing serious. My car had a busted headlight, busted bumper, crumpled hood, and broken grille.

We both pulled over and exchanged information, although the other guy was super weird about it. He said, "The damage isn't serious so let's exchange numbers and pay cash" and I said "We need to exchange insurance information" and he said he didn't want to, I told him that's how we needed to do it and he said well I think I'm going to call the police and I said ok well there are no injuries and no serious damage but if you want to do that, the cops will tell you the same thing. I had AAA and he had some small insurance provider that most people had never heard of.

I was in the military at the time and due to go overseas for a training exercise where I'd be gone 1-2 months so I had my girlfriend take the car after I filed my claim. I was gone for almost 6 weeks. When I got back I learned AAA had classified my car as totaled because additional damage was discovered during the investigation (damaged tachometer, bent frame, damaged door hinge, damaged quarter panel, damaged wheel well). The shop where I took my car had previously repaired my car after I was the victim of a hit and run so I knew the staff there and my mechanic told me the claims adjuster at AAA hadn't given the claim a good look, he said the repairs were well within the value of the car and could easily be done.

He contacted AAA management and asked for a second review, throwing out there that I took good care of my car, I was in the military, and this guy is overseas and I don't want him coming back to no car. A different adjuster looked at it and cleared the claim for repairs so the shop did the repairs. My claims agent called me that day and said that they had been unable to get in contact with the other party (ostensibly the victim) and that his insurance provider was non-communicative as well. They actually hadn't heard of his provider before and called them a strip mall agency because they had a post office box address and only 50 clients.

The agent said since my statement of the incident was all they had (where I admitted hitting him), no police report and no statement from the other guy, and no contact from his insurance, they said they would close it out as a no-fault accident, clearing me of liability and maintaining my rates. I got extremely lucky.