Merry F!!!ing Xmas To Me From State Farm And The Useless Omaha Police Department

The BBQ Pit
1

My Caravan was hit by an asshat with no insurance.

Having no insurance is a crime, but asshat had an insurance card in his possession that had a current date but was worthless since he had stopped paying his premiums in September.

The Omaha Police Department whined and whined a few years back that they couldn’t do their jobs properly in this Information Age without laptop computers.

My question is this–If a good deal of the police officer’s job is responding to accident scenes, why haven’t his superiors seen fit to give him a list of people whose insurance has expired with one company and who haven’t bought insurance with another in the police database? If this guy had been in the database, the officer would have had him on the spot for not only no insurance but false reporting.

Another question;this one for Omaha’s judiciary–Why do you give these crummy little $50 first-offense fines to asshats like the one who hit me and only increase them to $150 and some community service for repeat offenders?

Lastly, to State Farm who is unwilling to pay for $2400 in repairs to a vehicle that kbb.com says is worth a “private party” value of $1600 and an “average retail” of
$3300–preferring to total the vehicle for $1500 minus my $250 deductible, a hearty Yuletide Fuck You and may you and all of your loved ones get cancer for Christmas, survive, but have other insurance asshats like yorselves declare all yor treatments “experimental,thus uninsurable”!!!

BTW, I have put about $700 in repairs into the Caravan in recent months and have the bills. Does anyone know if this might get me anywhere with this adjuster’s supervisor?

2

It is not a police problem. In order to fix it the state DMV would have to change their database and except input from the insurance companies. We have the same problem in New Jersey. In New York DMV look ups come back with insurance status. You still have the option to file a complaint yourself. Go to the police station of the jurisdiction that the accident occured in and file a citizens complaint for having no insurance. If the other driver is found guilty it carries the same penalty as if the police gave them a ticket. (disclaimer: it works that way in NJ, might be different there).

3

Kelley Blue Book deserves its own pitting, but in a nutshell, it is the most irresponsible source of erroneous information available to the public when determining the value of a car. Your example is an excellent illustration. KBB represents an “asking price” you are likely to see for a car. This is why the Retail price is about DOUBLE the private party value. Read the fine print on the internet valuation info. You’ll see that KBB Retail includes things a dealer will add to the market value of the car. Things like overhead, profit, cost to recondition the car so it is marketable, etc. Private parties (that’s you & me) just unload the damned car as is, for what it’s really worth. For the TRUE value of your car, look at NADA (essentially what dealers report selling the car for), or cars.com, or autotrader.com, or the newspaper, etc. Do that, and you’ll see just how full of shit Kelley is.

:: breathes, wipes drool off lip ::

If the car is worth $1,500, why the hell would ANYONE spend $2,400 to repair it? Why not just buy another one? For the additional $800 you could probably get a better one! Do the math. If you disagree with the $1,500 do yourself a favor and hop on the internet–go to the sites I’ve pointed you to, and decide how much YOU would pay for a car like yours with the same kind of mileage and in the same kind of condition. Be as objective as you can (this will be hard, but as a Doper, I’m sure you’re up to the task :smiley: ). If you still think $1,500 is too low, fire up the printer and present your data to the claim handler–you might be surprised at what hapens–it’s not HIS checkbook, his job performance review is not based on how much he pays you, he’s going to pay you what’s fair. I settle total losses for State Farm–believe me, if there is any doubt, you’ll get the benefit of it. You’re not in Colorado by any chance? :wink:

You spent $700 on the car? It might matter, might not. Ask your claim handler. You won’t get it all back because you’re owed the market value of the car. Chances are you didn’t make $700 worth of enhancements as much as you kept the car running properly–if it’s not running properly, the value DECREASES, naturally. But some things, like timing belt/chain, exhaust and to a lesser extent brakes, can help to make the car more attractive because these rarely-replaced items will not fail anytime soon.

Dude that hit you needs to be lynched.

Your deductible MIGHT come back for you. Once the claim is settled with you, your insurance company will send the bill to the dumbass who drove without insurance. The first $250 The Farm squeezes out of him will be given back to you as reimbursement for your deductible. Of course, if he can’t be collected from, then he can’t be collected from, but you haven’t heard “compelling” until you’ve dealt with the subrogation department of the largest auto insurer in the US.

Good luck, Loach

4

Fuck. the above was meant for Zenith. i had a loach on my brain.

5

The money I put into the vehicle WAS for seldom-failing parts; a balljoint and a tire on one side of the front end and complete exhaust system from the catalyst backwithin the past 6 months.

Most $1500 Caravans in this part of the country are crap. My daughter recently rejected one for $1250 that needed a steering rack, headliner, and had holes in the driver’s seat upholstery. Mine wasn’t a piece of crap, prior to the accident. That fact and the fact I’ve owned it 8 1/2 years and know that it’s well-maintained makes it worth $2450 to me. A $1500 pig in a poke could easily cost me $2500 total–not including sales tax, which I wouldn’t pay on something I already own.

6

No really comment, but I just want to say that “F!!!ing” works much better than “F***ing”