The insurance guy heard the story and said, "If you hit a deer and do this kind of damage, we pay you right away. It's not your fault, OK? However, if you take it upon yourself to drive your car into a tree, then things don't look so good for you. All we see is that this is your fault."
My brother who is our insurance agent has made that point to us many many times. Thanks for mentioning it.
Hitting a deer can be really dangerous to the occupants of the car. Obviously hitting a large tree at high speed is not a good alternative, but swerving to avoid hitting the deer usually *is* advisable, even if hitting a large tree at much lower speed is the alternative. A few years back there was a horrible car-hits-deer story in my area. A busy father just home from a business trip was trying to spend some extra time with his very young son (7, if I recall correctly) by driving the kid to soccer practice. The father hit a deer, which came flying through the windshield, bringing along a piece of glass that decapitated the father right in front of his son.