Car Accident: Bad for Me, Good for Blogging!
Posted by miller on 08 Jan 2007 at 11:05 pm | Tagged as: Cars, Personal Finance
So a little a month ago, I got into a car accident (don’t worry, no one was hurt). I was rear-ended (not my fault!!!). It really wasn’t a bad accident at all. The damage to her car was non-existent, and the damage to my car was very minor.
However, I knew I had the long process of dealing with insurance in front of me. And then there was the question of what to do with the insurance money: fix my car now or pocket it (and fix it later). By the end though, I realized that if I ever wanted to fix my car without using my own money, I’d have to fix it now. The insurance companies make sure of that… Here’s the story.
First, I’d like to say the girl that rear-ended me was extremely nice and helpful. Honestly, it put some faith back into humanity for me. She called her insurance and made sure they knew it was her fault. I was very impressed and thankful.
Having some experience with car accidents before (don’t ask…), I knew how this game works. First, I got an estimate to see if we even wanted to go through insurance. Again, the damage was so minor. Basically, she scraped up my rear bumper with her license plate screws.
Her deductible was $500. So if the estimate was less then $500, she would just write me a check to (a) avoid insurance (yay!) and (b) save her from having an accident on her record. Unfortunately, the estimate was about $720, and she decided she needed to go through insurance to pay for it.
So now, I take on the insurance company… Again, having had experience, I knew I’d have to get their adjuster estimate the damage. So, I had to spend an hour of my time to get another estimate. He estimated $425. Hmmm, big difference…. why?
Well, I believe the insurance adjusters always low ball you, and the shop estimators always high ball you. Clearly, insurance wants to pay less and shops want to get more! Now, if you get your car fixed, the insurance company has to pay for the full damages (regardless of their low ball estimate). And the final expense is usually closer to the shop estimate.
So, why low ball you first? This is to minimize their expenses from people who just take the cash and don’t fix their vehicle. Honestly, this is what I oringially wanted to do! I live in they city and I have bigger dents from just parking than this damage. And $720 is a lot of money I could invest! Considering my car will continue to get battered in the city, I want to just pocket the money and fix it later when I finally succumb to fate and move to the burbs. But…
If I just pocket the $425, then when I do try to fix it in the future, I’ll have to pay several hundred out of pocket because I was low balled! So, in effect, I am forced to get my car fixed now… oh well, what else could I have done?
Not sure if this applies to all companies or states, but my company does inspection after repair, so that you cannot say you fixed the car and then didn’t. They also do this because their appraiser’s have years of experience and will let you know if the work was done right or if you should bring it back.
But I digress, the point I was trying to make is that if I don’t fix my car, they subtract the appraisal value from the insured value of my car. So if I totaled my car the next day, they would pay the car’s value minus the work I didn’t have done. So, if the value of my car is reduced, shouldn’t my premium go down??? Never asked that question, but I must admit I wondered…
Haha, you’d think so! Then again, my car insurance has INCREASED over the past 3 years when I bought it new. I did have an accident, but I actually called them up, and it’d still be more expensive even without the accident on there than when I started. Honestly, it’s ridiculous…
[...] Posted by miller on 24 Jan 2007 at 11:51 pm | Tagged as: Personal Finance A couple weeks ago, I had mentioned how I was rear-ended and had to take my car into the shop while I was in Austria. I had concluded that the insurance company was low balling me with their estimate of $425 because the original estimate I received was for $720. Assuming the insurance company would need to fork over the cash for the more expensive estimation if I took the car into to get fixed, I figured the insurance company gave the initial estimate to save themselves money if I decided to simply pocket the cash. Well, maybe I was a little too quick to judge who the bad guy really was… the real moral is that both the insurance company and the body shop were trying to take advantage of me, and the other victim besides myself is actually the nice girl that hit me. [...]
Wow, thats one heck of a winded story. Thank the Lord I can say I’ve not been lucky enough to go threw that. I used to have a 1986 Honda Accord so if I got bumped it wasn’t worth it. I figured I’d add a bit of carma to my honor roll and just let the person get off easy vs giving them a pain in the arsh and making them dish out cash.
Although I’ve got a whaoo 10 years newer…LoL I hate buying new cars such a bloody waste of money. Anywaz I’ve got a Saturn now and cross my fingers knock on wood havn’t had any problems yet. At least not accident wise