Used car, 04, he got it about 4 or 5 months ago approximately. No accidents or damage when he received it or that he put on it.
No reasons given specifically for the amount given. Although there was not much correspondence since they are researching a way to address the situation before they discuss this offer given. They want to do it the right way.
The expected amount that the car is worth is based on what he paid for it, compared to current cars, with the same mileage and condition… Not too much research done on similar cars currently being sold but he’s doing that now and I’m helping. It seems a bit unreasonable in my eyes. Then again, he’s in Chicago and I can imagine that decent cars are a bit more expensive in a big city than a suburban area. Also, it’s pretty notorious that there are a lot of lemons being sold. Not sure if the insurance rep took that into consideration (the area) but I am assuming it’s possible.
Hope that helps understand the situation. If you want to know more about honest deeds i’ve done, I’ll be happy to share. I warn you, the list is short (and probably full of half-truths.)
But in all honesty, all of this advice and knowledge is really appreciated.
How the heck did the OP become a Charter Member with join date of August 2006? I thought that Charter Members were those who (like yours truly) signed up within the first year that they started charging, like 2004?
That has to be a boo-boo.
I’m an insurance adjuster and most of the advice given here has been good. First and foremost, you have to do your research. The adjuster can’t pay you more for your car “because you said so”. Secondly, if you’ve done your research and can document your value and the adjuster still doesn’t move, talk to a supervisor until you can get a logical reason why the adjuster’s figures are more accurate than yours. Lastly, be prepared to compromise. It’s highly possible that neither you nor your adjuster have documentation engraved in stone so just keep in mind your goal is to settle your claim for a fair price. Good luck!
Sorry Dinsdalejainsafel is the closest(That I am aware of) to winning this award with a grand total of 3 posts and a join date of 2003. What I can’t understand is how SweetHomeColorado can be a Charter Member with a join date of 2006.
They all value the vehicle based on the mileage, options, condition and location of the vehicle.
You may find that they will value the same vehicle differently, because their figures are based on different data. What I have found to produce fairly accurate results is to value the vehicle on all three databases then average the figures, using the retail (dealer) price.
If you told them that you intentionally totalled the truck, then no, not at all. However, I suspect they wouldn’t settle the case in a way that was pleasing to you.
Since the Google Ad feature is supposed to target the content of the thread it appears in, nope, no coincidence. I’m far more interested when you get a really weird result.
The real problem is that he is expecting the payout to have any bearing on what he paid for the vehicle. What was paid for the vehicle has absolutely zero to do with what its worth totalled.
That being said, if you’re finding that cars of that same year, make, model and mileage(at the time of the accident) are all selling in his area for a lot higher than the proposed settlement, you can probably get them to raise the offer. Just be very sure that you’re comparing the same vehicle, like don’t price a car with AC and power windows if his car didn’t have either. Best of luck to you!
Note that last phrase: “using the retail (dealer) price”. Too many insurance adjustors will try and foist off what a dealer would pay you, not what you would pay a dealer. The difference is significant.
I totaled a year-old car (well, actually the fucker that pulled out in front of me totaled it, but I’m not still BITTER) and the adjuster totally lowballed us. We ended up getting out the Kelley Blue Book (and maybe some other sources, I forget, it was 11 years ago) and going over it item by item:
I read an article a year or so ago in Sports Car Market about this very issue. The author of the piece was a lawyer who owned a Porsche 944, and when his car was stolen, he was offered almost nothing for the car. He asked the insurance company for the documents on how they arrived at the value for the car. They had classified ads that they had cut out of newspapers and such. When he called the people who had placed the ads he found out that the cars they had advertised were typically junkers that didn’t even run. He did his own research and wrote a letter with his alternate research and was able, with some difficulty, to get them to pay him some more than what they initially offered.
As my mentor put it: “Nobody knows the price of a car to within $300. This ain’t science, it’s service. Cough up the money if it makes sense and let the customer get on with their life.”
I bought a gap policy 2 years ago for a used car I purchased from a car dealer, and I bought it online from a company specializing in that financial product.
I know of a person who, when insurance wouldn’t pay for what he considered the real value of his smashed car, suddenly found that he had a lot of residual aches and pains from the accident. These required several visits to a doctor, after which he recovered insurance compensation for his “pain and suffering.” This sort of thing is probably why, in NJ at least, you can now only get such awards for a documentable injury, such as that which results in a broken bone, not for soft tissue injuries that won’t show up on xrays.
For GQ, we seem to have gone far afield. Getting back to the OP, I think the phrase: “half of what it’s worth”, is the key here. What it’s worth is a definable number for most vehicles. If you can demonstrate that your vehicle was exceptional, you should be able to get more, but it will require documentation. I think there is another alternative that may apply. You could negotiate on a figure for totaling the car and then negotiate the purchase of the wrecked vehicle for salvage value. This might be appropriate in the case of a custom modified auto where you had put in extras that could be salvaged and reused, or resold.
There has been much talk about “gap” insurance, here and in other threads. “Gap” insurance seems like financial loonecy to me. If you can’t afford the vehicle, how in the hell do you figure you can afford gap insurance. That’s just throwing good money into an already bad deal.
Buying gap insurance doesn’t mean you can’t afford the car.
It does mean you can’t afford the car, and payments on another half a car that no longer exists.
I did it because I was rolling in gobs of negative equity into my note, and while the car is doing just fine, I’ve got a $5K car in my garage and a $10K note at my credit union. The coverage cost me a whopping $150, and I figure that if the odds that my car gets totaled in the 5 years of my note are greater than 1 in 33, I’m not making too bad of a deal.
I know, I know, rolling in negative equity into a new note is stupid, but the transmission on the old car was going and it was cheaper to get a car loan than to put a new transmission on my credit card.
From an adjuster’s point of view, gap insurance has gotten more than one of my customers out of a big bind when they’ve totalled their car. Unfortunately, being upside down on a loan is very common these day. Those who don’t carry gap insurance not only have to worry about replacing their car but also how they are going to pay the bank an extra $1000 bucks because that is what is owed on their loan. It may not make financial sense for everyone but my experience with it has been that’s it’s a good thing.
Insurance companies have written off a number of cars for me. In every case what they offer you is simply an opening offer. It’s up to you to argue the car’s worth.
I will say, when SlantWife undertook a daring left turn that destroyed my Olds '98 and and inflicted $8000 worth of damage on an innocent Mercedes C-Class, my State Farm’s initial offer was about $200 more than my own appraisal of the car’s retail $4200 replacement cost, perhaps to cover sales tax on a new vehicle.
