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Smart Shopper Replacement Cost by Insurance Company for Totaled Vehicle
195 messages, Last post on Jun 24, 2009 at 1:20 PM
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Replying to: samirs (Jul 25, 2005 10:37 pm) |
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Replying to: conway1 (Jul 29, 2005 7:37 am) About your only option if your insurance company paid for everything is to consult with an attorney and sue the insurance company for acting in bad faith, which would be a violation of their contract. IMO. I'm not an attorney, just throwing out ideas for you.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jul 30, 2005 10:01 am)
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Replying to: conway1 (Aug 01, 2005 9:42 am) |
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My husband has a 2004 Porsche Carerra 4S, less than 2 years old, 8500 miles. He was in an accident on 4th of July. Briefly went like this: he was following a driver in a very old Camaro going 10 miles under the speed limit on the fwy, flashed his brights at the guy in front to speed up, the guy in front hit his brakes (probably an obcene gesture at my husband for having a nicer car) & spun out on the fwy. doing donuts in front of my husband who tried to steer around but instead was pushed into the median & came to a dead stop from 55mph. Very fortunately no one was injured & miraculously, the Camaro had no damage. The Camaro driver claims it was my husband's fault and that he he (my husband) hit him (the other driver). That seems impossible since the Camaro had no damage & my husband's car was demolished in the front & passenger side whose airbag deployed. The CHP came to take a report & the officer refused to take a side, possibly siding with the less affluent driver of the old car which the driver admitted needed some maintenance & that he hadn't driven in awhile. He admitted to being a car mechanic. The car was taken to a body shop recommended & partially owned by the Porsche dealer the car was purchased from. The insurance adjuster claimed the damages to be only $14,000 while the body shop gave an estimate of $28,000 which has now climbed to a bill of $44,000 and the car is still pulling to the right. I suggested in the beginning that the car should be a total. It's now "fixed" but the after market paint job is as good as it gets but still doesn't look like the original factory paint job & there's obviously some mechanical issue. I'm also concerned about metal fatigue - all those bolts, joints, etc. that get stressed under that sort of impact. We thought of selling the car but now there's a Carfax report showing the accident so who would possibly buy this car? I feel that the insurance company should be making us "whole" in this situation and buy the car from us for the the depreciated used car retail value of $79,345 + tax. That only seems fair to me. As is, the depreciation from new is over $20,000 without the accident and we haven't even had the car 2 years. Is it right that the insurance company should force us to accept this car? I doubt we could get $50-60,000 for this car now that it's had so much repair work. $44,000 is more than the new value of the average vehicle & that kind of damage on 99% of all cars out there would equate a total. In the case of this car, it's 55% of the value so following normal % calcalations by insurance companies, the spread between the repair cost & value of the car is too high. But shouldn't they really calculate the % based upon what the car would be worth after the repair which would make the repair cost possibly a much higher % of the after-accident value? Please help with my dilemma. I've unfortunately had a couple of totalled cars 25 & 30 years ago (avoiding drunk drivers coming towards me) and always got replacement value+ tax from my insurance-CSAA at that time.. Those cars back then were $4000 cars so it took little damage to qualify a total. I thank you in advance for any advice you can give me in dealing with my insurance co. I'm waiting for a call from a supervisor at Travelers.
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Replying to: perplexed2 (Sep 26, 2005 4:42 pm) Now if your car had been struck you'd be in a much better position in that you could sue the other insurance company for Diminution of Value after the repair---that is, while your car was fixed it is worth less than a "normal one" and so you want to sue for the difference in market value. But since it is only your own insurance company that is involved, you can't sue them for Diminution of Value under the law (again, check again in your individual state law). You probably need an attorney to sort all this out but offhand I'd say you aren't in a very good position unfortunately. On the bright side, the car was not totalled so doesn't have a salvage title. While you will have to reveal that your car was damaged, if you have all receipts and the work was done flawlessly, you probably won't have to discount the car too much...not like you would if it were a totalled car. But go see an attorney who knows insurance law. If the car is not performing as it should, this may be your legal lever. Your car is supposed to be fixed "good as new"..it can't steer funny. The insurance company has to make it right, but they don't have to total it, no. |
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| MY VAN WAS HIT BY A CAR THAT DID NOT STOP AT A POSTED STOP SIGN. THEIR INSURANCE COMPANY WANTS TO PAY OFF THE CAR AND KEEP IT FOR SALVAGE. I AM NOT WILLING. I HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION AND HAVE BEEN PAYING THE CAR NOTES AS USUAL. THE AMOUNT THAT IS LEFT ON THE CAR IS NOT ENOUGH TO GET ANOTHER CAR AND I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THE CAR CAN BE FIXED BY MY MECHANIC. DO I HAVE TO LET THEM PAY THE CAR OFF AND TAKE THE CAR,SINCE I WOULD BE GETTING NOTHING THAT WOULD HELP ME PURCHASE ANOTHER CAR? ALSO SINCE IT WAS THE OTHER DRIVERS FAULT WHY AM I THE ONE THAT SEEMS TO BE PUNISHED? | |
| MY INSURANCE COMPANY SHOULD BE HELPFUL IN THIS SITUATION SHOULDN'T IT? WHAT HELP SHOULD I EXPECT FROM THEM IF ANY? DO YOU HAVE THE WEB SITE ADDRESS FOR THE NORTH CAROLINA INSURANCE COMMISSION SO I CAN ASK QUESTIONS OF THEM. THANK TOU. | |
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i have a 2002 neon 85k miles. ingested water after going thru puddle. motor is locked, can't crank it with a breaker bar even with the plugs out. without knowing what is wrong an aig adjuster looks at it and says they will pay for a replacement engine from the junkyard. he states they are replacing with equal or better value. i say i have receipts showing oil changes every 3 - 5 thousand miles and tuneups on my motor, what can they produce to show the junkyard motor is of equal quality? they state it is up to my mechanic to determine the quality of the junkyard engine. is this normal?
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Replying to: unique_name (Oct 19, 2005 4:58 pm) |
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