Thanks, all, for the advice.
The current situation is that since we didn’t have collision insurance, our company, GEICO is leaving us to deal with the other driver’s company, Mapfre. We have just mailed back their questionnaire, but haven’t spoken to anyone there yet.
I’ve gone to two body shops to get estimates, which I should have tomorrow or Friday. Both expected the car to be totalled, but since we’d like to keep it, if possible, because of the value of the new HV battery, the question of a salvage title has arisen.
Here in Massachusetts, once a car has a salvage title, it has to be inspected before it can be registered, and the inspectors are reportedly fairly strict. We might have to have a whole lot of work done to fix things that otherwise wouldn’t be a problem, and we’ll have no idea how much that would cost.
So our question is, how can we get the largest payout from the insurance company without having them declare it as totalled?
I’ve been through this recently-ish. When I was hit by someone, and the other guy was 100% at fault, but don’t have collision coverage myself. Contact your insurer and give them the other insurer’s details, they will contact them and sort it out eventually. It shouldn’t matter that you don’t have collision as long as the other guy doesn’t dispute it. What happened with me is the other guy didn’t dispute it, but also didn’t respond to his insurer’s phone calls, it took a while but eventually we “won” by default and the other insurer covered it.
An ethical insurance company isn’t going to play games along those lines. And even unethical ones aren’t likely to play games - too much legal liability.
I’d say, absolute best case $6k is the top value you’d be looking at for the vehicle given the new battery. NOTE - local markets, huge number of unknowns, and I’m erring on the side of high as possible.
As an informed guess, and again, erring on the high side based on the new battery, low mileage, and no other issues, the salvage value is probably close to $1500.
So, absolute best case scenario, $6k-1.5 = $4.5k.
$4.5k x 80% = $3600. That would be the absolute best case scenario for a payout IMHO. Given your statement, if your repair estimates are below that (and we’re still totally at the mercy of the other carrier finding in force coverage and accepting liability) then you might dodge the salvage issue.
I would not be surprised if the settlement was far lower though. But it should give you an idea when you get the repair estimates in the next few days.