Is there any assistance I can get in paying off the balance of loan after totaling my car?

I was in a wreck that was the other person's fault yesterday night. I haven't talked to insurance yet since it's Sunday, but I'm trying to prepare for the worst.

I had an 05 Honda Pilot that was in really good condition, and on KBB they estimated my car to be worth $8.7k. When I bought the car last year, I bought it with my grandmother because her credit was better, and she, unbeknownst to me, tacked a $2k warranty onto my loan and I wasn't notified until after it was already on there. So my loan is about $2k more than what my car's worth.

Everyone's telling me that the at fault person's insurance will probably only pay for the value of the car (so around $8.7k), and I'll be left to pay the remaining balance of my loan myself. Problem is, I don't have that money, and I'm pregnant with two children. I have enough to possibly pay for a down payment on a new car, but not enough for the balance of the loan + down payment of a new car. I won't have enough money to do that until tax return time.

Is there any assistance I can get in getting that remaining portion of the loan paid off? We're also a low-income family, my husband only makes about $22k net a year.

No.

They are not allowed to pay off the rest of the loan for you. Even if they want to do it, they can't. They are only allowed to pay the value of the car and no more.

The only kind of insurance that can help with the rest of the loan is "gap insurance", and only if it is your own "gap" insurance. The insurance of the person who as at fault (even if that person has gap insurance) is not allowed to do it for you.

They now have very, very strict rules about this sort of thing because of past problems with car owners who couldn't pay their loans and would try to trick someone else into causing an accident so that they could get out of paying off their loans.

That's what GAP insurance is for. But you have to buy it BEFORE the accident.

No help at all - and the loan company will want immediate payment of everything. As you don't have the car there's no security on the loan - so they won't give you time to pay it off. Forget about getting another car - you won't get finance for it until you have cleared the current loan.