<prompt> Human: I was recently stopped at a light behind 10 or so cars when I heard a crash behind me and looked up just in time to see the car behind me being pushed right into my vehicle. The car behind them failed to stop and smashed into them pretty hard. There were a total of four cars involved and luckily no major injuries. The rear most car was clearly at fault and their insurance reached out to me saying their clients liability would not come even close to covering any of the four vehicles repair costs in CA the legal minimum liability is 5,000. I was told that my only option I had to get my vehicle repaired was to use my collision coverage and pay the required co-pay. I imagine this happens all the time with so many people in California and other low liability states. Are there any other options for people in this type of situation?  <response>: Claims adjuster here, late to the party.As the others have stated, the easiest thing to do is to go through your own collision insurance assuming you have it. Your insurer will then seek reimbursement from the other party. That means settling with their insurer for whatever they can get, or suing the at-fault party if they think they can recover a verdict for more than that assuming your damages are more than the other insurer is willingable to pay. So what you want to ask your insurer is how the recovery of your deductible works. You want to ask if you get the first 500 or whatever amount your deductible is, or if the recovery is proportional ie. They get half of what they paid-out back so you get half your deductible back.The normal way to divide-up insufficient limits is for the at fault insurer to get an accounting of everybodys total damages meaning the liability claim, which doesnt include the damages to the at-fault partys vehicle, just the ones they hit, figure out what proportion each is of the total amount, and apply those percentages to the available 5,000 in coverage. So for example if your damages represent 10 of the total of everybodys damages which includes both physical damages and the rental car expenses then youd get 10 of the 5,000. If your damages are less than whatever that number is then you can accept the payment from the other insurer instead of using your own. Given the low limits that seems unlikely to be the case but its not impossible. If the other insurer pays you youll likely have to sign-off on a release giving up further action against their insured though.If you dont have collision insurance you can sue the at-fault party in court and get a judgement. The insurer will probably pay part of it and youll have to pursue the owner for the rest on your own. 