So, our house, well, garage was robbed last month, and the investigations, recorded statements and inventories are all complete. My insurance company (USAA) is going to settle next week.
My question is for replacement policies. For items over 250 dollars, I will purchase a new one and then be reimbursed for the cost. If I am not intending to replace an item, can I ask to negotiate a price that is in the middle? It would save the insurance company money, since they wouldn’t be reimbursing me for an 1100 dollar item, just a cash payment of say 500.
I’ve never had to deal with insurance companies like this, so any help would be great!
Just message USAA using their secure messaging system (you access it when you are logged in to your account on their site) and ask. From my experience, I am virtually certain they can work out some kind of accommodation.
Call them and ask. Seriously, customer service at USAA is astonishingly better than anyone else I’ve ever dealt with. You will talk to someone who is friendly, knowledgeable, and genuinely useful.
Their internal email-like system works well too, but usually it involves a few days of back-and-forth messages.
If you do not intend to replace an item, the policy pays you the actual cash value which is basically the item’s replacement cost, less depreciation and this is always negotiable.
Here’s how it works:
You submit a claim, say it totals $5,000 for several items.
USAA pays you the actual cash value at say, $3500.
At that point, you have about 6 months or so to replace the items you want and claim the difference between the actual cash value payment and replacement cost for that specific item. For the items you do not replace, you simply keep the initial payment.