It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

One day in 2018, Marad Divis was driving home from work on Western Avenue in Chicago, and

she hit a pothole.

It was pretty dramatic, pretty loud, and it just destroyed my tire.

And she was indignant.

Her city had attacked her car.

I just had this range of, like, annoyance and anger.

Was there any recourse?

Well, she found out you can request reimbursement from the city for pothole damage.

There were a lot of things I had to get in order to get that done, like proof of insurance at the time, a police report.

Two estimates for repair, or alternatively the actual repair bill.

Optional photo of the part of the road that damaged your car.

And all that felt excessive.

You know, one thought that occurred to me that's probably obvious is it's a dissuasion.

If someone's willing to go through all of these stops, then okay, but they're betting on the

likelihood that people will likely not.

I'll get to whether she was actually reimbursed in a minute.

But she did have a question for Curious City.

How does the city determine which claims it approves?

And how many of those claims do they approve?

Well, last year, the city approved a majority of claims, over a thousand.

We talked to city officials who outlined the steps in the claim process.

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