Our insureds hit a deer that was crossing the road and as they were pulling over to stop, the insureds were rear-ended by another vehicle. The insureds had not come to a stop before being hit by the other vehicle. Would this be considered one occurrence? Or would it be a comp loss for the deer hit and then a collision loss for the other vehicle hitting the insured's vehicle, therefore a comp deductible for the front end damage and a collision deductible for the rear damage? There was about a five-second gap in impacts; not sure if this would be an unbroken chain of events or two distinct occurrences.

Wisconsin Subscriber

There are two separate occurrences. The hitting of the deer happened and then the rear-ending damage occurred, not from the deer but from another independent source. So we see two deductibles. Of course there are arguments for both sides of the question, but the bottom line is that the insured should get the benefit of any reasonable doubt when it comes to applying a deductible.